DIRECTING PRIMARIES THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLE

The abolition of indirect primaries is a positive legislative action against executive arrogance, writes Bolaji Adebiyi

Now, technical glitches witnessed during the Anambra State governorship election last Saturday are thought to have weaponised political opponents of the electronic electoral system, which makes the case for technology-driven accreditation, voting, collation and transmission of election results. The election, which the Independent National Electoral Commission used to test-run its innovative Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, suffered the usual drawbacks and more. But the one of interest to the opponents of technology has been the hitches with BVAS. This, at best, is subterfuge.

Coming while the nation awaited the National Assembly’s adoption and passage of the report of its harmonisation committee on 2010 Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 that resolved to grant INEC power to determine mode of electoral process, the antagonists saw a ray of hope. However, the approval of this recommendation on Tuesday by the Senate and the House of Representatives circumscribed that hope. Meanwhile, the National Assembly added insult to their injury when it approved direct primaries as the sole mode of selection of parties’ candidates for elective offices. As it is their nature to be optimistic even when the issues are as visible to the blind as they are audible to the deaf, the adversaries, largely led by governors, are not giving up. They, it is reported, have taken their battle to the presidency, hoping to convince President Muhammadu Buhari, who is a beneficiary of direct primaries, to withhold accent. Again, this at best, is reckless optimism.

The main argument for technological intervention is that it would reduce human interference in the electoral system and make the process more transparent and credible. The expected corollary is that it would reduce post-election contestation and make the nation’s electoral outcomes more acceptable to the generality of contestants and the people. This is essentially why the civil society and opposition politicians supported the idea and were up in arms against the federal legislators when they attempted to expunge the provisions in the electoral amendment bill a couple of months ago.

In proposing the introduction of technology, neither INEC nor its supporters beat their chest and vouched that all would be smooth without itches. First, BVAS is an innovative improvement over its predecessor, the Smart Card Reader. It aims to increase the commission’s capacity to make the accreditation process faster and more credible. It offers a voter whose thumbprint is not recognised by the accreditation devise a second chance through facial recognition. If both fail the voter, then he would not be accredited as the device has eliminated the notorious incidence form that was in the past used to compromise the accreditation process. It would also send its information to the commission’s central server, thereby making padding at any stage impossible.

That some of the gadgets of the new device had technical itches on its first deployment is obviously a none-issue because being a new innovation it would only be perfected through a learning process. In any case, this was the experience with the card reader when it was introduced in 2015. But by the general election of that year, it had been sufficiently mastered to render one of the most acceptable electoral exercises in the country to date. So, as the text-run continues with other stand-alone elections, including the governorship polls for Ekiti and Osun States next year, INEC’s electronics engineers have ample time to deal with the noticed challenges.

Secondly, it is necessary to point out that BVAS is only a leg of the electoral process that is billed for transition from analogue to digital (technology) mode. The others, voting, collation and transmission of results are outstanding, and their transition is in the offing. Already, INEC has more or less perfected the art of electronic transmission of results with the last Osun and Edo States governorship and some state constituency elections. Therefore, the partial failure of one leg at first deployment cannot be a sufficient argument for the abandonment of the push for an electronic electoral system.

The opposition to direct primaries is even more repugnant to the noble quest for entrenchment of internal democracy in the political parties, which the 1999 Constitution as altered insists are the only entities that can present candidates for elective offices in the country. It is obvious to all discernible observers of the nation’s politics that the delegate system has not only been fraught with fraud but has also enhanced the capacity of state governors to dominate their parties and politics.

Had the governors been effective in the delivery of services to the people, their control would have been appreciated. Unfortunately, their political control has been largely detrimental to national development. Having subdued the legislative and judicial arms of government in the states, the governors govern almost without restraint so much so they have become so emboldened to neglect their basic responsibilities of providing good governance.

The governors’ thirst for political dominance would have been ignored if it did not have the possibility of extending their gross incompetence to the federal level. Everyone knows that with their dominance of political power in the states no one could aspire successfully to any elective office at the federal level without their support. This, no doubt, has made many of them so arrogant that not a few non-executive actors, including legislators and other aspirants think they are the main source of instability in the political parties.

If this is the case, there can be no sustainable argument against the need to clip their wings. The abolition of the delegate system by the federal legislature is a right move in this direction and it should be supported largely because, as argued quite correctly last week, resisting the executive’s bully must go beyond belly-aching and threat issuing from the other arms. Both aggrieved arms must come together to take concrete actions to abate its arrogance and hostility. This, therefore, is a positive legislative action to begin to rid the polity of the armful influence of a segment of the executive that has over exploited the advantages of the functions donated to it by the constitution to the detriment of not only the other arms of government but also the very people for which it was entrusted with power.

Adebiyi, managing editor of THISDAY Newspapers, writes from bolaji.adebiyi@thisdaylive.com