By Rotimi Fasan
A tree, we have been told, does not make forest but that would seem to make little sense to those who have been making so much song and dance of the appointment of Attahiru Jega, a professor of Political Science, as chairman of the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission.

There are 13 other electoral commissioners appointed alongside Jega, without counting the 36 other resident electoral commissioners spread across the 36 states of the Federation.

One reason, perhaps the major if not the only reason, Nigerians have hailed the appointment of Jega stemmed as much from his background as an activist with something of a leftist bent as the loathing they have for the tenure of Maurice Iwu, another professor who, if we must believe some accounts, had also been an activist in his time as a university teacher.

Which then means Jega’s record as an activist might not be enough recommendation for his new position. The fact that he led and provided solid leadership for the Academic Staff Union of Universities during the difficult period of military rule stands to his credit.

He does not cut the image of a frivolous person and accounts of those who have related with him have mostly been favourable.

This same impression of a serious-minded person is what I came away with during a brief visit with him at his Mambayya House office, a centre dedicated to the study of the political principles of Malam Aminu Kano, which Jega headed in Kano before becoming the Vice Chancellor of the Bayero University in the same city.

My meeting with him was organised as part of a familiarisation tour of Kano by Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano of the English Department of the Bayero University sometime in 2003.

Mambayya House was, I believe, affiliated to BUK. Then Professor Jega came across as a polite and reserved person. Which is not unusual for an academic.

He looked well-groomed and you could have taken him for your average upper class ‘Alhaji’ you might run into on the street but for the environment he was in. Very deliberate in bearing, he came nowhere close to the fire-eating image his time as ASUU chair might lead one to imagine.

Which is to say that Attahiru Jega not only looks the part of his latest appointment but also seems the fit peg for the round hole he’s been thrust. But he is just one out of many, the man at the top who must work with others spread across the states whose reputation he does not know and cannot vouch for. And this is what makes his appointment something to worry about.

Nigerians seem to be making a Hercules out of him, putting on his shoulder the onerous task of delivering a credible election in an electoral landscape that has been made slippery and dangerous by deliberate pits dug to trip even the most wary travellers.

The first of these pitfalls is the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan failed to adhere to the recommendations of the Uwais Panel on the appointment of INEC chairman, a recommendation that would have required him to make his choice from among nominees recommended by the National Judicial Council, before sending his choice to the Senate for ratification.

A mild rebuke of this clearly deliberate oversight from Justice Mohammed Uwais this past week got presidential spokesman, Ima Niboro, providing us explanation to what we all knew- that the recommendations of the Uwais Panel were mere recommendations without the force of law.

Even though one could see Niboro straining to be respectful in the tone of his release, unlike a particularly loudmouthed braggart that occupied the same position in the not-too-distant past, one cannot but note that it is talks like this that lead to very questionable actions.

They are the early warning signs of imminent mischief, the prelude to the obfuscatory rhetoric of Nigerian leaders when they are set for their practised art of political deceit.

What was difficult in the President asking the NJC to recommend nominees if he is working towards providing a credible election for Nigerians? Does the President need to be reminded that goodwill or loud proclamation of genuine intentions are not enough:

He must be seen to be willing and indeed be working to deliver an election that would not make Nigerians cover their faces in shame.

But how can Jonathan ensure a free and fair polls where governors, some of whom are standing in the forthcoming election, are said to have been instrumental to the nomination of the 36 resident electoral commissioners?

Several of these commissioners, aside those who supervised rigged elections that are still subjects of litigation at different tribunals, are known to be card-carrying members of the PDP.

Some of them like Mohammed Anka, according to Femi Falana, contested the governorship election in Zamfara in 2007: Nuhu Yakubu was a PDP senatorial aspirant in Kaduna in 2007, while General A.B. Mamman in the FCT is a card-carrying member of the PDP.

Yet Jonathan felt the mere fact that he had never met Jega prior to his appointment is enough guarantee of a free and fair electoral contest!

Some have even said Jega would not hesitate to resign if he senses he would not be allowed to function in good conscience.

Didn’t Olu Onagoruwa believe he was serving Nigeria in good conscience and would not allow himself to be compromised when he joined the Sani Abacha government as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice? What happened when he disagreed with the government?

They went after him in a way he would never forget. And there are other examples we should neither be exercised nor detained by now. The PDP would like to retain power and are convinced the only way to win is to field Jonathan who, it’s clear, is only looking for the appropriate time to announce his candidacy.

Yet what would make him savour power so much as to want to retain it, despite all providence has done for him, is what would make him so partisan as to want to win at all cost.

Like Churchill who told the world he had not been elected PM to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire, a Nigerian politician will not organise an election he would not win.