By EMEKA MAMAH
Coordinator of the Independent Election Monitoring Group (IEMG), who is also a former chair of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Mr. Festus Okoye, in this interview, argues that the success of the on-going registration of voters is critical for the general elections.

Your organisation has been involved in elections monitoring in the country and Nigerians will soon go to the polls for another round of general elections. Do you think we are going to have any significant difference from the past?

For us to have elections that are qualitatively different from the past and for us to have free, fair and transparent election, there are some irreducible variables and ingredients that must be present. One of those ingredients is that there must be a credible voter-  register that captures all eligible registrants. The second is that there must be a very clear and unambiguous constitutional and electoral frame-work to guide the conduct of the elections.

In other words, all stakeholders in the electoral process must know what the status of the law is since any change at the middle of the game will affect that person as far as the conduct and outcome of the elections are concerned. The third variable has to be the conduct of primaries by political parties in accordance  with the Constitution and the Electoral Act and they must also create a level-playing ground and a good environment for all persons who want to contest.

Mr. Festus Okoye

The fourth has to be an environment that is not  characterised by violence, while the fifth has to be getting the law enforcement agencies to secure persons engaged in party primaries, those that may be employed by INEC to conduct voter- registration  and to give the ordinary people confidence that they can go out and exercise their democratic franchise without being killed. These are the irredeemable minimum for any credible election and that is what Nigerians are yearning for.

You can see that for the few days that the voter-  registration  commenced, there is enthusiasm of the Nigerian people as well as their determination. You can see their enthusiasm  to go out and  register. Unfortunately, we have had  teething problems on  the exercise.

But, I hope and pray that as the exercise progresses, some of these problems will be a thing of the past and that all persons who are qualified to register and who are willing to register will be afforded the opportunity to do so. But I also believe that INEC has not carried out enough sensitisation of the people regarding what to expect when they go to register.

A lot of Nigerians believe that they can just walk into the registration centre and within two minutes, they are out. So, INEC ought to have explained to the people the functioning of the Direct Data Capturing machines so that the youth corps  members who have been given this particular assignment are not harassed on account of the malfunctioning of some of the machines. I thought that the day this exercise started ought to have been used for test running the machines and not for registration.

So, what INEC ought to have done was to test-run the machines on that day. Get the corps  members who have been trained without the machines to master the working and functioning of these machines. But they were not exposed in terms of the fact that some of them were assembling the machines for the first time on that day. Some of them were test running those machines for the first time on that day and there were so many people waiting to be registered.

That was what gave the impression that the exercise was collapsing.  But I think that since Nigerians are determined to have a new voter  register, with patience and determination, we can get it right because if we do not get the voter-registration  right, we cannot get the general elections right.

So, I think that it is too early to say whether the exercise has failed or not. I am sure that with the number of DDC machines that have been imported, and with the determination of youth corps  members and Nigerians, we can get all those qualified to register.

Do you think the use of the DDC machines can check election rigging?

No. The use of the machines will, to a certain extent, eliminate  rigging. It will, to an extent, make it possible for the real persons who have registered to go to  the polling units on election day and vote. It may be possible to eliminate multiple registration  because there are people who register 10 or more times and use the cards for dubious activities on election day.

Such persons may not have such opportunity on election day because of the fingerprint technology embedded in the DDC machines. So, if you register twice, there is a possibility that the machine may detect it and eliminate you completely and you wouldn’t want that.

Second, the electoral management body wants to introduce the modified open ballot system for elections. That system makes it possible for accreditation to take place between 9 a.m. and 12 noon and then, for all polling units across the country to start voting at the same time.

So, what the modified open ballot system does is to keep each individual at one polling unit rather than have an individual vote at this polling unit at 9 a.m., run to the others and vote and people will be going about from one polling unit to the other causing problem. So, INEC wants to use the modified open ballot system, together with the DDC technology, to minimise the culture of rigging. It may not eliminate rigging completely, but it will minimise it.

We have had primary elections in most of the political parties. How does this enhance our democratic space and the conduct of free and fair elections?

If you look at  Section 87 of the Electoral Act  2010, you discover that the provision was made to eliminate godfatherism and also institute internal democracy within the nomination process of political parties. But from what you can see, it is very clear that the political parties and the political elites in Nigeria are not yet ready to imbibe the values of constitutional democracy and the culture of election.

That is why we have had crisis in almost every political party because most of the political parties have tried to undermine the provision of Section  87 of the Electoral Act that lists  how political parties should conduct their primaries.

Second, you discover that most of the political parties do not have an authentic register of their members. That is why  the same people who went and lined up during the direct primaries of one political party are the same people that lined up for indirect primaries in other political parties. So, you can see one person being part of the nomination of delegates of five political parties.

Third, some of the governors still insisted on manipulating the register and even some of the people that were sent by the parties to go and conduct these primaries also allowed themselves to be induced and they returned verdicts that were at variance with the conduct of the primaries.

That is why  the Action Congress of Nigeria in  Ekiti is boiling on account of their inability to conduct free primaries; Enugu  is boiling on account of primaries, Imo has the same problem and same challenge, APGA has the same challenge in Anambra.

I think we still have problem getting the political parties to abide by internal party democracy and it is still going to pose a big challenge during the general elections.

So, without the requisite internal democracy within the political parties, how do we ensure free and fair elections?

For me, the electoral management body must at all times be ready to enforce the laws. If you look at the provisions of the Electoral Act, it is  very clear that INEC can reject any candidate submitted by the parties. Section 87(9) says that where a political party fails to comply with the provisions of this Act in the conduct of primaries, its candidate for election shall not be included in the election for that particular position in issue.

That is what the law says. But what we are hearing is that there has been an amendment to the Electoral Act 2010 and those of us who are lawyers are yet to see that amendment. That amendment is said to undermine the provision  of this section to the effect that INEC will not have the right to reject any candidate submitted by any political party.

We can only arrive at credible elections if we get the Electoral Offences Commission Bill passed into law. One thing that people have refused to acknowledge is that it was President Goodluck Jonathan, as vice-president, who presided over the inter-party consultative committee on electoral reforms.

The political parties claimed that the Electoral Reform Committee of which I was a member and chaired by Justice Uwais were non-politicians and so, they persuaded the late President Yar’Adua to establish an inter-party consultative committee on electoral reform made up of political parties and politicians and he did and it was chaired by the then vice-president who is the incumbent president.

They were the ones who drafted the Electoral Offences Commission Bill and forwarded it  to the Electoral Reform Committee. What we did was to refurbish what they did in terms of its composition and attached it to our own report. I think it was the AC then or so that did not serve in that committee. They drafted the bill and so, why are they afraid to bring it into reality?

I believe that when someone violates the electoral law and he is prosecuted, others will be careful not to violate the law. We also said that if an electoral tribunal determines that you dip your hands into the state treasury to win election or you engage in crude violation of the Electoral Act, that you can be excluded from contesting elections for 10 years people will sit up.

The moment we begin to make it clear in Nigeria that impunity does not pay and that crime does not pay, people will begin to fall in line. But I think that we are still far from that particular goal.

Hunkuyi has taken Kaduna Governor Yakowa to court over the fund raising dinner he organized. What is the legal implication of the dinner?

If you look at the provisions of the section 90, 91 and 92 of the Electoral Act, it deals with contributions to individuals and political parties. What the law does is to limit the contributions. Section 90 says that INEC has power to place limitations on the amount of money or other access which an individual or group can contribute to a political party. But it goes on to say that election expenses shall not exceed the sum stipulated in sub_section 2(7) of this section. It says that the maximum expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1 billion.

The maximum expenses to be incurred by a governorship candidate shall be N200 million and it says that no individual or other entity shall donate more than N1 million to any candidate. So, the law is clear on some of these things. Some of the contributions go  to the political parties and some go to the individuals. So, the question that needs to be asked is that, at what point does somebody become a candidate in which this will apply to him.

A candidate has not emerged for any political party as at now. They will only become candidates when their names are submitted to INEC in compliance with the law. They are still aspirants and potential candidates because they can still be substituted. It is possible that when their names get  to their political parties, the parties will say you did not win election in accordance with section 87 of the Electoral Act and go ahead to annul it and order for fresh primaries just like it happened in Akwa Ibom State.

There is a general complaint concerning the use of money in elections  and the power of incumbency in using state resources to campaign. Do you think with this type of thing still unchecked, free and fair elections can be guaranteed?

It depends on the context in which you are looking at free and fair elections. Money plays a huge role in every democracy, but some democracies are able to limit it and catch those who spend in excess of what is budgeted and what is provided for. But those countries are places where people do not carry so much cash. Nigeria is a cash economy and so, somebody can go and withdraw cash and give N200 million to somebody in a bag. How can you track such fund? But if an individual issues a check of N10 million when the law says you can only make N1 million contributions, there is a document with which you can hold the person and say, you have exceeded.

That is part of the challenges we have in tracking dirty money in elections. It plays a role, but, today, it is still difficult on how to curtail the influence of money in election.

Having observed the party primaries at all levels, what is your assessment of the journey to the 2011 elections?

In most of the political parties, we are faced with a choiceless choice. Some of the candidates produced by the parties are not inspiring and do not come to the table with an agenda of change. They do not come with an ideology that can put food on the table of the ordinary people. So, I think that the journey is still very far.

But, you know, it is important for us to be patient with democracy and moderate our expectations because if we expect so much and it delivers so little, frustration will set in and we begin to look for alternatives that are not constitutional alternatives. But if we moderate our expectations, it is possible for us to keep hope alive and keep working on Nigerian democracy and issues, knowing fully well that one day, there is a possibility that we might get it right and I think that we are getting to that particular situation where we can get it right. I was in Delta and, in so many of the constituencies, the people said they have never voted in their lives.

At least during this re_run, they saw the colour of ballot papers and ballot box. They saw that in a polling unit, you have a presiding officer and a poll clerk and that people can line up and vote, their votes are counted and placed on the wall. I think these are little things that matter. But I believe that little changes and little differences can become a quantum limp and that we can limp into credible democracy in future.