By Jide Ajani

Fukuyama asserts: “The factors driving the development of any given political institution are multiple, complex, and often dependent on accidental or contingent events.  Any causal factors one adduces for a given development are themselves caused by prior conditions that extend backward in time in an endless regression

Over-bloated sense of self-importance occasioned  by foolhardiness: That’s how best to describe Olusegun  Mimiko’s approach to handling the Peoples Democratic  Party, PDP, primary which threw up Eyitayo Jegede Gratuitous and premeditated act of gross indiscretion: That’s how to situate what the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, did regarding its flip-flop position on who was the authentic candidate of the PDP.

As for Nigeria’s embattled judiciary, its last-minute salvage mission could not redress the disgraceful damage done by the now notorious Justice Okon Abang.

Yakubu and Mimiko

But events preceding the Ondo governorship election of penultimate Saturday, no doubt, once again, fits properly into Nigeria’s narrative of a shameful culture of political disorder.

Francis Fukuyama is a man described as “one of the leading public intellectuals of our time”.    In the preface to his latest book titled THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ORDER (from where this negative variant was coined), Fukuyama asserts:“The factors driving the development of any given political institution are multiple, complex, and often dependent on accidental or contingent events.    Any causal factors one adduces for a given development are themselves caused by prior conditions that extend backward in time in an endless regression”.

Today, it is quite convenient – and naively so – for the uninformed and those who choose to toe the path of mischief to take one long look at the pre-election events    and the activities of the Election Day proper and dump it at the doorstep of the crisis in the PDP – without understanding “prior conditions that extend backward in time in an endless regression”.    Make no mistake, there are more than a thousand reasons why we should, truly, blame the irresponsible conduct of PDP leaders for whatever has become their lot in Nigeria today.

But, yet, consider:

Unlike what Professor Mahmud Yakub, the INEC National Chairman, did in the Ondo instance,the electoral body, in 2003, did the right thing; when its leadership, in living up to the oath of office, defended the law following its refusal to accept a new candidate from the Labour Party in a fresh court ordered    governorship election, wherein the party sought to have a new candidate for the election and INEC maintained that it could only be the candidate for the election it monitored that could participate because the period for nomination had closed.

That case, INEC v. LABOUR PARTY, went to court and, while the court process ran its course, the status quo ante belum was maintained until the Supreme Court finally decided and upheld the position of INEC that, in a re-run election, parties cannot field new candidate, to the starting line. That action of INEC and the judicial outcome is the authority in the land today on the subject matter.

So, it is curious to some legal minds and even non-legal minds that in Edo, INEC embraced the candidate of one faction and in Ondo another faction. INEC could have maintained its earlier legal and correct position by retaining the candidate whose primary it monitored as advised by its legal consortium and challenge the fraudulent order of a justice Abang in court in which case status quo would have been maintained and Jegede’s name would have been on the ballot pending the final determination by the court; by the time the Appeal Court and Supreme Court decisions that ultimately confirmed the candidature of Jegede, no harm would have been done or would have been seen to have been done to the rightful candidate; and INEC would have been seen to be consistent as an umpire that should create a level- playing field for contestants in an election.

Would INEC dare do this again in future?

In Edo State, even when the electoral body was ready, an argument bordering on security was relied on to postpone the election. But here was a situation where INEC was forced by a  fraudulent court order to remove a legal candidate and put on a ballot a wrong one and that position of the electoral body was later confirmed at which time some of the statutory duties of INEC to the rightful candidate had been compromised, in which case INEC could extend time for the election, yet it refused.

Worse  still,  the flagrant trampling on its authority,  which could have been immediately challenged in court, was not only endorsed by INEC, the Commission went a ridiculous step further to celebrate it.

Meanwhile, under Section 178 of the constitution, it is clear that it should conduct election not earlier than 150 days and not later than 20 days to the expiration of the tenure of the current holder of the office. If the election had be postphoned for two weeks, it would still have been within time.

Unfortunately and curiously, INEC acted differently with the consequence that an incumbent ruling party’s candidate was not on the ballot until two days to election; his name was not on the election website of INEC; nor published in the LGAs as required under section 31(3); could not participate in a Channels Television live broadcast debate for the election; could not submit the list of party agents for the over 2,000 polling units; and could only campaign for one day prior to the election. Given these composites of jeopardies, can such election be described as fair? Is the Commission giving early notice to Nigerians that in an election between candidates, it will be ready to obey a court order that can be procured by anybody, directing it to declare or return someone who did not win an election as the winner without challenging the order in court? Surely, an election umpire that can be so fickle in decision-making cannot inspire voters towards a credible general election in 2019.

Surely, the crisis in PDP is self-inflicted and can be likened to the proverbial man who came home with ants-infested wood.  The question to ask Mimiko is: Was he expecting the people of Ondo to endorse the barefaced cruelty of imposing a successor from Ondo Central senatorial zone – the same zone as his?

Whatever Mimiko was running on when he made that decision, only he can explain.

As for the role of the judiciary in the matter, first, there are those who may have a positive outlook, given what the Appeal Court and Supreme Court did within 48 hours to resolve a matter that had been festering for months. From that latter perspective, the gullible public and uncritical minds would most likely sing the praise of the judiciary to high heavens for a job well-done. But a more holistic appraisal of the issue should be to frown at the role judicial officers played before the election, owing to the fact that judicial officials in various divisions of the same court sat over a matter between the same party, on the same issues, already being determined by a sister judge, and gave conflicting orders either from Abuja, Lagos or Rivers State (mind you, on the same subject-matter).

On the part of INEC and its decision to replace the name of a candidate whose election it monitored and observed  in line with Section 85 of the Electoral Act, and in furtherance of the provision of Section 87, just two days to the election, on account of what it said was based on a court order, which though is true, has grave implications, as this nation heads gradually to 2019.

INEC is a creation of law and those appointed to manage the Election Management Body, EMB, swore to an oath in the 7th Schedule to the Constitution, “to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria……”, amongst other obligations that commissioners of INEC undertook.    It should be recalled that the PDP factional leadership crisis between Senators Ali-Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Markafi was on before the Edo election, and just as INEC monitored the Markafi-led faction’s primary process that produced the flag bearer for that election, so also was the situation in Ondo.

Prior to Justice Abang’s “fraudulent” judgment, Jegede’s name was already on the ballot as the authentic, INEC-recognised candidate of the PDP. Whereas INEC accepted the legal opinion of its legal consortium with respect to Edo, where it suggested that the actions of the Sheriff faction regarding its presentation of a candidate were no more than a fool’s errand, an exercise in futility and a voyage of no intended substance, curiously, in the case of Ondo, according to insiders within the Commission, it refused to accept the legal advice of this same legal team, to retain the name of the candidate whose primary it monitored with a report, together with the Directorate of State Security (DSS) operatives and the police.

For whatever reason that did not appeal to common sense and legal precedence, rather than retaining the winner of the primary which it observed as it did in Edo, the Commission substituted his name with that of an impostor from another faction.

Since it did not monitor that exercise in futility, INEC  can only be said to have a hearsay-knowledge – unfortunately,  it opted to act on hearsay.

INEC  should  have been consistent with its decision on Edo. That would have been an act to enthrone political order – and not political disorder.

But INEC must be commended that it is improving on its Election Day activities.