By John Amoda
THE above is the double-barrel challenge faced by Professor’s Jega INEC. The challenge inheres in the fact that INEC must plan on the basis of assumption of the security of the Nigerian society and of the security of the electorate in the Nigerian society.

The first is the task of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The second is the problem of the State Security Services and the Nigeria Police Force. INEC is therefore engaged in election planning in societal conditions it has no power to secure. This is the present challenge.

It is a daunting challenge because the security of the Nigerian society cannot be assumed as a task that has been accomplished when as it is presently the case in Plateau, Niger, Abia and the whole of the Niger area, that the Armed Forces have had to either supplement or take over from the operatives of internal security to maintain order.

The October 1, 2010 explosion of bombs near the scene of the commemoration of the 50 years of Independence of Nigeria(Eagles Square, Abuja) has highlighted the fact of the merger of the two security challenges, the security of the society and security in the society that define the conditions within which INEC has to plan the 2011 elections.

Whether MEND or another group are the ones responsible for the explosion that led to death and injuries to citizens, the fact now is that life and property are in jeopardy in Nigeria.

Aba in Abia State is the current parable of the society where banks have closed their doors and citizens are now increasing Africa’s tally of internally displaced persons.

The question is what kind of campaigns can be conducted by candidates and electorate who cannot count on the safety of their persons? This question puts into perspectives what is the prerequisite enabling environment assumed by governments as they go about planning elections.

We have provided a framework for answers to this question. Security of society is a sine qua non of sovereignty, and thus it is also the structural definition of sovereignty.

Sovereigns are threatened externally and internally; external threats reduce or destroy the sovereigns’ capacity to maintain themselves as sovereigns and thus to enforce proprietary control of society.

Internal threats mature as insurgencies, reformist, secessionist, or revolutionary.The convergence of external and internal security problems characterise societies in the throes of change of political order politics.

The present question is how we are to describe these past 50 years of Nigeria’s Independence. Of the answers proferred, three occupy the attention of politicians and journalists.

Some prefer to describe post- colonial Nigeria as a developing variant of the metropolitan colonial society. From this point of view, Nigeria in time will develop into a society and polity similar to the British model.

From this perspective the security problems confronting Nigeria are development problems and amendable to capacity building problem solving. Others prefer to describe post-colonial Nigeria as a failed state.

Nigeria at Independence from this perspective is seen as a fully formed polity that in time has become corrupt resulting in the failure of state and political institutions, resulting in the disorder now witnessed. Failed state analysis result in two contrasting remedies.

From the engineering discipline, failure of structures require strengthening of failed parts or constructing of new structures. Both assume failure as a problem of defects or wear and tear usage.

My preference, however, is the description of the post-colonial Nigeria as society in transition between a colonial order in the process of change and a post-colonial condition in which sovereignty is the subject of political contestations.

‘Who will own and rule Nigeria?’ is still an unresolved question, and the capacity to exclude external actors with interest in the resolution of this intra-Nigerian contestation over power to determine who owns, controls and rules Nigeria.

Similarly, given the unresolved nature of the contestation over power, security itself becomes the paramount interest of each Nigerian group with interest in being the overall sovereign.

In this politics the planning for elections by INEC is contextualized by conflicting interests in sovereignty. How the conflicts generated by these divergent interests are resolved has become the context of INEC’s election statecraft.

Thus politics of who will own, control and rule Nigeria is the context of INEC’s planning process. How Professor Jega effects INEC’s autonomy is  consequently the primary challenge he is compelled to address and grappled with. This challenge is not a policy issue but goes to the core fundamental politics of the past 50 years.