INEC AND THE NEUTRALITY QUESTION

INEC has not lived up to its name, reckons Josef Omorotionmwan

Nigeria once had an electoral body in the name of the National Electoral Commission (NEC). We decided that was not enough. It must be independent. So, we opted for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Since then, we have had more questions than answers: Who wants an independent electoral body? How truly independent will that body ever be? What purpose was independence meant to serve? And lots more. The unending search here might simply reveal that those looking for an independent electoral body for Nigeria might be searching for ever.

In fact, at the end of a presidential election involving 18 candidates, a winner emerges; and INEC automatically “produces” 17 losers. This scenario plays up on our campuses, where one student would say “I got an ‘A’ in that course”, while another student would say “That wicked lecturer gave me a ‘D’”.

The wicked lecturer in our elections is the INEC. The immediate task before the reader is to begin to form a mental image of how neutral INEC can ever be in the eyes of the 17 losers and their political parties. In most cases, it is all knocks and no kudos. 

There is no effort here to portray INEC as a saint. INEC is a Nigerian institution; and like any other Nigerian institution, Nigeria is happening to it in every ramification.

In Nigeria, scapegoatism has become the name of the game when it comes to the question of our elections. And INEC has become the whipping boy. We operate an adversary system that must produce winners and losers. What we find here is that while the winners praise INEC to the high heavens as the best thing that has ever happened to the country, the losers want INEC consigned to the pit of hell as the worst thing that has ever happened to the country. 

As the blame game continues, the fight soon moves to the courtrooms for final determination. The curious mix here is that those declared losers invariably attack the declared winners and INEC in their petitions. This marriage between INEC and the presumed winner is the beginning of the major problem. People want to see INEC as a neutral, unbiased umpire but for obvious reasons, INEC is unable to live up to the expectation here.

Meanwhile, INEC has a case hanging on its neck at the election petition tribunal. How impartial can INEC be? INEC has a name to maintain. 

In the normal course of life, no matter how objective a man wants to be, he cannot see anything other than with his eyes; and no matter how fast a man may run, he cannot run faster than his shadow. Once INEC issues out an election result, it must stand by that result. In the process, it does everything to create hindrances in the way of the declared losers – including reluctance in giving them the required evidence to support their cases.

This is where some have argued that for INEC to be impartial, it should not be joined in the petitions by the presumed losers. We think otherwise. 

Rather than create immunity from prosecution for INEC, we think INEC is the principal offender in every election and should, therefore, be treated as such. 

In corruption, it is INEC that is corrupt. In failing to play by the rules, INEC is the main offender. In election rigging, INEC is the sole offender.  

In the particular case of the 2023 general elections, INEC announced to the entire world that technology was going to be the game changer, only for INEC to abandon technology when it mattered most. That’s why we are now in deep trouble and there is no end in sight.

And so shamelessly did INEC at a point announce that it had a list of some 200 electoral offenders from that election. We term this a fake list. To the extent that INEC produced broken promises and dashed hopes in that election, any list of offenders that does not have the name of the INEC Chairman as Number One, is fake!

Whatever happened to the Electoral Offences Commission Bill? Our search for electoral offenders should begin, and virtually end, with INEC. It is a capital error to think that removing INEC from the prosecution list will make INEC impartial. 

He who pays the piper dictates the tune. How impartial can INEC be when its chairman and members are hired and fired by the President and his party? 

In a situation where the immediate past Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and the current Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, are in the Senate by default, no thanks to a faulty judicial system; and in a system in which Senator Akpabio can easily smuggle in his immediate past Personal Assistant as a State Resident Electoral Commissioner; and this type of thing happens all the time, who ever expects an impartial INEC?

How can INEC be impartial when it looks up to the Executive for funding? In the abstraction, it is the National Assembly that appropriates the funds for INEC’s operations, but an appropriation is only good to the extent of the released funds. An INEC that wants its funds released must remain loyal to the executive. 

As we speak, the signs and sounds emanating from the off-season elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States present a frightening glimpse into our future. What we see here is a complete return to the dark days of the Wild-Wild West of the 1960s, which culminated in “Operation Wetie” of the then Western Nigeria and the NPN Band Wagons of the Second Republic. 

Far into the 21st Century and just when we were beginning to see some silver lining in our electoral system, everything has gone further awry. The future is bleak and dismal. And things are getting incrementally worse!

How can anyone ascribe any atom of neutrality on INEC when all we heard about the shambles of elections recently conducted in some states are about rigging of the highest dimensions ever, vote allocation and even results that were prepared before voting took place? Who is still talking of INEC’s independence and neutrality in exercises that were marred by the lowest turnout ever, but still had humongous results? What an oxymoron! 

Our fear is not for now but for the future. The way we are going, there is no doubt that someday soon, INEC will be able to sit in the comfort of its offices and allocate votes to candidates; and that’s the election! Of course, that will save us a lot – waste of time and money, all the aggravations of the hurly-burly of these sham elections; all killing and maiming from electioneering; and all those court processes that follow those elections. 

Preparatory to the 2023 elections, why did we waste those billions on technology, knowing fully well our allergy to technology? In the old days of real audit, INEC would have been surcharged for that bundle of waste!

Expectedly, vote-trading has attained full age. And these are some of the elements being conveyed, full truck, to an apparently already compromised judiciary where justice has since become a scarce commodity!

We are all in this together. After all, the same sun still beats the tortoise and its seller.

Omorotionmwan writes from Canada