As Nigerians reflect profoundly on more distressing allegations of sordid insinuations of fiscal impropriety  in the budget approval process from the National Assembly, one  other  area of focus that will be on people’s minds  this weekend is the   repeated inconclusive outcome of recent elections,and recent revelations of corruption on a grand scale in INEC  which the current regime continues to probe into, these distressing developments  necessitates a call for legislative review of the  Independent National Electoral Commission  and the problems besetting it.

Failure of Legislative oversight

Observers of the decline of the Independent National Electoral Commission  (INEC)  seriously  question the commitment of the National Assembly to the democratic project in Nigeria,  as the legislators  have failed to take  definitive steps to stem the deteriorating performance of the Commission.  It is shocking that  members of the legislature are paying scant attention to developments in INEC given how much the survival of their political careers rely upon the configuration and function of the electoral body. As of today structurally, INEC has a deficient National Board with only 7 instead of 13 members as required by Law, and a deficient National leadership structure of only about 16 out of 37 required Resident Electoral Commissioners as the constitutional statute commands.

This comes as a surprise,  given the vulnerability of the members of the legislature to weaknesses in the electoral process, especially on the management of pre-election matters by INEC.  Some recent analysis by observers of historical trend of re-election to the National House of Assembly shows that most NASS have a turnover (attrition rate of members) of between 60% and 65%. This means that if pre-election and consequently election matters are left the way they  are;  only about 3 out of 10 Legislators have a chance of returning to the National Assembly.

Given this existential threat of disarray in the electoral process to the  future  of members of the legislature, it is astonishing that the  National Assembly  that has oversight  responsibility,  who make laws to regulate the electoral process are  tepid –  shockingly so –  in responding to decline in the electoral process. It will be recalled  for instance,  that during the last democratic dispensation, several crises which beset the Commission only received legislative attention when they had deteriorated to become a serious national concern. For instance,  when political stakeholders expressed dismay at the lop-sided nature of the Commission’s allocation of Polling Units prior to the General Election, the Legislature remained undecided on what to do,  until it eventually came out with a tepid and uncommitted press statement,  urging the Commission to rethink the process.

Similarly,  when many voters complained of being possibly disenfranchised because of inexplicable delays in the delivery of Permanent Voters Cards, the legislature did not compel the Commission to fully account for the situation,  where a significant number of voters were unable to locate their PVCs. More recently there have been repeated observations about constitutional and administrative breaches in the restructuring of the leadership of the Commission;  as exemplified by the piecemeal board. The13 members  prescribed by the constitution  is intended to balance  zonal representation, a constitutional prescription that  recognizes the need to balance  the varying  political and socio-cultural diversity of the country in regard to how elections are managed. The Executive arm has since failed to comply with this requirements.

Specifically,  Barrister Femi Falana  (SAN)  drew the attention of the Executive, to  an  extant Court judgment  that it is illegal to conduct elections in Nigeria without a properly constituted INEC.    In specific terms what the law directs is 13 from which a quorum of 5 can take legal decisions. The law does not direct that a quorum be appointed, but a board which can form a quorum.  For instance a third of  a  12  member Board  will be  a quorum of  four, a third of  9 Board Members will be three members, while a third of 7 members as currently exist is 2 and a fraction, by this evaluation, it can be implied that all  decisions taken by INEC in conducting elections since the Kogi and Bayelsa elections have questionable legality, and the impending elections in Edo and Ondo states may also be conducted under the same cloud of legal uncertainties.

Still the Board of INEC remains incomplete with only 7 National Commissioners out of the Constitutional 13 members. Similarly,  over  20 states remain without resident electoral commissioners appointed.  So much so that as at today the entire North West Zone   with the highest voting population in th voters register has less number of Resident Electoral Commissioners than any other zone in Nigeria.

Corruption and election racketeering

The restructuring of INEC for better delivery of services has become even more urgent as news filtered into the public sphere  recently  about  the alleged  level of corruption on a grand scale within the Commission.  This week more allegations of involvements were revealed as a Resident  Electoral  Commissioner in the South East was roped into the circle.  Recent newspaper reports, have continued to regale the public with snippets from  the  ongoing investigation, in which national and resident electoral Commissioners and possibly a former national Chairman of the Commission were involved in a racketeering plot, in which they collected huge sums of money, allegedly  about N23 billion from  a former PDP Minister  to deliver election in  favour  of  a major political party during the Presidential election.

The allegations have so far named several resident electoral commissioners, and Administrative Secretaries as well as some Electoral officers particularly in the South West and South South.   Although it is alleged that the racketeering went widely across all zones, more revelations and possible arraignments are being expected to name and shame all those who were involved in all the zones of the Commission from both South and North  but so far  not much have been  heard about those involved in other geopolitical zones apart from  thee ones mentioned. Having put out the name of some of the suspects, the investigating Agency must now go all the way to name everyone involved because a failure to name all those involved will tar the names of those who were not involved with the assumption by the public that they all participated in the fraud. As the nation awaits this roll call of national infamy from INEC, the Commission has continued to perform below par in its core function of conducting free, fair and acceptable elections.

More Inconclusive elections

As a further testament to the failing performance of INEC,  Nigerians who were hoping for some redemption of the  credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were thrown into further despair,  this week as another inconclusive re-run election was declared in Imo state, this follows the last  series of inconclusive Area Council elections  in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),  an entirely new nadir for the Commission.

These  recent climb down in institutional performance is more unfortunate because,  not too long ago many people had begun an advocacy,  for INEC to take over the conduct of  Local Government Elections across the country,which had become a travesty of democratic conduct in many states.  Some of these inconclusive elections have been attributed to  total number of cancelled votes cast,  being  more than the margin between leading political parties. An election where  significant number of  votes were cancelled ballots, is a sign of gross irregularities, either by way  of malpractice  or outright fraud.

Cancelled ballot may stem from voters not placing their thumb prints on the box of their preferred candidate properly enough to tell exactly who or what party the voter  is voting for,  amongst other anomalies. But cancelled votes can  also be manipulated in the form  of deliberately spoilt ballots. According to  Chad Vickery and Erica Shein, Electoral “Fraud is based on wrongful intent, whereas malpractice is a form of negligence”.

A situation where  so  many votes had to be  cancelled  indicates a very likely gross negligence on the part of INEC to adequately educate voters prior to elections on the consequences of how they place their thumb prints in a ballot or on the other hand it may be the result of some clandestine issues bordering on election fraud, neither of these indicates that INEC is improving.   It has now conducted  as many as five  inconclusive elections in  several jurisdictions  in which elections were superintended by the Commission since the beginning of this regime, expectedly,  almost all of these elections are in some level of dispute resolution.

Need for individuals of integrity with unblemished records known by Nigerians

The last set of appointments made by the Presidency into the Commission did not elicit public confidence in the Commission, with the exception of Mrs Amina Zakari who had established some national administrative credibility, until her ties to the President poured cold water on her possible choice for the position of Chairperson.   The other  new  appointees have not inspired the type of enthusiasm which attended the appointment of stellar performers who were appointed with the Professor  Jega set of National and State Resident Electoral Commissioners.  Hopefully the Presidency will take the track record of the next set of appointees more seriously to achieve better electoral results.

Consequences for 2019 General election preparations

The need to infuse more credible and firmer hands in the affairs of INEC draws further inspiration from the reality of the political arena. In the House of Assembly a growing distance between different merger partners in the APC, as evident from the acrimonious execution of the anti-corruption efforts and the recent bad blood being exchanged between political gladiators concerning the national budget are all early indicators of a very likely contested General election in 2019, because the differences between the political   merger partners appears to thicken with every passing day, making it possible that there will be changes of seismic proportions in the alignment of political groups by 2019,  arising from a feeling of inequity in the post-election power sharing within APC.

Such  possibilities mean  that the country cannot afford to go into the next general election with an electoral Commission that cannot conduct elections without equivocations in electoral outcome.  To leave INEC without legislative oversights despite its recent declining performances, to leave the appointments to its board at the whim of the executive rather than the direction of the Constitution, and to allow the Commission to continue to flounder will be a monumental failure by the legislature. President Muhammadu Buhari cannot afford that, having worked tirelessly to become Commander-in-Chief through the ballot last year – at the fourth attempt.