BY OCHEREOME NNANNA
THIS reporter was among millions of Nigerians out in the sun on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 for the National Assembly elections. But unlike the others around him who were out to vote, he was on monitoring duty at the Egbeda area of Alimosho Local Government Council of Lagos State, which recorded the highest number of voters in the state. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials who were supposed to open up the polls at 8.00am did not arrive until 11.45am.

However, accreditation went on smoothly in the three polling stations in the vicinity until about 12.50 when a call came from a friend in far away Abiriba in Abia State, asking if he listened to a broadcast by the INEC’s Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, calling off the elections and postponing same till Monday, April 4th 2011, citing logistical failures.

When the news spread among the patiently waiting prospective electors, many were first incredulous, then furious when the news was confirmed by the INEC staff, who informed the gathered crowd that they had received orders to return to headquarters immediately. Though some had grumbled that it was a hidden ploy to prevent them from voting, the peaceful atmosphere did not encourage any untoward reaction.

The night before the polls, as is the norm with the electoral agency, the INEC Chairman, Jega, had gone on air to assure Nigerians of the readiness of the Commission to conduct the National Assembly elections, the first of the series of elections leading to the democratic transfer of power come May 29th 2011 . When the cancellation came barely eighteen hours later, it beat all logic and reason.

Jega, while cancelling the exercise, informed that the vendors responsible for bringing in some of the most sensitive materials, especially the form on which the results are entered, had promised to be on ground by latest Thursday, March 31st. According to him, the materials did not arrive Lagos until 9.30 am on Saturday, the supposed polling day.

The question that immediately arose was: why did Jega go on air in the evening of Friday, April 1st, 2011 , to tell Nigerians that the Commission was fully ready for election? Why did he call out Nigerians to the polls, an act that some bitterly likened to an “April’s Fool” joke? Why did he not simply postpone the election on that Friday night to save the nation the huge costs in terms of financial wastages and national embarrassment?

With hundreds of international observers in the country out monitoring the election, and the international community keenly watching an election some have warned will be crucial to the nation’s future, Jega’s action helped in rubbing in the notion that Nigeria has not yet found the right formula to conduct democratic elections.

The anger that erupted across the land stemmed from the fact that Jega’s INEC seems unable to have a complete grasp of the assignment before it. It has forced the nation, on many occasions, to shift dates and create new laws in mid-stride after rolling out timetables and timelines. It has forced an acquiescent National Assembly to repeatedly go back to appropriate funds, and all institutions of state have bent themselves backwards to accede to the many inchoate demands of the Commission if only to ensure free, fair and credible election that the country so fervently needs.

Negative effects

The number one negative consequence of the INEC’s sudden shift of the elections is that many indigent candidates for the parliamentary elections who had already spent themselves sore have been forced to start looking for fresh funds to mobilise their supporters and polling agents all over again when then they thought their ordeal was going to end last Saturday. Those who are liable to be affected the most are fresh aspirants from smaller political parties who have been scrounging from their lean pockets to finance the costly electoral process.

Incumbents who are seeking re-election may be less affected since they are ploughing back their savings from their jumbo pay in the past four years into the venture. What it means is that many indigent candidates may find it difficult to mobilise fresh finances for the new exercise. In that case, they are likely to lose the loyalty of many of their supporters and polling agents in this largely cash-and-carry electoral environment.

As at Saturday night, the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media Matters, Mr Ima Niboro, disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan had quickly returned to Abuja from his Otuoke, Bayelsa State home town where he had gone to vote, and was involved in emergency meetings with security chiefs and highly-placed stakeholders. Governors were also expected by Sunday to meet with the president for a common front to be forged to tackle this fiasco, which Jega correctly described as a “national emergency”. Without such a common front, there would be chaos on many fronts.

For instance, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babatunde Fashola, who was livid after the announcement, told the press that he would not interfere with the exams which many schools are undergoing to terminate the second term. Unless governors take bold steps to create a conducive atmosphere for the rescheduled elections we are likely to witness very low turnout and security threats in an atmosphere that is not under proper security control.

Salvaging it together

However, many leaders were immediately able to shake off the disaster and look forward with optimism. For instance, the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Chief Bola Tinubu, was of the view that the nation is faced with an emergency which is now beyond the person of Jega or the INEC as an institution. It therefore required a joining of hands to make the best of a potential disaster. In the same vein, the Governor of Abia State, Chief Theodore Orji, was of the opinion that it is better to postpone the election than to conduct a poll that would be marred by irregularities and global condemnation.

Some have even opined that it was a sign of Jega INEC’s genuine intentions towards the conduct of a free and credible polls that it was shifted, as the nation would have gone berserk with tumult if the poll had been allowed to go ahead under the conditions that obtained last Saturday. The fear, though, is whether INEC will be able to perfect its act this week.

The fear, however, is that exposing the sensitive electoral materials to saboteurs, which a long-drawn shift will bring about.

The nation will come out of this challenge with one useful lesson: the self-distancing of the Presidency and the ruling people’s Democratic Party (PDP) from interfering directly or indirectly with the affairs of the INEC has helped in lightening the burden of this fiasco. If these two institutions had, as before, been seen to be manipulating the process in any form, the postponement would be seen as part of a grand ploy to undermine the polls, which would trigger unpleasant consequences.