2003 Election Could Be Free and Fair, But it May Not Be Credible: Advice to to the Nigerian Political Class.

Professor Omo Omoruyi

[Former Director General Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), ABUJA, NIGERIA; Research Fellow, African Studies Center, Boston University; CEO Advancing Democracy in Africa (ADA)]

Being an Address to the Annual Convention of the National Association of Nigerian Community in Austria holding at Vienna, August 15-17, 2002.

APPRECIATION AND FELICITATION

I thank you for the invitation; I congratulate you on the successful convocation of this year’s annual Convention of the National Association of Nigerian Community.

This is the first time I am being invited across the Atlantic to discuss a political issue by a pan-Nigerian organization. This is the first time that a pan-Nigerian organization is behaving like the dreaded National Conference to deal with some aspects of the lingering political issues afflicting Nigeria. How I wish that many people at home would imitate you and have honest dialogue on 2003. That incidentally is not taking place at moment. We are behaving as if the year would come and go. It certainly would; but what about the election? Shall it come and go without the resolution of the lingering political and potentially disintegrating factors?

I did not know what Dr. Adedeji Aganga-Williams, the National President of the Association had in mind when he invited me to this annual Convention of the National Association of Nigerian Community of Austria. I responded to his E-mail invitation before we could get to talk on telephone. That tells you that I consider it an honor to be invited to your annual Convention and to be asked to bare my mind on a topic that has relevance to our dear country.

I am not a government official. I am just a Nigerian resident in the US who also had a part in the past of Nigeria. I shall be speaking for myself. Still on preliminary inquiry, of course certain questions occurred to me when I was invited.

Was I invited because of what I did in the past, I do not know what aspects of my past that attracted him? I must confess that I have many pasts.

Was I invited because of what I have been saying or writing in the past? I have said many things in the past.

FROM MY PAST, I CAN DEAL WITH THE FUTURE

Some of the things I did in the past as a political actor or as one associated with the military are in the public domain. I found myself involved in many key issues in Nigerian politics since 1959. The various experiences are helping me today to appreciate the enormity of the Nigerian political problems in general and the 2003 in particular.

I have a vivid recollection of what happened during what I call the “Independence” Election of 1959, as a voter. I still recall the aftermath of that election that I called in my Independence essay for the Vanguard on October 1, 2001, the “Mistake of 1960” made by all.

I still recollect when, how and why I decided to take the party card of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) Club at the University of Ibadan with Ken Saro Wiwa of blessed memory under the leadership of Aminu Song, now Professor Jubrli Aminu, the Nigerian Ambassador to the US.

I am quite conversant with the “rampart” being guarded and guided by the northern leaders, which was framed since the founding of Nigeria in 1914 and reenacted at independence in October 1960 and continues to be so ever since.

I still recollect what happened in 1963 as a voter and a Counting Officer during the Referendum for the creation of the Fourth Region, the Midwestern Region. I had opportunity to recall some of my experiences recently to correct the President and his Minister of Justice that tended to ignore the place of the Midwestern Region in the history of Nigeria.

I still recollect my first meeting with the present President as the military Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1977, as a member of the Technical Committee on Revenue Allocation 1977-78. That exposed me to his views about the ownership question of oil that still remain so till today. This was the basis of my Presidential Address to the Nigerian Political Science Association in 1980 titled, the “Politics of Oil” that still remains an unresolved issue till today.

I can never forget my election to and participation in the Constituent Assembly in 1977. I was exposed to the various groups in Nigeria. Some came to the Assembly with agenda and some came blank. I was involved in framing the Agenda for the Assembly and for the country beyond the Constituent Assembly.

I saw how various groups and individuals jockeyed for positions during the penultimate stage of the transition program. My experience during this phase of my political life is now the subject of a book, Beyond the Tripod in Nigerian Politics. This is since 2002 in the public domain.

That I am a Member of the National Institute (mni) is an issue that sometimes people want to question me about. Yes, I cannot forget my participation in the Senior Executive Course One at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), KURU in 1979/80. That exposed me to the way the military officers think about the civilian. That was the beginning of my association with the then Brigadier Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who later became the first and only military President in Nigerian history.

Of course the aspects of my life people remember most vividly was my involvement in the transition program under President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Again I was in the midst of various claims and counter-claims of various groups as they jockeyed for favorable positions during the transition program. How I managed this will be in a book soon. However, part of my experience that had to do with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election is in a book, The Tale of June 12. This is since 1999 in the public domain.

Of course I can say I was exposed to various aspects of Nigerian politics in addition to my academic study of Nigerian Politics. I should say that there are many things that I would have to explain from my actions and writing in the past if you want to take me on. I am sure you will surely have one issue or the other to question me about. I am glad that the purpose of inviting me to Austria is not to quiz me on my varied past or on what I said on varied topics in the past. I shall be prepared to respond to any aspects of what I did in the past or on what I said about one thing or the other in the past. That should not take our attention away from 2003.

PURPOSE OF TODAY IS TO DEAL WITH 2003

On why I am here, in consultation with Dr. Aganga-Williams, I decided to change the topic of my original assignment of merely reviewing Nigeria politics and the journey so far in favor of this topic for obvious reason.

There is only one topic in Nigeria today and I am sure for the next few months. It is the concern in the international community. I am referring to the four-figure word, called 2003. What is significant about 2003?

2003 is the end of the tenure of office of those who were elected in 1999 including the current President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. It is also the year when another election will be conducted. It could renew the tenure of some and it could throw out others and bring in new ones.

What is of interest in Nigeria and in the international community today is that if the impending series of elections are not properly handled the consequences would be far reaching that in fact, they could derail the nascent democracy. Whatever topic I might have decided to speak on earlier and even if I try to avoid talking directly on the election, questions on 2003 would necessarily be raised and could dominate the occasion.

With the way the matter is being discussed in the newspapers by the Nigerian politicians, it is obvious that the 2003 has problems. It is my suggestion that we should go straight to the matter. I thought I should allow all of us to talk about it. I shall speak from my experience and not from academic concern with the theory of politics. I shall raise certain questions about the perceived and genuine fears of Nigerians. In the end I shall make suggestions as to how to overcome the problems.

I have been raising question and making suggestions to resolving them since 2001. First I did this at the Houston Meeting of the African Studies Association. Second, I wrote a five-part essay specifically on 2003 published by This Day in December 2001 and January 2002. Three, I put my views down in a monograph that is now available with the title, . Four, I recently wrote a three-part essay with the general title, “Neither a Candidate nor an Office Holder be!”

Five what I am doing today under your auspices is a continuation of my commitment in one to four above to make the election in 2003 not only free and fair but also credible.

I am aware of the various debates and fears expressed recently on the various aspects of the 2003 by interest groups such as the Ohaneze, the Afenifere and the Arewa Consultative Forum and the various groups in the south-south.

I am aware of the comment of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the former Head of State who handed over to President Obasanjo who expressed his fear for the future of Nigerian democracy at Benin. See Daily Trust August 5, 2002.

I am aware of the cancellation of the local government election and the fear expressed about 2003 that it engendered in the international community and in Nigeria about the prospect of 2003.

I am aware of the recent decision of the President to name a 16-man body not known to law or the Constitution to advise him on the way forward on two questions, Voters’ Registration and the use of the National ID for the election,

I am aware of the inability of the National Assembly and the President to agree on an Electoral Law after the fraudulent one that was doctored by a clique of the National Assembly leadership and the President.

I am aware of calls by some politicians, such as Chief Olu Falae and Governor Adesina and recently by Senator Ike Nwachukwu calling on the President to resign.

All these are warning signs of imminent collapse of the political order. I shall hazard some suggestions to meet these fears.

POLITICAL PATHOLOGIES OF THE NIGERIAN POLITICIANS

The 2003 is compounded by certain underlying political pathologies that have been in Nigerian politicians since 1960. From my experience and readings of political behavior of African politicians in general and Nigerian politicians in particular, I came to certain conclusions on what I call the “political pathologies of the Nigerian politicians”.

One, politicians in Africa have yet to imbibe the practice of a free and fair election. Consequently, they do not believe that there is something so called.

Two, they tend to think that the notion of free and fair election is a Western standard or a European standard when pressed to abide with the universal norm or standard. Consequently, they tell you that Africa should aim at a lower threshold than the Western standard.

Three, African politicians tend to feel that they are running for the last election. Consequently, to them winning is the only option and that loosing an election is not an option even when it is so obvious that the voters are not interested in the message of the candidate.

Four, African politicians do not buy the idea that democracy is anchored on faith and belief that there would be another election. Consequently, they do not appreciate that the election today is not the last election and that there would be another election. They believe that the winner or loser today would be the winner or loser for all time.

These are issues that are at the root of the heightened controversy and interest in 2003. These issues are at the root of any plan to develop a system of election that is not only free and fair but also must be seen to be so. This means that there are two sides in the conduct of election. One, that election should be free and fair and the true representative of the voice of the people. The other is how to make the people and the international community believe that the result of the election is actually the voice of the people. Who should handle these two sides of the conduct of election? Should they be in the hands of one body? We shall discuss these questions later.

I confronted some of these problems that I called the “political pathologies of the Nigerian politicians” in the past as the Director General, Centre for Democratic Studies. How I dealt with them would be in a book soon. They are real and are still with Nigerians today.

HOW NIGERIAN POLITICIANS VIEW 2003 UNSETTLING

Today, Nigeria is facing an unsettling situation arising from the political pathologies, a set of beliefs about the forthcoming election.

There is a belief among the Nigerian politicians running for office in 2003 that the system and the process of election would not be free and fair.

They believe that the institution for managing the election would not be independent of the government.

They strongly believe that the functionaries would be subject to the highest bidder.

They strongly believe that the notion of “Independent” in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is just for the newspapers.

They believe that the election officials, the security officials and the courts on election matters could be purchased. This feeling has roots in the general corruption in the society where Nigerians believe that “money makes iron float”.

There is the belief that politics should be played outside the political parties and within the fixed options on the known divides in Nigeria: “ethnicity”, “religion”, “geography” or “zones”.

There is the belief that one should promote ones cause through the ethnic or regional based organizations such as the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Ohaneze and the Afenifere and myriad of small groups in the south-south.

There is low credence attached to the political parties known to law and the Constitution.

There is the belief that it is better for a President to come from ones area than from ones political party.

Could all these be resolved before 2003? This is the subject of this lecture.

Something just has to be done to achieve the following:

To make the voters and the candidates believe that the outcome is what the voters decide;

To strengthen the political parties as the basis of organizing the election instead of the various interest groups;

To reduce the political salience of ethnicity, religion, region etc.;

To remove the government or the party in power from the management of the election in which they are also candidates;

To remove the mass media from the control of the government in power to the disadvantage of the challengers during the election;

To make the security agencies such as the army; the police and the non-uniform security officers tow neutral line during the period of the election;

To build friends at home and abroad for the election;

To give Nigeria an Electoral Law.

1993, 1999 AND 2003 AND CREDIBILITY AGENTS

My experience from the past was that the use of (a) the domestic monitors and (b) the international observers under my charge in 1993 was not only a new thing in Nigeria but also would not be amenable to their plan to buy the process.

To me, these two innovations that I devised in 1993 were critical in all “Founding Elections” elsewhere. I was quite sure that June 12 belonged to the category of “Founding Election” and it was treated as such.

The 1999 Presidential election should also have been treated as a “Founding Elections”, but it did not benefit from the use of domestic monitors and international observers for the entire process. What about the “Self-Succession” Election that now faces us in 2003?

These two innovations should also have been made to be part of the “entire process”. Since these innovations were absent, I was not surprised that the election had credibility problems. This is what President Obasanjo and the Nigerian political class would want to and should avoid in the 2003 election. What is the problem?

As long as President Obasanjo and his party are issues in the 2003, all other candidates and political parties would continue to raise questions not only about freeness and fairness but also about credibility. Even with the best will in the world, could the President be an arbiter in an election controversy in which he is not only a part but also a beneficiary? All other political parties are quickly going to say he could not be. This is why the need to build friends from within and without for the entire electoral process becomes critical.

BASIS OF COMPLAINT IN 1999 ELECTION WAS CREDIBILITY PROBLEMS

The planners of the transition program did not treat the 1999 Presidential election as a “Founding Election”. Because they failed, the process, i.e. from the beginning to the end (before the Election Day covering the Election Day to after Election Day) had credibility problems.

I did a review of that election in a lecture in Boston (Northeastern and Boston Universities) after the Election Day. I called it “Matters Arising from the Recent Election in Nigeria”. I followed this lecture with a three-part essay with the same title in The News, a Nigerian news magazine published in March/April 1999. What I tried to do was to answer many questions arising from the election.

One of the questions that I had to deal with in the lecture and later in the above essay was whether the election was free and fair in the light of many complaints from Nigerians and the international community. I was asked what should have been done to make it “free and fair” or to stop people from complaining about one thing or the other.

In my answer, I did not respond to specific charges about the irregularities observed by the Nigerian monitoring group and by the Carter Center. I only dealt with the issues of credibility. I said as follows:" An election could be free and fair and Yet may not be credible." This is the subject of this lecture. I went on: "This was the problem we are having with the last presidential election in Nigeria." I made the subtle distinction that they had never heard of before. I said thus:

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)could say that it conducted a free and fair election and yet in the eyes of Nigerians it was too good to be believed and hence raised question about its credibility. It is the credibility that is at the root of why some people are complaining about the process and the outcome of the election.

President Obasanjo could win the 2003 election. How does he deal with the widespread and deep-seated uncertainties the country? How does he deal with the core beliefs about 2003 from Nigerian political pathologies? How does he deal with the clamor for rotation, power shift, one term, zoning, etc.? All these would raise many questions of credibility.

President Obasanjo must reckon with one fact. Those who do not want him in his party and outside his party are pretty many and formidable. They believe that he is doing everything to rig the election. Some concrete examples are usually cited.

Take the way the Electoral law was handled by the President and a clique of the Members of the National Assembly to technically excludes other contenders.

They are reading all kinds of motive to the plan of the President to use the ID Card for the 2003 election. The Sheik Dahiru Bauchi in his campaign in the north against the plan said that the ID card plan should be seen within the plan of President Obasanjo to shift his base of support from the north to the south. They argue that President Obasanjo plans to reduce the number of voters in the north and increase the number of voters in the south.

The various policy measures outside the law on revenue allocation are linked to 2003, especially after the politically motivated Supreme Court ruling on the “on-shore/off-shore” issue as it applies to oil.

They see the award of road contract for roads in the southeast as linked with 2003.

WHAT WAS NOT DONE IN 1999

I was also asked in 1999 after the election and series of discovered abnormalities and complaints, if there was something that should have been done by the Federal Military Government that was not done? My response was as follows: "There were things that could have been done that were not done during the election process a) In the days and events leading to the Election Day; (b) On the Election Day; and (c) On after the Election Day."

I went on to expatiate on this using what I did in 1993 as an example. In 1992,

I urged the military president and he agreed to (a) restrict the NEC to the technical function of guaranteeing that the election was free and fair and (b) assign the Centre for Democratic Studies the function of putting in place the modalities for ensuring that the election was credible.

This is a subtle distinction between the function of INEC as the instrument to guarantee that the election is free and fair and another body to ensure that the function of INEC and other agencies are believed to be acting to promote a free and fair election.

THE THREE ISSUES TO BE RESOLVED TO MAKE ELECTION CREDIBLE

As to why people may not believe the outcome of the 1999 election readily, I argued that there were three reasons.

One, there was a restricted conception of the notion of election that it was a one day wonder.

Two, there was no provision for organized “friends”, domestic and international for the election and where these were in involved, they were meant to witness an anointment of the prevailing order.

Three, there was the feeling that the environment of the election under General Abulsalami Abubakar worked from the answer. They found the answer in the person of Chief Obasanjo and the election was meant o coronate him and not to offer opportunity for his challengers to defeat him.

We are still facing these three problems today. They are manifesting themselves in various ways with Nigerians and in the media everyday. They form the basis of this lecture. I shall take them one by one.

A. ELECTION IS ENTIRE PROCESS, NOT A ONE DAY WONDER

Nigeria must buy the well-established notion of an election. By that I mean the entire process and not just what happens on the Election Day. The election as a process was well established by the UN in the “Draft Resolution on Assistance to Haiti in 1990. See UN GAOR 44^th Session Agenda Item UN Doc. A/44965 (199) and “Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Principles of Periodic and Genuine Elections” Report of the Secretary General, UN GAOR 46^th Session Agenda Item 98(b) at 25-26” UN Doc A46/609 (1991).

From the foregoing, by the entire process, it means:

the activities before the voting day (Election Day) covering the framework including the composition of the election commission, the laws governing the election, the control of the media etc.;
the activities on the voting day *Election Day) covering the number of polling stations, the number of voters on the polling station, the conduct of the voting and counting of the votes, etc.; and
the activities after the voting day (Election Day), such as the announcement of the results at all stages the behavior expected of winners and losers and the final announcement of the winner and the swearing in of the winner and the formation of government.

The entire process of the election should not only be open but it also must be seen to be so. This is what is needed to enable domestic and international friends to pronounce that “from what we see from beginning to the end and from what we “observe from the beginning to the end”, “the election is free and fair”. Let me use the case of Zimbabwe to illustrate what I mean.

ZIMBABWE: TWO VIEWS IN THE COMMONWEALTH ABOUT PROCESS

The 2002 election in Zimbabwe raised the issue, whether what happened before the Election Day should be the determining factor and not just what happened on the Election Day?

To the European/White members of the Commonwealth, the US and the EU countries and some African countries, from the activities before the Election Day, the election in Zimbabwe was not free and fair. Some of the pre-Election Day activities in Zimbabwe were the use of the police to disperse the opposition rallies, the use of security agents to incriminate their leaders and candidates, the use of the government machinery and the mass media to advance the interest of the President who was also a candidate and the denial of access of the government media to the opposition candidate. This was why they recommended that Zimbabwe should be suspended from the Commonwealth before the Election Day. This was what the US meant by her statement that the “process was flawed from beginning” when she decided to follow the EU and impose some restrictions on the government of Mugabe after the election.

The African countries in the Commonwealth on the other hand had a restricted view of election as applying to the voting day activities or to what took place on the Election Day and nothing more. Hence, they told their European/White colleagues in the Commonwealth during the Commonwealth meeting in Australia before the Election Day that they should withhold judgment on Zimbabwe until the Election Day and after.

The European/White members of the Commonwealth and the African members were talking about two different conceptions of the election in Zimbabwe: one as a process ant the other as one day wonder. Should this be so? Why did the African leaders have this restricted notion of election?

To the European/White members of the Commonwealth and the EU countries, a free and fair election is determined from what goes on in the name of election from the activities before the day of voting and covers the activities on the day of voting and extends to the activities after the day of voting.

To the White/European members of the Commonwealth, the entire process should be open to domestic monitors and the international observers. Therefore, for the Zimbabwe government to restrict observers to the day of voting ab initio violates the ground rule governing a free and fair election.

But the African members of the Commonwealth were arguing that free and fair election is a matter of what happened on the voting day. To them, the President of that country should be free to determine who should observe the election and to determine at what stage in the entire process the international observers should be allowed in the country.

This debate would go on as long as the African leaders are still to imbibe the principles and practices involved in what it takes to declare an election free and fair as covering the entire process.

African leaders should appreciate that the entire process should be open to the indigenous people and to the whole world as a matter of right. This is the only way to win domestic friends and international friends for the outcome of the election.

B. ORGANIZED FRIENDS FOR THE ELECTION

The cultivation of friends from within and from without is now an accepted mechanism for ensuring that the process of election is believed to be the true determinant of the voice of the people. This is an area that is least developed in Africa.

The use of domestic friends in Zambia and Kenya in 1991 and 1992 had some drawbacks from the composition and from the motive of the organizers of the domestic monitors. The monitoring groups in Zambia were church-related and they in turn influenced the origin of domestic monitors in Kenya. The motive of the domestic organizations in Zambia and in Kenya was to remove the Presidents Kaunada and Arap Moi of Zambia and Kenya respectively. I tried to rectify these two flaws in Nigeria in 1992 and 1993. How I did this is a subject of another exercise.

Successive African leaders, military and civilian have always resisted any attempt of the former colonial powers to tell them what to do after independence. This was why the former colonial regime said nothing about the catalog of human rights violations under the various regimes in Africa between 1960s to the late 1980s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1980s, democratic election became “an idea whose time had come”. With it the use of international observers in the conduct of elections was introduced. To make African political leaders buy it, the EU countries and the US had to force the Zambia and Kenya to allow the international involvement in the elections as a condition for aid. While they succeeded in these two countries, they failed to influence the Zimbabwe President in 2002.

African political leaders thought that they have found a solution to the political conditionalities imposed on them by the EU and the US. Under the Africa Union and based on the requirement of the New Partnership on African Development (NEPAD), there would be what is called the “Peer Review”, which is now a policy on intra-African involvement in the election of African countries. They are still to work out how this would work in Africa.

Does the notion of “Peer Review” mean that the African leaders are categorically opposed or are lukewarm to the international observers especially from the EU countries? Would they call the attempt by the EU countries to get involved in election observation in Africa as interference in the internal affairs in African counties? Would the African leaders see the practice of the EU wanting to get involved in election observation in Africa as the continuation of colonialism? Would the African countries be able to establish a body to do so? These are questions that are in search of answers.

Why do African leaders believe that there should be one standard for themselves?

Why should they believe that there should another one for the West?

Why should African leaders believe that the Western Standard is too high for them to meet?

Why do African leaders expect a lower standard of democratic practice among African countries that is lower that the universal standard?

I once pointed out the gap between what is universally construed as the right to political participation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and what the African leaders invented for themselves in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. It should be noted that the right to vote and be voted for is recognized as a right in Article 21 of the UDHR and an enforceable right under Article 25 of the ICCPR. But Article 13 of the African Charter only pays a lukewarm recognition to participation and fails to mention the right to vote and be voted for as critical to the right to political participation. We can discuss this gap during the discussion. It is this gap that made the African leaders to use a lower standard for themselves than what is universally used elsewhere.

In no area is this evident than in the area of allowing others to see what they are doing when they say they are practicing democracy and respect the human rights of their citizens. The practice of getting observers to form part of the process of according credibility to elections is now part of the practice in the Western world. For example, the European Union and other countries in Europe now have the use of monitors or observers from outside the country to form part of the process of adjudging the freeness and fairness of an election. The Charter of Paris for New Europe specifically mandated as follows:

That Participating States consider that the presence of observers both from foreign and domestic can enhance the electoral process of States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so too observe the course of their national election proceedings to the extent permitted by law. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings”.

The European countries in turn expect others, especially the democratizing countries in Europe and in the Third World that need support from the EU countries to open their electoral process to international observation. This is actually an unwritten rule or part of the “political conditionality” for aid from the EU countries that those who want aid from the EU countries should submit themselves to the monitoring of their election by the EU countries. Why should the European countries use aid for the common mans also in desperate need be used to induce African leaders to allow their peoples’ “vote be their voice”? This is the sad situation African countries find themselves today because their leaders.

Zambia had to yield to the pressure from the international donors in October 1991 and Kenya had to yield to the same pressure in December 1992 reluctantly. Mugabe breached this in 2002 when he banned some EU members from participating in the international observation of his election.

Zimbabwe is on record in the past as opposed to the interference in the internal affair of any country by others in matters of election. Zimbabwe was one of the five countries that sponsored a resolution at the UN in 1992 called “Respect for Principle of National Sovereignty and Non-Interference in the Internal Affairs of State in their Election Process”. See UN Resolution 46/130 jointly sponsored China, Cuba, Libya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. What a company? What would the Nigerian President do if faced with the prospect of international interference in the internal affair in the Nigerian election matter?

From the way the Nigerian President is behaving today, it would appear that he shares the same point of view with those who sponsored that UN Resolution. Two cases come to mind.

The first was how President Obasanjo dismissed the Human Rights Report on Nigeria that he would not want to be told how he should treat his people. See “Obasanjo Dismisses Scathing Human Rights Report” in Vanguard April 19, 2002.

The second was even after his assumption of the Chairmanship of a key Committee on Democracy of NEPAD, the Nigerian President is still opposed to be told that he should sell democracy to his people. I was shocked that President Obasanjo devoted his address to the Joint Session of the Jamaican Parliament to attack the Center Strategic and International Studies for writing a report that questioned the democratic credibility of Nigerian government under President Obasanjo. See “Obasanjo to Western Powers: Don’t Pull Nigeria Down” in This Day August 8, 2002.

This point of view is old with Zimbabwe; it was not new and the international community led by the EU and the US and Japan ought to have known that Zimbabwe feels the same way as China, Cuba, and Libya in matter of election and democracy. However the West and Japan considered that what happened in Zimbabwe was not free and fair.

What is usually confusing in literature is whether “monitor” and “observation” apply to the same form of activities of non-governmental organizations and the international actors. There is need for conceptual clarification of these concepts.

MONITOR/OBSERVATION: AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAD COME!

Medard Rwelamira and David Ailola opine that the two terms are never adequately defined authoritatively. What I did in Nigeria in 1992/93 was to limit the term “monitors” to the domestic actors and “observers” to the international actors. In practice, some would say that we should limit Monitoring to when one spends a longer period and Observation to when one spends a shorter period. My view is that they mean the same thing. What we need to do therefore is to examine the meaning and implications of monitor or observer.

From usage, the nearest definition that Rwelamira and Ailola would offer practitioners is to describe certain practices from domestic and foreign actors in the electoral process. They also say that the two terms could be used interchangeably. According to them, they are applicable to “ the stationing of independent missions, officials, or individuals in a country, which is in the process of organizing a national election and giving them a mandate to closely observe the entire process and outcome of such an election”.

The operating terms are “closely observe”, “entire process” and “outcome of such an election”. They convey something more than what we saw in the 1999 election in Nigeria from the activities of the so-called domestic monitors and the Carter Center.

They tend to limit the meaning to international actors. It goes beyond that as recent practice tends to demonstrate. See Medard Rwelamira and David Ailoa “International Monitoring of Free and Fair Elections in Nico Steytler, John Murphy Pierre and Medard Rwelamira eds Free and Fair Elections (Cape Town 1994).

A noted exponent of international observation of election, Geert van Haegondoren made some attempt to define what election observation or monitoring means. According to him:

Election observation is a particular form of fact finding with the purpose to attest the fairness and freeness of the election for the benefit of the indigenous population and to convince the international community of the genuineness of the expression of the popular will within a particular country.

See G. V. Geert van Haegondoren “International Election Monitoring” in Revue Belge De Droit International Vol. 20 187 PP 86-123.

From van Haegondoren, we could deduce five ingredients in the practice of election observation.

The election observation is a “fact-finding” exercise. This means like all fact-finding exercises, those involved should have free access to all materials and process in the election. This means that the monitors or observers should be witnesses to how the INEC operates in Nigeria and why it reaches certain decisions. Would INEC allows this? What about the government that is facing reelection, would it allow for this in 2003?
The election observation is more than mere observation because it is meant to “attest the freeness and fairness” of the election. This means that the process would involve scrutiny of what many agencies are doing in the entire process from the pre-Election Day activities to the Election Day activities and post-Election Day activities. This is the way to determine and ascertain that the election is not only free and fair, but that it is seen to be free and fair. To come to this decision, election observers are usually armed with the universal standard for adjudging it to be so. Would the Nigerian government allow this to happen in 2003?
The election observation is for the “benefit of the indigenous population”.   The election observation is meant to win “domestic friends” for (a) the winner of the election, (b) the process and (c) the political order.

What does this means?   It is meant to convince the opposition parties and candidates that losing to an opponent is in accordance with the will of the voters.   It accords some respectability to the freeness and fairness of the process and that the outcome of the election i.e. the winner of the election is in accordance with the popular will of the people.    This tends to enhance the legitimacy of the entire electoral process and of the winner of the election.   This is why it is in the interest of the current political class led by President Obasanjo to encourage and fund the involvement of domestic monitors in the 2003.   The domestic monitors would help make the case for the process where the winner or INEC may not be able to do so and be believed.

The involvement of observers from within is one aspect of the electoral process that is least developed in Africa. The domestic monitors in Zambia and in Kenya were bent on removing the ruling party and the President and not out to serve as a friend of the process.   This was the basis of the origin of domestic monitors in Zambia and later in Kenya.   This was wrong.

This was not what we were to do in Nigeria in 1992/93 as the two political parties, the NRC and the SDP were equally supported by the military.   President Babangida was out to prepare a level playing field.   The use of the domestic monitors was in furtherance of this.

The second flaw in Zambia (and in Kenya) was that the domestic monitors grew out of the Christian organizations that allied with other political forces in society that desperately wanted the President and his political party to be defeated, pushed out and replaced by the candidates of the opposition parties.    From this point of view, what happened in Zambia was not the ideal form of domestic monitors in Nigeria.   I saw how Kenya fought this practice in 1992.

The replication of Zambia practice in Kenya did not succeed as President Arap Moi and the ruling political party (KANU) knew or were told of what happened in Zambia with the same kind of group from the Churches.   It was obvious that the Kenya leader was under the influence of the former Zambian leader.

Arap Moi under the advice of the former Zambia President knew that the domestic observers under the auspices of the Churches in Kenya were out to get him, hence he refused to accord them respectability.   He, in fact encouraged the Muslim clerics in the north and in the coastal area of Kenya to develop antagonistic posture to the domestic monitoring organizations under the church auspices.   Just as the highly publicized domestic monitors wanted the Kenya President removed, the Muslim organizations rallied behind the President and the KANU in the 1992 election.

For the 2003, I will still warn against the Zambia experiment because of its composition with heavy Church leaders.   It would not be adequate and should not be replicated in a multi-religious society like Nigeria.

The Nigerian innovation that was put together by me under the auspices of the CDS in 1992 was able to overcome these two drawbacks in both in Zambia and in Kenya.   They can still be repeated in Nigeria in preparation for the 2003 Presidential elections. I can discuss this briefly.      Maybe five points should be made clear.

One, domestic monitor should not be brought about with the purpose of deposing President Obasanjo and the PDP.

Two, it should not have anything to do with religious organizations.

Three, it should be funded by the Government.

Four, it should work with international observers.

Five, it should not only be independent but must be seen to be so.
The election observation is meant to “convince the international community”.   The election observation is meant to win “international friends” for the process and for the winner of the election.

The international involvement in election is the tricky part of the election observation.    African dictators do not like this at all.   Some of them would hide under wanting to safeguard the sovereignty of their nation.    They would argue that they did not need to convince anyone that the election was the free expression of the popular will of the people, as a sovereign state.   What they would want to do is to control the process from beginning to the end and conjure over 99% of the votes and declare themselves President for life.     I was a witness to the introduction of the international involvement in the national election in Zambia in 1991 and in Kenya in December 1992 by aid donors.   This is wrong.   African leaders should be educated and convinced that it is in the interest of the country and peoples.   It should grow from the will of the African leaders because it is the right thing to do and not because aid donors dictated it.

As a policy, the leaders of African states have always resisted the international involvement in national election.   This was why some of them pushed for the UN resolution on the non-interference in the internal affairs of member country through the election monitoring process.     Why should they resist international observation of their election?

How the international community got involved in the national election in Africa has not been adequately dealt with except through the various reports issued by some US organizations on Zambia and later on Kenya and South Africa.    How the Nigerian dealt with this matter in 1993 can be discussed if time permits.
The election observation is to ascertain that the election result is the “genuineness of the expression of the popular will within a particular country”. The ascent is “genuineness” and this is usually absent in many African countries. For the 2003 election, the presidential candidates of all the political parties would need this. This is to establish the legitimacy of the outcome of the election that it is based on the “will of the Nigerian people”.

C. POLITICAL ATMOSPHERICS: A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR ALL.

There is no doubt about the transition from military or from one party regime or from apartheid regime to a multi-party democratic election in Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa respectively. What happened in Zambia (1991), Kenya (1992), South Africa (1994) and Nigeria (1993) and to some extent in Nigeria (1999) can be described as “Founding Election”, because the elections in these countries were meant to change the political order. The political order based on “force” was to be changed to a political order based on the “will of the people”. Under this process, what my former colleague late Dr. Adesina Sambo called the “political atmospherics” for a free and fair election is critical to the credibility of election. The closest to the appropriate “political atmospherics” is what I call a level playing field for all candidates.

What about the “self-succession election”? This would not be a problem in one-party regimes like Zambia before 1991 or in Kenya before 1992 where the results would be foregone.

The situation in Nigeria is unique. It should be obvious today that the 2003 election is another form of “Founding Election”. The 1999 election would have been an ideal kind of “Founding Election”, if the President that came to power in 1999 came to power with a discernible base of support that he could manipulate as and when he liked. Of course we know that President Obasanjo came to power with no base of support that he could rightly call his own that he could summon as and when he likes. This is the problem he has since 1999. The political party in whose name he came to power is not his won; the National Assembly that is controlled by over 2/3 of the PDP is a stranger to him.

President Obasanjo not being a politician, he is in a dilemma. He is faced with how to change the basis of legitimacy of his administration from dependence on a clique from the north and to the Nigerian people. In a sense it is like moving from the military or a one party or an apartheid regime to multi-party democracy. The analogy between an administrations that arose from a clique to one that is open to the Nigerian people might sound strange. This is the way one sees President Obasanjo and his administration. He is alone. I can develop this further if time permits. That was the rationale for my asking the President to move from the support on a clique to the support on the Nigerian people in my essay that appeared in the Vanguard in 2000. This still remains the option for President Obasanjo today.

In the past, the “self-succession” elections in the past were conducted under the atmosphere where the different ethnic champions believed they should produce the President or the Prime Minister as the case may be. There was no doubt that the two southern political leaders, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo were bent on reversing the British Design of a permanent northern rulership of Nigeria. It is part of the history of Nigeria that the northern political leaders as the party in power manipulated these elections whenever their permanent rule was challenged. On each occasion, the southern leaders disputed the outcome of these elections. In the end, the losers were asked to go to Court.

Nigerians knew in the past that the Court was not a solution to a heavily rigged election that had an official stamp. It should be obvious to the President today that his challengers today would not want to be told to go to the Court to resolve the disputed election. I hope he knows that. Even in the US, the Supreme Court Justices were not happy that they had to be resorted to as the final arbiter.

If the losers in the Presidential elections in 1979 and in 1983 went to Court, the presidential candidates floated by various interest groups, such as Arewa, Ohaneze and Islamic fundamentalists and Shariarists would not go to the Court. This is the situation with the 2003. This is what Nigerians have at the back of their mind as they prepare for 2003. The fears over the 2003 are compounded by the various views about President Obasanjo.

EMERGENCE OF OBASANJO IN 1999: ON TWO NOTIONS OF ONE NIGERIA

The southerners knew nothing about the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1998. This was how Dr. Alex Ekwueme ran into difficulties with his traditional allies in the north. He was in the US when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was approached to become the presidential candidate under the PDP, which Dr. Ekwueme thought was partly founded by the Ndigbo and under which he was to run as the presidential candidate in 1999. He knew nothing about the real reasons for inviting Chief Obasanjo to come to run against him in the party. Chief Obasanjo did not take him into confidence why he decided to run him out of the position earmarked for him.

Was Dr. Ekwueme betrayed? Why did Dr. Ekwueme stay on? Were the Ndigbo robbed? Why did they not move out to found a political party like the Yoruba and run their states? These are questions for Dr. Ekwueme and the Ndigbo to answer today.

The clique of military officers who said that they were acting in the northern interest initiated the emergence of President Obasanjo immediately he was released from Abacha’s Gulag in 1998. This clique had one and only one thing in mind, they wanted to stop Nigeria from disintegrating.

What should be noted is that this same clique that annulled the June 12 again on the erroneous belief that they were acting in the northern interest were apprehensive of the imminent break up of the country if a northerner was allowed to be the successor to the military. They then found an ally in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who everyone should acknowledge as the ONLY NIGERIAN ALIVE then. Chief Obasanjo’s commitment to ONE NIGERIA and why the northern clique were bent on keeping Nigeria from disintegrating were at variance. Did both parties know? Dr. Ayagi touched on this briefly in his thought provoking essay captioned, “Understanding the North and the Northerners” in This Day Saturday August 10, 2002.

Both parties had different notions of keeping Nigeria one. To Obasanjo it must be a Nigeria based on justice and equity. To the northern leaders, it is one that would be in furtherance of the original British Design of permanent northern domination. There is a conflict of orientation between President Obasanjo and the clique on the one hand and between President Obasanjo and the northern political class on the other. Germane to the crisis of self-succession is the critical question of whether the northern clique in particular or the northern political class in general anticipate that President Obasanjo would face them with a “self-succession”?

This is the situation that Nigeria is in today. Whether they anticipate it or not, he is a candidate. What do they expect him to do? What does he expect to do too? These are questions that are at the root of the chilly relation between the north and President Obasanjo as we proceed to 2003.

Where the ruling party and its President are both candidates’ credibility will be an issue.

Where the government controls (a) the instrument of coercion, (b) the body in charge of the election and (c) the major section of the mass media, credibility will be an issue.

In both situations, precaution must and should be taken to ensure a level playing field for other participants so as to ensure a credible election.

Can the President be a candidate and continue as the President at the same time? This ought to be obvious to President Obasanjo and his handlers that he is in a dilemma. How does he plan to resolve this dilemma? Does he feel that it would be too much for him to double as the President and as a candidate of one of the parties in 2003? What would be his dealings with the other parties?

This is one reason why Nigeria should give thought to what is or should be done? This is the main reason why President Obasanjo should think about how to be a candidate and continue as the President and guarantee a level playing field for other candidates. What would the present President do while continuing as the Candidate of a Political Party? Before I address this question let me identify some issues in the “political atmospherics”:

1. Demands of various Interest Groups;

2. General Fears over ‘Self-Succession”

3. Challengers to Obasanjo;

4. Genuine fear if Self-Succession fails;

5. Fears over the One Party dominance turning into a one-man rule.

Let us take first, the demands of various interest groups that lead to many of them wanting to produce the President in 2003.

1. NIGERIA, A COUNTRY WHERE EVERY ONE IS A PRESIDENT

Nigeria is a society where many groups believe that they have a right to produce the next President. This ought to make the need for a level playing field mandatory for the government of President Obasanjo. Yes the Constitution of 1999 that was forced on the country without the input of the Nigerian people could not make provision for allaying the fears of Nigerians about “self-succession”. If Nigerians were to be allowed to evolve a constitution for themselves, I am sure that these fears would have been taken care of in the light of the 1964 and 1983 episodes. This is the situation in Nigeria today.

Nigerians must be asking themselves some pertinent questions. Can you imagine that in Nigeria in preparation for the 2003, many ethnic or zonal organizations as distinct from the constitutionally recognized political parties are laying claim to the Presidency?

We know the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Afenifere and the Ohaneze and what they represent. When they make their demands about who should be President, do they recognize the six political parties? In the midst of these is INEC. Could one envy INEC?

The minorities in the south and in the north that do not fit into the tripod also have their notion as to who should be president of Nigeria. How do they relate to the six political parties?

Nigeria is faced with the question of how all these ethnic, regional and religious could funnel their claims through the electoral process.

For example, when the Ohaneze Secretary-General, Professor Ben Nwabueze says that the N’Igbo Presidency Project is an irrevocable commitment of the Ndi Igbo, what message is he communicating to the Nigerian people? Would the Igbo leaders say whether their ambition would be through the PDP or any of the political parties? At the moment, there are over six Igbo candidates from all political parties. How are the various Igbo candidates going to sort themselves out within the PDP and between the PDP and other parties? How would they build a consensus around one candidate and one party? How are the various Igbo leaders going to convince the country that the need for an Igbo President has actually arisen?

When some northern leaders say that the Presidency would go back to the north, what do they mean? They do not say how it would be done. Would the northern political leaders pursue their ambition through the auspices of a political party? Which party? Which of the four political parties that the north at the moment dominates would the northern political leaders want to use?

When Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia called a meeting of some politicians from Edo and Delta States under the auspices of the old Midwestern Region to plot for a political relevance for the old Midwestern Region what political instrument did he have in mind? His people knew him to be a foundation member of the PDP and some of the attendees at the meeting also were members of the PDP. What was Dr. Ogbemudia telling his people when he said that the South-South are in accord with the Southeast on the production of the President in 2003? One does not know in what capacity he is talking to his fellow Bendelites. What instruments would such an alliance use?

There are two facts of political life and of the Constitution and law as we know it that we should appreciate.

1. One that the process of getting to power is through the electoral process.

2. Two, that only the political parties can sponsor candidates for an election.

One is wondering how the claims and counter-claims of various groups Arewa, Ohaneze, Afenifere, the South-south etc. would be pursued outside the political party process? This is a source of concern to me and I am sure to all of you.

It is obvious today that after the President announced his plan to seek a second term, some Nigerians called it Abacha’s “self-succession” as if it would be done with out an election. The fear is not that “self-succession” is unconstitutional or that it is undemocratic. The fear is that some Nigerians believe that the process from the pre-Election Day to the Election Day and after would be fixed to yield the predetermined end that was attributed to one of the key aides to the President that “there is no vacancy in Aso Rock in 2003”. That predetermined end is the election the current political class. “No Vacancy in Aso Rock” that is also repeated in many States Capitals in respect of the Governors further complicates the “political atmospherics”. This is an added reason for a rethink of the problem. Another area related to the “political atmospherics” are the general and specific fears about “self-succession” from Nigerian past experience

2. FEARS ABOUT “SELF-SUCCESSION” ORGANIZED BY OBASANJO

I was not surprised that the President expressed this fear of some Nigerians when he said that some Nigerians are asking, “What does Obasanjo want again?” Those who raised this fear are of three kinds.

One, there are some Nigerians who genuinely believe that a President should go round. Consequently, one term of four years would be enough for any group in Nigeria of 250 ethnic nationalities. The Nigeria’s talk of rotation, zoning and power shift flows from this feeling. They say these things without the political parties. Is there a law that would mandate all the six political parties to nominate the Presidential candidates from one region, zone, or ethnic group?

What we note is that all the various accusations of President’s favoritism shown to the Yorubas by the north and Igbo are too loud for the President to ignore at his peril. They are responsible for the demand that the office of the President should go elsewhere. The NdIgbo do not want one group this time the Yoruba to produce the President for eight years. Their leaders are on record as saying so since 1993. There is a new reason why the NdIgbo wants to produce a President in 2003. It is good for the personality of the Igbo man and woman that they too can give birth to a President like other two members of the majority ethnic nationalities, the Hausa and the Yoruba. The Igbo leaders see the Igbo left out of the tripod. Is Nigeria just made up of the tripod? Can’t Nigerian politics go beyond the tripod? President Obasanjo treatment of the south-south since he came to power is giving some charlatans in the Niger-Delta the opportunity to look for a Messiah from somewhere or even produce a President of their own.

Two, there are those who genuinely initiated the emergence of President Obasanjo for one and only one reason alone. They thought that he would rule as a non-partisan person for a period of one term of four or so years to serve as a “bridge’ between the past misrule of the military and the future democratic order. I belong to this class of Nigerians who believed and thought that President Obasanjo’s only job in 1999 was to spend a term of five or six years and lay a sound democratic foundation for Nigeria. He should have appreciated there were fundamental issues arising from the issues in the annulment that should have been tackled since 1999. How he does it was academic. He should have initiated a mechanism that would have fundamentally restructured the country to make Nigeria a balanced federal system. He did not. Was it the north that said that he should not do it? Was it his belief that his assumption of office constituted a solution to the lingering political problems since 1993?

I do not therefore advocate “self-succession” in Nigeria for now. I would have thought that “Self-succession” for and by President Obasanjo should have been abandoned for two reasons.

1. President Obasanjo and his handlers should appreciate the politics of ethnicity and religion that would be involved in his bid to fight to succeed himself.

2. President Obasanjo and his handlers ought to or should appreciate that he, not being a politician, like President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya in 1992 and 1997 would not be able to handle the “politics of self-succession” in an ethnically divided society.

President arap Moi is a master in the art of ethnic politics. I was a witness to how President arap Moi performed in 1992 being a member of the US organized International Observer team. He used ethnicity effectively to cling to power in the 1992 multi-party election. He outsmarted the domestic monitors and the international observers that wanted to use the election to throw him out of power. The election and the involvement of domestic monitors and international observers legitimized the crafty politician. With just about 36% of the votes, President Arap Moi was able to survive the domestic and international plot to get rid of him. He had his ethnic base; he built coalition with small groups and he divided others.

Is President Obasanjo planning to do what President arap Moi did in 1992 and 1997? Can he? How is he going to do it? Specifically one could ask if he would be able to build his ethnic base, the Yoruba that rejected him in 1999? This will be an issue that we will still have to wait and see.

For the Kenya election see D. Foeken and T. Diert “Of Ethnicity, Manipulation and Observation: the 1992 and 1997 Elections in Kenya” in Jon Abbink and Gerti Hesseling Ed. Election Observation and Democratization in Africa (New York, St. Martins 2000) pp. 122-149),

Since President Obasanjo announced his bid for a second term, we are beginning to see the manifestations of these two issues today. Does the President know that these could derail the nascent democracy?

Three, the advocates of one term from the north argue that when they invited him to be the President, they wanted him to be another notion of a “bridge”. They wanted him to stay for one term. Within that period, the Yorubas and in fact, Egba people (Chief MKO Abiola’s home) who felt aggrieved by the June 12 would have forgotten the injustice of the past. This group believes that at the end of the first term, the north would be allowed to compete for the post at the end of the one term. Whatever one may say today, there was an understanding between Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and certain elements in the north at the time Chief Obasanjo was approached to change his mind.

On Chief Obasanjo’s frame of mind at the time he was approached, we should consider three issues.

One it was this group that made him change his mind about politics after his release from Abacha’s Gulag. He originally told the Nigerian people and the world that he was not interested in an elective public life after his release from Abacha’s Gulag.

Two it was true that one of the conditions for agreeing to be the Presidential candidate on the ticket of the northern clique in 1998 was that he would stay for one term, the length was unknown.

Three it was true that this same pact was used in 1976 and Chief Obasanjo knows so. This was when the northern political generals made it possible for him to be the successor to the slain military ruler from the north in February 1976. One would recall this was on the condition that he would not sit tight and would hand over to a northerner.

These three issues are at the root of the politics of presidential election in the north. From what I knew as the real reason for the annulment of June 12, Chief Obasanjo was seen as a solution to the fears of the north. They did not want an “autonomous southerner” i.e. a southerner that would be independent of the north because he is dependent on his people for coming to office. To them Chief Obasanjo was a leader from the south that they could trust.

They could trust NOT Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the distant past and Dr. Alex Ekwueme and Chief Olu Falae in the immediate past. They were not the ideal southerners from the south that the north could support.

They found Chief Obasanjo as one who would not be dependent on the support of his people from his past. They thought that by making him the President just as they did in 1976, President Obasanjo would implement the pact or understanding between him and the northern leaders in 2003. It is true that they were expecting him to act the same way as he did in 1979. He did not do anything that upset their dominance in Nigerian politics; in fact, he enhanced it. Most importantly, he did not sit tight in 1979. They thought that he would not seek a second term when they convinced him to be the candidate in 1998/99.

It was the Kano Senator-elect, Senator Ibrahim Kura Mohammed who on March 2, 1999 in the Post Express first told the Nigerian people and the international community of the pact. This was immediately after the Presidential election. Apparently to put the minds of the apprehensive northerners at rest, he made a public statement that the north and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo reached a deal in 1998 on tenure. According to Senator Ibrahim Kura Mohammed, “General Obasanjo promised to serve for only one term”. He went on with the blackmail, "that he would honor his pledge as he did in 1976”.

This press statement was in the Nigerian newspaper, the Post Express of March 2, 1999. It was posted in the WWW. Incidentally no Nigerian took notice of this public disclosure. I was surprised.

When I read it, I raised pertinent questions in my essay and lectures after the election. I asked the President to tell the Nigerians outside the north what he actually agreed with the sponsors. I never got answers until the brother-in-law of General Babangida (Chief Sunny Okogwu) came on the air to say what the “Pact” contained.

According to Chief Okogwu, under the pact, President Obasanjo was to hand over to an N’Igbo President in 2003. It would appear that some Igbo leaders believe this order of succession even though they were not party to the deal. These Igbo leaders rightly or wrongly approach the 2003 from the standpoint that President Obasanjo has been trying to deny the Igbo what is rightly theirs according to the pact. This tends to contradict the rampart being guarded and guided by the north of a permanent northern rule of Nigeria.

What shocked me and I am sure those who believe in the efficacy of political parties was that there was no mention of political parties in the discussion of pact. There seems to be a tacit understanding that Nigeria was under a one party rule. Let us take another aspect of the “political atmospherics” that has to do with the sources of challengers to President Obasanjo.

3. SOURCES OF CHALLENGERS TO PRESIDENT OBASANJO

Whatever the reasons President Obasanjo might have in his decision to re-contest, he should appreciate the sources of competitors for the Presidency. Let me name some.

One, there are elements in the north that would want to chase President Obasanjo out through the election process on the premise that he reneged on the original deal to stay for one term. This group is from the PDP. How the group is planning to do this is not made clear.

Two, there are others in the north who would want to base their challenge to President Obasanjo on the premise that President Obasanjo “betrayed the trust of the north”. Again this group is planning to operate through another political party outside the PDP such as the ANPP, UNPP and NDP.

Three, there are others in the north who would want to cash in on the Sharia issue by the faithful. They would want to campaign for candidates who would ensure that Sharia forms an integral part of the federal judiciary. The party or parties that would be used have not been made clear. Those who are rallying round certain candidate are of this political persuasion.

Four, there are other candidates who genuinely believe that President Obasanjo does not deserve a second term from his record since 1999 and would want to offer their vision for the Nigerian people to evaluate. These one would find from the PDP and outside the PDP.

Five, there are those in the southeast (N’Igbo) and in the south-south (minorities) that supported President Obasanjo in 1999 who now come to the conclusion that President Obasanjo marginalized them since 1999. They feel that another four years of President Obasanjo would be disastrous to their people. For the solution their leaders are torn between those who want to renegotiate a deal with President Obasanjo and support him in 2003 and those who want to work with others in the country to push him out in 2003. Again all these debates are carried out outside of the known political parties.

Six, there are many groups in the south-south that wants one thing or the other. All these groups do not seem to have an agenda. I have said enough on this matter that I would rather allow readers to consult the two part essay I wrote on the developments in the old Midwest called the Bendel Consultative Committee (BCC).

Seven, there is the unknown arising from the ghost of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. There is no week that his name is not mentioned as a candidate and challenger to President Obasanjo even though he seriously denied that he would ever challenge Obasanjo as long as he is a candidate.

Eight, there is the fluid situation created by the fact of six or more political parties. Is Nigeria going to have six candidates at all levels? This is a frightening proposition?

The President should understand that in order to make the 2003 contest a credible affair with him as a Presidential candidate in the context of perceived fears over “self-succession”, something would have to be done. It must start with the person of the President as a candidate. President Obasanjo as a candidate would not be able to provide a level playing field to all candidates in 2003. At the moment he is the only viable candidate with the best chances of winning the 2003 election. But with the fixed positions assumed by his challengers, would he allow for a level playing field? Would he want his challengers to see him as a winner through a free and fair procedure? This will be developed further later. Another aspect of the “political atmospherics” has to do with the unknown about “self-succession.”

4. GENUINE AND REAL FEARS OVER “SELF-SUCCESSION”IF IT FAILS?

There is a genuine fear in Nigeria that “self-succession” had never ended well from the two cases in the past. Nigerians of my generation know that “self-succession” had led to political disaster and the collapse of the democratic order in the past. The two examples in Nigerian history that ended in political disaster are the 1964 Federal Elections and the 1983 Presidential election. Those who are managing President Obasanjo have personal and selfish reason to argue that President Obasanjo’s “self-succession” would not be like the ones of 1964 and 1983. They should not experiment with the future of Nigeria. They do not mean the President well and they do not mean the country well.

CRITICAL ISSUE RAISED BY AMBASSADOR JUBRIL AMINU

It was Ambassador Jubril Aminu, the Nigerian Ambassador to the US who came up with an angle that I never thought of before when I raised alarm about imminent crisis of “self-succession” in my essay in November 2001. Ambassador Aminu is an astute politician with a knack for appreciating the political dynamics in the North since I knew him as the President of NPC Club at the University of Ibadan. I was surprised that he was speaking under the auspices of the ANPP Governor of Gombe even though on a private visit to call for more Presidential candidates. Would these be from PDP or from the ANPP? Why did he not publicly endorse the candidature of President Obasanjo? He did not also deny his presidential ambition when asked.

What struck me in his analysis of the 2003 was the question he posed. Suppose the election does not go well, what would the President do? He made a distinction between what the military could and would do and what civilian who is a candidate could not do if an election failed.

May I also add what should be inferred from Ambassador Aminu’s poser, which is what would the various interest groups, especially the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Ohaneze NdIgbo do? I am scared! Let me pose some pertinent questions from Ambassador Aminu million dollar question:

What would President Obasanjo do if he is the beneficiary of the disputed and contentious election?
Can President Obasanjo behave like the military, cancel the election and do it again using the same instrument used that produced the disputed results?
Would President Obasanjo’s action be accepted and how would he enforce it?
Would President Obasanjo’s assumption of office on the basis of the disputed election be accepted by those who are disputing the election?

Ambassador Aminu answered his poser thus: "If the 2003 election were to be conducted by a military government and there is trouble, cancellation will be the only option and that government will conduct another election." He added “that is not possible mow”. (See Jubril Aminu, “My fears over 2003 Polls” in This Day July 25, 2002).

The question that Ambassador Aminu was asking is whether President Obasanjo who might have been declared the winner would behave like the “winners” of 1964 and 1983 who asked his opponents to go to Court? Or maybe in President’s style of dealing with opponents, he would tell them to go to hell. Of course, they are going to say NO to Obasanjo’s court! Talking seriously one could ask:

1. Would the opponents go to the Court?

2. Would President Obasanjo now President-elect cancel the election?

3. Would President Obasanjo as the winner of the disputed election resign as the President? And if he does, who would take his place in the interim?

4. Would President-elect as the President be able to persuade Nigerians to go back to the poll again? Would he still be a candidate and under what rule and instrument?

5. What would be the attitude of Nigerians supporting those who felt cheated in the election?

6. What would be the attitude of the military?

7. What would be the attitude of the international community?

With the experience of past political leaders with the Court recently, Nigerians opposed to the result in 2003 are not likely to take to the Court. The past conduct of the Court would warn the people disputing the election in 2003 would resolve that the Court would not be an option in a fundamental issue.

To go the Court means that one accepts that the Court could remedy a badly flawed process that was designed from the beginning to yield the disputed result. If therefore the various contenders refuse to go to Court and at the same time refuse the outcome of the election, how would President Obasanjo as the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria handle the matter? How would his method be different from that of Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Alhaji Shehu Shagari that failed in 1964 and 1983 respectively? Put differently, why does President with no ethnic base feel that he would succeed in 2003 when the former leaders with ethnic and regional base failed in the past?

Would the military allow a disputed election to persist? What would be the attitude of the military if the country were falling apart because of the election? Would the military intervene to save the union from collapse and deal with the election later? Maybe the military might find the option of a Sovereign National Conference then? Maybe the military might once at last tackle the issue of fundamental restructuring of the Federation that the civilian failed to achieve since 1960?

It is from hindsight that Nigerians are raising questions about the plan of the current leaders of the PDP. They point to all the signs today that tend to remind one of the same signs leading to these two elections in 1964 and 1983. They also point to the political disaster that followed. This is where President Obasanjo as a candidate and as the President of Nigeria should take some actions and take some fundamental action on his part in 2003.

This was why I first raised the question about my fear about the 2003 in a paper that I delivered at the Houston Conference of the African Studies Association in October 2001. I expressed then that President Obasanjo as a candidate would not be able to deliver a free and fair election in 2003. I followed this with a five-part essay on the question whether the President Obasanjo could be trusted with an election in which he is also a candidate? I answered this question in the negative and I made suggestions as to what should be done. I argued for the internationalization of the Nigerian 2003 election. Nigerians might resist this as savoring of a colonial mentality. Definitely President Obasanjo and the PDP cannot be trusted to be organizers and candidates at the same time and be believed by Nigerians. This has nothing to do with the person of President Obasanjo.

One would recall that I dealt with his feats in the past in 1970, 1976, 1979 and 1999 and pleaded for him to add a successful transfer of power from civilian to civilian in 2003 to his legacy as the “fifth feat”. A flawed “Self-Succession” would dent this lofty record.

5. ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE IS IMMINENT AND FRIGHTENING

President Obasanjo is a good man but he is surrounded by Nigerians from their past who do not believe in a multi-party democracy. They do not want a free and fair election and do not believe that the President or the PDP could lose. The President might be a democracy loving person from 1999, but those around him are believers in a one party regime, who reminded Nigerians that there would be no vacancy in the Presidential Villa in 2003. President Obasanjo who never distanced himself from this view should from 2002 free himself from his handlers. He should do everything to avoid the emergence of a one party dominance of an artificial nature. Maybe one should ask the President some questions.

Does President know that a one party rule will develop into a one-man rule in Nigeria?

1. Does the President know that a one-man rule would be dependent on the armed forces as we are beginning to experience in Nigeria today?

2. Does he know that a one-man rule or a one party rule would eventually lose touch with reality?

3. Does the President know that with little protest, the one party regime would become too unduly dependent on security agents?

4. Does the President know that a one-man rule that is too dependent on the military would eventually lead to the eventual collapse of the democratic order?

I am glad that the President is aware of the danger in a disputed election. That was why in announcing his intention to seek a second term, he alerted the Nigerian people and the international community that there is a clear and present danger and expressed it as follows: "The general apprehension is because of the high record of failure with most previous civilian-to-civilian electoral transitions. We have witnessed that it is this point of transition that our electoral processes are tested to the limit.

What President Obasanjo should appreciate is not just to raise these issues and fears but one would be asking, what he plans to do about them? Now that the President is aware of the fears of Nigeria, one would hope that he would be willing to support my advocacy that would take him out of contention and build “friends” for the election from home and abroad.

I am referring to President Obasanjo’s statement of advise as follows: " We must never try to bend the rules; if we resort to such dishonorable tactics, the process would no longer be free and fair and the results would neither be respected nor acceptable here at home and abroad.

The ascent is “the result that would be respected and accepted at home and abroad”. This is at the root of credibility. Nigerians are already noticing the bending of the rules from the actions of the President.

Nigerians are apprehensive; hence they are asking some pertinent questions such as:

(a) Should the current President be allowed to preside over the election? He should not be, if he is a candidate.

(b) Can the other candidates trust President Obasanjo as a candidate to preside over a free and fair election? Nothing that this administration had so far done will make other candidates trust him. Nigerians do not believe that President Obasanjo could be trusted to provide a level playing for all.

SOLUTION: FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD ADOPT “BANGLADESH FORMULA”

Nigeria should benefit from other countries. I gave much thought to the issue of having a level playing field for all political parties and candidate. The closest example to what Nigeria needs at this time to provide for a level playing field for all candidates within the political parties and between the political parties is the practice in Bangladesh that was adopted as the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1991.

What is unique in this experiment was that it was the choosing of all the political parties in Bangladesh. The trouble with Nigeria is that the leaders of political parties do not see their future as inextricably bound in a democratic order.

What I found in the conduct of the Bangladesh politicians has no parallel in the Commonwealth. I am still to see the Bangladesh Constitutional innovation replicated anywhere in the Commonwealth. This is what the Commonwealth Heads of State and Government should have been made mandatory for all African countries instead of the toothless Harare Declaration of 1991. What Rawlins and Biya did in Ghana and in Cameroon respectively in the name of election and self-succession election was not credible. If they were to subject themselves to a neutral agency, their respective elections would have yielded different result. This was what should have been demanded by the international community in Zimbabwe. It should be demanded in Nigeria.

This is an opportunity for the Nigerian political class if they are committed to democratic election. They should behave like the Bangladesh politicians adopt a variant of the Bangladesh Formula.

Under this amendment, the holding of general election is under a NEUTRAL, NON-PARTY CARETAKER GOVERNMENT. Under this system in addition to guaranteeing a level playing field for all political parties and candidates, for the voter, his or her vote is made to be his or her voice. As it is described in the information sheet in the WWW on Bangladesh, "Through this system the people of Bangladesh got back their lost right to vote freely and independently without the pressures of the reigning government."

This is what we need in Nigeria today. We want to be able to say that the Nigerian voters for the first time in an election organized under the civilian era shall have got their lost right. The federal or State might would be removed and would not be able to intimidate the voters.

The voters would for the first time be free to judge the records of the former office holders with the contenders. Put simply, President Obasanjo would have an opportunity to showcase his achievements in the past four years. Those challenging him would also have opportunities to challenge the President’s claims and sell themselves. The voters as the KING would be the arbiters.

At the State level, the Governors would also have the opportunity parade with what they did in four years as the basis for asking for a second term. Their challengers should also be ready to go to the people their plan. The voters will be the judges.

For the Senators and others, they would also have to go back to their constituencies and face their challengers.

All the elected officials will have to vacate their official quarters and be like all other candidates. They should also surrender the official vehicles. All the state security details not available to others would also be denied former office holders.

THE TWO PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING BANGLADESH FORMULA

Nigeria should adopt the Bangladesh Formula or a variant of it. It is not the specific of the Bangladesh Formula that we need. What is critical are the two principles behind the Formula.

One that the party in power or the government in power should NOT be entrusted with the organization of election while in office.

Two, that election should be entrusted to a neutral body that would provide or guarantee a level playing field for all the political parties.

How do we apply these principles to Nigeria? Let me make some suggestions.

APPLICATION OF THE “BANGLADESH FORMULA”

What would be required is that President Obasanjo should take himself out of the instrument for managing the election. It is a pity that he is not behaving according to what he genuinely felt when he came to office in 1999.

TWO OPTIONS FOR PRESIDENT OBASANJO

A. The first option is that of one term at the end of which the Bangladesh Formula should take effect. From 1999, it was President Obasanjo’s view that the tenure of the President should be one term or five or six years. This still remains a viable option for him and the country.

President Obasanjo tried to adhere to the pact between him and his sponsors by wanting to serve for one term. The way he wanted to achieve this was when he tried to amend the 1999 Constitution that would have given him an extra one or two years as part of the review of the Constitution. This could have been achieved through a National Conference. But he did not like the idea of a National Conference and the method he devised called Presidential Review Committee and the Zonal Constitutional Conferences failed disastrously and could not yield what he genuinely wanted.

Unfortunately, President Obasanjo must have been misled to think that the country needed him for eight years. What he genuinely wanted initially could not be communicated to the Nigerian people. He should have done this directly with the Nigerian people. Instead he worked through proxies. Even his Special Political Adviser, Dr. Chukwu-Emeka Ezeife said it many times that the 2003 election was not feasible and pleaded with Nigerians for an extension of the President’s term of office to six years. What stops the President from saying so to the Nigerian people that he would not want to "succeed” himself in an election in 2003?

Is an extension of the four-year term still an option? I believe so; it is an option in view of the serious problems facing the administration of the pre-Election Day activities. We should not be a victim to the Constitution that has many problems. After all that have been happening to the Local Government are not provided for in the Constitution. If we cancel the election to the local councils, we could cancel the 2003 if the self-succession is to be abandoned.

B. Failure, which the President and all elected officers at all levels of government should formally end their term in 2003 and vacate office. This applies to both the elective arms of government, the Executive and Legislature. It also applies to all political appointees.

President Obasanjo and the elected officials are free to seek the renomination of their parties. To this extent they would have to face their challengers within their parties on a level playing field involving other competitors.

They are free to seek the votes of in their constituencies like other candidates.

What we should note is that the office holders are in fact at an advantage over their challengers. They have something to sell as their accomplishments. They have a better name recognition.

WHO SHOULD RUN THE AFFAIR OF STATE UNDER THE EXPERIMENT?

Appointed to their places are Caretaker Administrations in Abuja and in 36 States. The Caretaker Administration will continue with routine administration in addition to the critical function of organizing election at all levels.

In Bangladesh, the tenure of the Caretaker Administration is three months. Because of the enormous problems that may face this innovation in Nigeria, I am proposing that the tenure of the Caretaker Administration in Nigeria should not be more than six months after 2003.

The Independent National Electoral Commission could continue as it is. There is nothing wrong with the persons of the Members of the Commission. What people complain about is the constitutional relation between INEC and the President that is also a candidate for the 2003. If the President is no longer a candidate while in office that would remove whatever control the President exercises over the INEC in the performance of its functions.

The Caretaker Administration should direct INEC to conduct election beginning with the voters’ registration and the scheduling of elections.

The schedule of elections should be as follows:

State Level:

State Assembly to be followed after a week by the election of the Governors

Federal Level.

House of Representatives and Senate. This will be followed by the election of the President.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL ETHNIC GROUPS

The level playing field should not only apply to the political parties and candidates in their competition. It should also apply to all the ethnic groups in the country. They should be free to compete for any office as many times as they like. Interest groups within political parties and across political parties should be able to sharpen their tools and apply the rules of interplay of democratic forces to get to power. This is my solution to the cry over being shut out of power that political leaders of the southeast and south-south complain about.

The Caretaker Administration should allow all political parties to contest all the elections. The political parties should be open to all Nigerians and groups. Consequently the parties should not get involved in the issue of zone or region that should produce the President. All zones or groups should be free to nominate any candidate. Parties should be allowed to resolve the issue of whose turn through the interplay of political forces and not to be dictated by anybody.

The Caretaker Administration should fund domestic monitors and accredit International Observers.

The Caretaker Administration should install the elected President who in turn would inaugurate the National Assembly.

At the State level, the Caretaker Administration will swear in the Governor who would in turn inaugurate the State Assembly.

COMPOSITION

I am leaving this to the last. In Bangladesh, its composition is drawn from the list of retired Justices of the Appellate Division and it is headed by the last retired Chief Justice.

My suggestion at the Federal level in Nigeria is that it should be headed by the last retired Chief Justice of Nigeria. Members should include the Vice Chancellors of Federal Universities and all the Service Chiefs (Army, Air Force, Navy and Police).

At the State level, the caretaker Administration should be headed by the last retired Chief Judge. Membership should include the Vice Chancellor of the State University, Heads of College of Education and Polytechnic.

CONCLUSION

To recap, let me remind you of the issue before us, how to make the election of 2003 not only free and fair but also credible. There are three issues that we should consider.

One, that there must be a redefinition of election as consisting of the entire process that has three parts: the pre-Election Day activities, the Election Day activities and the post-Election Day activities. What is involved at each state could be identified as follows:

The Pre-Election Day Activities:

1. The Electoral Laws and Regulations;

2. The Composition of the Electoral Commission;

3. The Registration of Political parties;

4. The Registration of Candidates;

5. The Registration of Voters;

6. The Voter Education;

7. The Campaign Regulation;

8. The Rules Covering the Media;

9. The Rules governing the Police and other Security organs.

The Election Day Activities;

1. The Security of the Ballot Box;

2. The Security of the Voters;

3. The Secrecy of the Voting procedure;

4. The Openness of the Procedure;

5. The Size of the Voters in a Polling Station;

6. The Number of Polling Stations.

The Post-Election Day Activities.

1. The Counting process;

2. The Security of the Vote;

3. The Freedom of the Voter;

4. The Announcement of the Result;

5. The Procedure for Filing Complaints;

6. The Swearing in of the winner; and

7. The Formation of Government.

Two, that there must be a conscious effort to build friends for the entire process from home and abroad. The situation in Nigeria ought to be appreciated by Nigerian political class that the entire process should be monitored from the pre-election activities. We have seen what is happening with the voters’ registration, the use of ID card for the election, the funding of the INEC, the lack of genuine Electoral law, the politics of party registration and the schedule of elections from local government to the national level. All these should be farmed out to a neutral body. It is obvious that the President or the National Assembly have failed the country. That the President had to set up a sixteen-, man committee to advise him on voters’ registration and the ID card is an admission that he had failed because he is a candidate. It should be obvious to him and the political class that with what is happening in Nigeria since December 2001 with the way the Electoral law was approached and the local government issue was handled that 2003 would be an invitation to chaos. Maybe that chaos would lead the country to a Sovereign National Conference.

Three, that the “political atmospherics” at the moment manifests itself in the following ways:

the “demands of interest groups”;
the “specific fears over self-succession”;
the “challenges to the candidature of Obasanjo”;
the “genuine fear, if the self-succession” under Obasanjo should fail”; and
the “danger over of one-party/one-man rule” and over-dependence on the military for survival.

The solution is a political atmospherics that guarantees a level playing field for the office holders as well as for the challengers.

For those who are apprehensive about the 2003, this is your opportunity to push for a redefinition of the election as the entire process, to agitate for friends for the entire process and to push for a level playing field. This is the opportunity for the aspirants in all the political parties and for the political parties in all the races in 2003.