MID

MID-WEEK ESSAY: Local Council Polls and INEC - A Funny Game Is Going On Here!

Mobolaji E. Aluko

Burtonsville, MD, USA

April 11, 2002

INTRODUCTION

Ladies and gentlemen, it may just be me, but a funny game is going on, being played by Dr. Guobadia of INEC, president Obasanjo of Nigeria, the Supreme Court of Nigeria - and the Nigerian electorate.

Some people want to fool us.

First, a bit of history. On June 8, 1998, General Abacha died, and General Abdusalami Abubakar took over. On July 20, 1998, Abubakar formally abandoned the old Abacha-self-succession transition program - disbanding the "five party-fingers of the leprous hand," voter registration, the existing National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON), consigning everything to the ash heap of history. On August 6, 1998, Abubakar named a 14-person "Independent" National Electoral Commission, to be chaired by then 70-year old , former Supreme Court judge Ephraim Ibukun Omorose Akpata, from Edo State. Party registration and election guidelines were released September 8, 1998, and fresh voter registration began on October 5, 1998 and ended 19 October. It was followed by the display of preliminary list of voters, for claims and objections that were to be filed during the period for 20-22 October. On October 19, 1998, nine political parties out of 29 that applied were granted provisional registration by INEC as the outcome of the upcoming local government poll was to determine whether they will be given full registration. The parties were - in case we have forgotten - People Democratic Party , the All People's Party, the Alliance for Democracy, Democratic Advanced Movement, Movement for Democracy and Justice, National Solidarity Movement, Peoples Redemption Party, United Democratic Party and United Peoples Party.

The first major test - local government poll - was held 5 December, 1998. On December 14, 1998, based on the LG poll results, INEC registered only PDP, APP and AD for the subsequent elections.

The electoral commission used 111,430 polling stations nationwide while the number of wards in the 776 local councils was 8,692. It appeared that N3.5 billion was adequate to carry out all the electoral work during the transition programme.

At that time, INEC estimated that the country had 60 million eligible voters of 18 years and above.

Let us pause right there a little. Assume that citizens aged 18 to 78 were around to vote in Nigeria, then roughly the eligibility estimate means that roughly 1 million people per voting age bracket existed in 1998. Some of those people have since died and hence changed their addresses permanently - to heaven hopefully. Others have moved on Earth from where they last voted and so need re-registration. Some have turned 18 since then - at least those who were 14 in 1998. A few who were skeptical about the Abubakar transition program then and did not register might have a new mind now. Patapapa, from a material balance point of view, I don't however think that we can have more than 3 million net new voters per year needing re-/registration based on our population. I am even being generous, because the bulk of new voters would come from the new 18-year-olds and above.

So since 1998, we cannot really need to register more than 12 million new voters - or a fifth of what we needed in 1998, and hence theoretically a fifth of the time.

Let us fast forward..

On January 8, 2000, Justice Akpata, now aged 72, died, and was soon replaced by president Obasanjo (president since May 29, 1999) with then 68-year-old Dr. Abel Ibude Guobadia, also of Edo State, a physicist and former ambassador. Guobadia's Senate approval came May 17, 2000, and he assumed duty May 26, 2000.

Again, let us stop right there. If Guobadia, now 70 years old, had been as efficient as Akpata, then 70 years old, he should have commenced his first MAJOR poll registration on July 25, 2000, ended the registration on July 28, 2000, checked for errors July 29 - 31, 2000, and be ready for his first full Local Government poll on September 25, 2000.

Now, today is April 11, 2002, almost two years after he assumed duty, and he has done no voter registration, and he says that he cannot do voter registration any time before May 29, 2002, not to talk of a local government poll in order to clear out councillors who would have done their three-year term.

What that clearly means to all unbiased minds, according to the data before us, is that Justice Akpata dusts Dr. Guobadia in efficiency.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES!

Now, of course Dr. Guobadia says he is harmstrung due to (i) uncertainties about the Electoral Act and (ii) lack of money.

Let us dismiss Excuse (i) as lame. Nothing in the Electoral Act debated so far affected anything about voter registration. After all, the voter's age minimum did not change from 18, so every year since 1998, the voter registration should have been updated. It is simply crazy to wait until around election time comes before updating the voter registration. That is no way to run a train station.

About Excuse (ii), money. Ok, fine - but who supplied judge Akpata his own money? General Abubakar! If I remember rightly, some people in the international community chipped in too! Now, who should have supplied Dr. Guobadia the money? President Olusegun Obasanjo - and maybe some of his many international community friends that he visits ever so frequently!

Conclusion? Between Obasanjo and Guobadia, a lot has slipped between the cup and the lip - and it has spilt and made a mess on us Nigerian citizens and the image of our country. On this issue of electoral democracy, the clear conclusion is that Abubakar is better than Obasanjo, and Akpata is better than Guobadia - although one must admit that Guobadia is guilty with explanation.

But questions abound: Is this any way to run a country in a democracy, when a vital aspect of it - elections - start with such an exercise as voter registration, and that voter registration is so much neglected? Why should president Obasanjo neglect to fund INEC, when he is able to fund the National Assembly, his own travels, that Abuja Stadium, etcheram, ad nauseum? Who else can we blame here?

Another question: Why should Dr. Guobadia hang on to a job when the person who put him there is not supportive enough to give him adequate money to do the job? A basic job such as voter registration?

Well, even if we were born at night, it was not last night, so we can guess what is happening. The funny game that is going on appears to be as follows: it had been determined somewhere all along that all effort should be made to prevent the Local Council elections from being run this year, hence the attempt by the Executive and some in the Legislature to smuggle some clauses in the Electoral Act 2001 - extending the tenure of the chairmen by fixing their new elections to 2003. So don't update the voter register and plead unreadiness. But the Supreme Court was not let into the deal, so its ruling on March 28 declaring that extension by the National Assembly illegal and ultra-vires has INEC and the Executive trumped.

So now the new trick question: no new register, how can we have local council elections?

Who says that we cannot? Certainly not the Constitution - which does not stipulate new register as a precondition for new elections - or the Electoral Act itself, since it is the State Assemblies that can fix the date.