By Chino Obiagwu

The 2015 general elections have come and gone, but the aftermath continues to generate controversies in some quarters despite the ruling party conceding defeat to the opposition. This piece examines some of the issues that shaped the exercise, the outcome and the way forward for the nation’s young democracy.

The 2015 general elections have come and gone. A number of implications can be identified that could strengthen our democracy.

Even though the election is said to be free and peaceful, the euphoria of change has not provided impetus to review some of the events that are of future importance. The first is, on the positive note, the import of the opposition winning at the centre and majority of the seats in the federal and state parliaments on the Nigeria’s electoral process. For the first time in this country and in many other African countries, the population voted massively for the opposition despite considerable social infrastructural achievements of the incumbent.

In any polity where the people vote for the opposition, it is because of failure of the incumbent to meet the expectations of the populace. Opposition support in 2015 was not only an expression of disapproval of the status quo, but deep popular manifestation of hope and thrust in change.

It is widely acclaimed that Nigerians on March 28 voted against the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and not for All Peoples Congress (APC). The implication is that the incoming government has the burden of not repeating the failures of the rejected ruling party. Managing this expectation is the major task of the new regime in the first 100 days in office on the short term and in the first one year on the medium term.

Political history teaches us that citizens are usually disappointed when such high hopes are placed on winning opposition. This made more ardent with the declining national revenue. Month after month, the fiscal accruals to the Nigerian government through its mono-economy of oil continues to dwindle.

In March 2015, federal revenue fell by over $80million, and more income decline is expected in coming months. With disenchantment in the south south region over loss of political power to the north and south west, there is expected to be increase in oil theft and pipeline sabotage, leading to more revenue loss.

Urgent expectations

Now, the new government is saddled with finding creative ways to meet the urgent expectations of the people. The example in Egypt under former President Mossi is a good lesson for the Nigeria’s President-elect. Riding on popular support,  Mossi’s Muslim Brotherhood not only became as slow and docile in carrying out expected reforms as the ousted regime, but it also became intolerant of opposition and dissent, leading to widespread speedy disenchantment. If the new regime in Nigeria hits the ground running and overcome the initial scepticism, then it would have overturned history.

Need for large scale electoral reforms: The second implication is that the elections have shown that there is still need for large scale electoral reforms. It was alleged that over 4 trillion naira was spent in the 2015 electoral process. PDP alone was said to have disbursed unaccounted 2 trillion naira, and the opposition APC  was not left out in huge political financing.

The corrupt rot in some government agencies and the entire petroleum subsidy management have been linked to the massive cash inflow into the campaign offices of the political parties, especially PDP.

In the months to the election campaigns, reports of diversion of huge budgetary allocations to both principal parties were rife. Empirical returns from election observers and monitors showed that both parties were involved in  alleged massive vote buying.

There was no control of electoral spending, as billions of Naira were rolled out into campaign adverts, luring traditional leaders and political road shows. Nigeria’s economy was bled dry, and it would take several months to recover, especially with slowing offshore inflow.

The electoral law stipulates limits to campaign donations but there is simply no political will of the regulators to monitor political financing. Consequently, it can be said that money played some role in dictating outcomes of the voting especially in other seats other than the presidency.

Campaign expenses: There is need for the incoming regime to set up clear standards and enforceable regulations regarding political campaign funding. The Electoral Act by section 93 sets the limit of campaign expenses of political candidates, and maximum individual contributions to campaign funds. The Political Parties are to keep strict record of money received and their sources, and of its campaign expenses. This provision has been obeyed in the breach since 1999. INEC lacks the technical capacity to monitor political financing and it is not expected to be saddled with such responsibility in a fragile electoral situation it usually finds itself in every election semester.

Private sector contractor

As a result, there are unbridled fund disbursements from the commonwealth, and from the crooked private sector contractor. Such slush funds as subsidy reserves, NIPP and unaccounted oil receipts are easily mobilised into campaigns.

For Nigeria to achieve credible electoral process, so as to allow citizen who can serve the nation but have no huge financial war chest to compete in elections, it is important to set up an independent political financing monitoring body under a proposed Electoral Offences Commission.

This was the thrust of the recommendations of the former Chief Justice Uwais Commission on Electoral Reform, whose report have not been implemented by succeeding regimes.

Unbundling of INEC: Clearly, there is no way we can develop our electoral process until the INEC is unbundled into three: Political Parties Registration and Control Commission, Electoral Offences Commission and the Election managers.

Such separation and independence of office will also serve to put electoral officers on check. At the moment, no INEC official can be effectively prosecuted because the same agency and officials, are saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections and punishing those who commit breach of the electoral laws.

Electoral disputes can be de-escalated: Another implication of the 2015 elections is the obvious realisation that electoral disputes can be de-escalated leading to downing of tension.

The conceding of defeat by President Goodluck Jonathan showed an example that  appeared to have been well emulated within the political society. Unlike in the 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections, there have not been avalanche of electoral petitions in 2015. Though many protests and petitions are being filed at the moment, the hateful rejections of election results of previous occasions have not been widely reported on this occasion. In fact, many loosing governors and legislators have graciously conceded and congratulated the winners. This is a good development for the polity and our political reputation.

Impact of use of IT: More significant outcome of the election is the impact of use of IT through the card reader. There was huge apprehension in the run up to the elections that INEC would be unable to manage the massive and sprawling polling locations across the country with its sloppy preparations for the use of the card readers.

Indeed, in more polling units in the March 28 elections than on April 11, there were massive failures of the card readers, because some of the polling officers were handling the machine for the first time that morning. It was reported in the field that many did not even peel off the nylon films covers of the lenses to enable accurate biometric reading.

The introduction of manual register in the middle of the polling raised tension of the failure of the card readers system, but the extension of the voting in many areas was a witty intervention by INEC that saved many expected electoral crises.

With the April 11 polls, there was very little and scanty reports of system failures. In other words, the introduction of IT in the electoral process has redeemed the image of our electoral process, and when tested further with mid-term gubernatorial elections coming up next year and in a number of local government elections, INEC will hopefully by 2019 achieve a near-perfect management of electronic voting system.

Voter register management:  vgAn area of seeming difficulty that should be a lesson for INEC is in the area of voter register management. The hustle for the collection of the permanent voters’ card into the last week of the polling, and the failure of nearly one-tenth of the population to collect their PVC in order to participate in the voting underscores the need for INEC to device a means of continuous revision and updating of the voters’ register.

Voters register

•Card reader

We need not wait until we are close to election semester to start the revision of voters’ register.

It will be useful to harmonise the PVC biometric registration with the National Identity Card programme, so that there will be an integrated citizens’ identification system that will also feed into security intelligence. The government cannot afford not to take advantage of the huge resources invested in the PVC registration. With nearly a 100 million entries, representing over 60% of the population, we need a little more nudge to ensure that all citizens are captured in a biometric database that could be a springboard for an efficient population management.

Need for virile opposition: The instructive lesson of the 2015 election is the realisation of the need for a virile opposition. Unhappily, many members of PDP are already jumping ship into APC. Such political treachery should be discouraged. We in the civil society have insisted that constitutional prohibition of carpet-crossing by elected legislators under sections 68(1) and 109 (1) of the 1999 Constitution should be applied strictly.

Political practices

Unfortunately, since 1999, the provisions have not been enforced even though many legislators have left membership of the political parties under whose platform they were elected to another  party in circumstances not permitted by the Constitution, namely merger of or division in the political party.

It is important that since APC rode on the promises of maintaining the rule of law and increasing good political practices, that any breach of the constitution should not be tolerated. Our political society must reduce the electoral impunity in order to give the country the future gains of the considerably successful 2015 election.

We expect the PDP to reorganise itself into a potent opposition, with shadow ministers and other shadow officials to put the incoming government on its toes. Nigerians have clearly told the political class through the 2015 ballots that any elected official who does not deliver on his or her promises will be voted out. This is the strong future message of the civil society to the nation.

Obiagwu, is a lawyer ,  the Chair of Human Rights Agenda Network (HRAN), and director of LEDAP – Legal Defence & Assistance Project.