I have been thoroughly benumbed by the furore and the hullabaloo being raised by a couple of Nigerians and ‘interested’ foreigners following INEC’s postponement of the elections by six weeks. I am yet to fully understand how this really hurts anybody too badly and how it creates undeserved advantage for one party and deserved disadvantage for another party.
Yes, some inconvenience with rescheduling of activities and perhaps additional funding to keep the campaigns running for another six weeks by the contestants and their parties. But that pales in the face of the huge benefits that will accrue to the nation by the postponement or rescheduling. I must say upfront that I congratulate INEC for taking this decision. If it is true as is being alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan or his government persuaded or pressurized INEC to take this most reasonable decision in the prevailing circumstances, then I will like to congratulate him for showing exceptional pragmatic leadership.
He has shown the type of leadership sagacity that rattles many of his critics who deliberately underrate him. A good leader must see ahead of his people and do everything possible to avert looming dangers. For me, INEC and the Federal Government have helped Nigeria to jump over a booby trap. There was a trap and those who desperately want power at all costs were pushing and goading the nation along with their trademark media blitz and blackmail – ‘If you postpone, hell will be let loose’. Thank God, Nigerians seem to be tired of these threats.
I believe that most Nigerians will want to go to heaven and a couple of others actually want to experience heaven on earth. Today in Nigeria, it looks to me that only the people of Boko Haram, their sponsors and supporters seem comfortable to experience hell here or are working furiously to go to hell. All these talk about baboons and monkeys being soaked in blood no longer cut ice with most Nigerians. Every animal learns how to resist the predator. Sometimes the hunter ends up being hunted. And nobody has the exclusive patent on violence! Nigerians must learn to talk, argue, debate and agree and when they disagree, they can go to court for adjudication. That is the way civilized societies run and Nigeria of the 21st Century must be run that way!
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Now it must be stated that this is not the first time that INEC or previous electoral bodies have postponed elections. It happened in 2007 and in 2011 for example and happened during the Anambra elections recently when elections had to be rescheduled in some sections of the state and hell was not let loose. We have an imperfect electoral body that operates in a very imperfect political environment and so hitches and glitches may occur that can lead to rescheduling of elections as it can happen in any other human activity.
Secondly, it was clear to all those who could see without partisan colorations that INEC was not fully ready for the elections to hold on the 14th of February. Despite the desperate actions and the irregular emergency methods INEC adopted in the last couple of weeks (including passing the PVCs through some traditional rulers and village heads) to improve the distribution, only 66percent of the printed cards have been collected. And please note that this level of achievement includes those that have been stolen! So two days to the original date for the election, over 30percent of registered voters, numbering more than 20 million Nigerians do not have their voter cards.
And yet some ‘self respecting’ Nigerians accept INEC’s boast that it was ready for the elections! That could not be totally true. And I have not factored the claims that all the PVC card readers have not been received and the adhoc INEC staff not all trained on how to operate them. If we lived in a country where politicians were nationalists, they are the ones who should be persuading INEC not to attempt ‘suicide’ rather than goading it to fall into the hole.
Let me correct myself and limit that statement. There are indeed politicians who are nationalists in Nigeria. A coalition of parties, mainly the minor parties actually were the ones who began this quest for rescheduling of the elections. Whatever may have been their motivations, I salute them for helping to save our country from premeditated crisis.
If any presidential candidate loses an election where 30percent of the registered electorate could not vote, not because they did not want to vote but because, INEC could not given them their voter cards, would that not be a basis for legal contestation. Some of those who lose elections in Nigeria go to the tribunal, because their governors or leaders were turned back at check points or because there were too many policemen and soldiers at their pooling booth. So what will happen when evidence can be adduced that many of their ‘supporters’ could not vote for them because INEC ‘refused, failed or neglected’ to release the PVCs? Plenty of business for our lawyers and the tribunals.
Thirdly, how fair can such an election be in the eyes of the world and even in the eyes of Nigerians? There was already talk in my geopolitical zone that INEC was deliberately withholding cards because the zone is presumed to favor a particular presidential candidate.
How was INEC going to deal with that if it insisted on going ahead with the original dates? Even when the cards are distributed 100percent, not everybody will come out to vote on the election days. So what credibility will an election have with low voter participation blamable on INEC and not on individual choice? How many legal cases will INEC handle if all those who have not gotten their cards before the election go to court to enforce their fundamental human rights? More so for those whose preferred candidates lose.
Does it therefore not make sense that we allow more time for every or most registered voters to collect their cards? Will it not reduce the possibility of all the legal scenarios painted above and create greater acceptability of the results of the elections by allowing more time for INEC to put its act together.
Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa
