Jega: Not A Serious Professor Of Political Science And Electoral Systems

By

Jibo Nura

jibonura@yahoo.com

I have said it times without number that Attahiru Jega is a Professor of Political Science in theory. He is at best a local professor of Political Science that house-train his entire professorial endeavour in Mambayya by refusing to internationalize. He is not ready to learn from his past mistakes or take a cue from his international colleagues such as Andrew Reynolds who as an international Professor of politics, election systems and conflict in Africa, has highlighted the dangers of failed elections and election postponements. Andrew believes that when elections in a democratizing state do not work well, the architecture of democracy has no foundation to stand on. He gave vivid graphical examples of African countries that failed to conduct elections within the stipulated time.

For instance, in the last decade, Lesotho, Kenya, and Zimbabwe have exemplified three ways in which postponed and failed elections have damaged the basis of the democratic system. The Lesotho elections of 1998, despite a bizarre result were not won and lost by fraud, but failed because the electoral system produced an untenable exclusion of all other voices beyond the government. In Kenya multi-party elections have become increasingly delegitimized since 1992. The long-standing malapportionment of seats to the parliamentary districts, combined with the proliferation of fraudulent practices in Presidential elections, precipitated a breakdown of law and order and inter-ethnic peace in the aftermath of the disputed 2007 elections.

These are some of the dangers of blind investment in election postponement and maneuverability. Only the practical political science professors of international standing like late Ali A. Mazrui, late Sabo Bako and Abegurin of Howard University understand the implication(s) of election suspension, but not Attahiru Jega. Because all his professorial enterprise ended up at Mambayya House and Bayero University Kano.

I have read virtually all his writings on political science. The only close to practical, but highly theoretical was a conglomeration of articles that he collated and edited and published to get academic promotion. He doesn’t know that we already know what the PDP and its henchmen are trying to do on election postponement is the Zimbabwean example, which is very dangerous and more stereotypical case where its electoral system has been rigged in a variety of ways to stop the opposition from gaining a foothold, thus making it impos­sible for them to receive the majority. Initially, the electoral system was used to curtail political opposition: Mugabe switched from proportional representation to first past the post (FPTP) and in the 1990s, ZANU-PF managed to wrap up almost every seat in parliament. However, when the Movement for Democratic Change harnessed urban Shona votes alongside their Ndebele core from 2000 onward, they were able to break through the FPTP barrier. This led the ZANU state apparatus to turn to a more systematic program of political intimidation, harassment, murder and electoral manipulation.

This was almost the same scenario of 2011 Presidential elections in Nigeria where Jega came out and told the whole world that he was ever ready to conduct the polls a day to election. But  what happened the next day was a very good case study for political science students that’re interested in reading the dribble game of electoral institutions such as Jega’s INEC. Even Jega himself was shocked, because he was reduced to nothing by Nigerian politicians. When he was busy disturbing us in the media about the digital data capture (DDC) machines, I told my friend, an Attorney at Laws that I doubt very much if Jega has an understanding of ICT besides political science theories of the old Benin Republic and Borno Empire.  

The reality on ground about this election postponement hullabaloo is that the election postponement debacle has just ended in a deadlock as the 21 Resident Electoral Commissioners constituting the majority rejected in harsh terms the shift and insisted that if the election will be extended, Jega must extract a commitment from the Presidency and Security Agencies that there will be no further shift in goalpost if the extension is approved.

The cardinal question here is: what constitutional or electoral law power has the ruling Party, PDP and its cronies to put Jega under duress to suspend the February 14 Presidential election?

As Andrew noted, elections are high stakes games (even when democracy is inchoate) and the rules of the game are the election system. Firm electoral system design is a crucial vari­able in democratic stability because it is the fault line where the inclusion of political parties and marginalized communities is either assured or defeated.

It is only a fool that can allow self to be bamboozled twice if beaten once and for the second time and refused to shy away from another defeat.

Jibo Nura, Public Commentator, Jigawa, Nigeria.