The FEC And The Electoral Reforms Report

The FEC And The Electoral Reforms Report: The People’s Expectations

Benedict Okereke

He who pays the piper dictates the tune. And by extrapolation: he who appoints the piper dictates the tune. The piper can hardly be seen by his listeners to be fully independent of he who pays or appoints him. But if he who pays or appoints the piper for any reasons becomes uninterested in the tunes, or for some constraints, cannot influence the piper’s choice of tunes, the piper churns out his tunes at the behest of the listening public. In the arena of entertainment or commerce we may not be able to find the ‘he’ who pays or appoints the bagpiper without dictating the tunes, but in the arena of government, we can.

Nigeria’s rancorous electoral processes have abundantly weighed down on the nation’s development. We need to take measures, however unprecedented, to produce an electoral process that at every election brings out, without bitterness and rancour, the visionary leaders abundant in our midst.

The nation's president is a politician, he normally belongs to a political party, if he is meant to appoint the chairman of the nation's electoral commission, others outside the president’s camp can never see the chairman he appoints as capable of exercising actions independent of the president and his men. On the other hand, the men and women of the judiciary do not take part in partisan politics, therefore, having the judiciary undertake the appointment of the electoral commission’s chairman subject to his confirmation by the Senate – a branch of the legislative arm of government - must this time, resuscitate the people’s confidence in the electoral commission, and by extension, the electoral process and those it propels to leadership positions. The Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reforms Committee report justifies this position.

President Umaru Yar' Adua who did set up the electoral reforms commission can not afford to allow its report to flounder this way. He may have good intentions to bestow a credible electoral process upon Nigeria so long as he does not allow himself to be taken over by ambivalence.

One fact must be highlighted here: left alone, president Yar’Adua may not be willing to interfere with the job of the electoral commission’s chairman which he inherited or appointed, but it is obvious that election losers and members of the opposition parties must refuse to accept the selflessness and non-partisan stance of the president, or the sincerity or independence of the commission’s chairman in the circumstance. Again, must we expect the successors of President Yar'Adua to, like him, be inclined to a policy of non interference in the activities of their inherited or appointed electoral commission’s chairmen?

The most important of the recommendations of the Electoral Reforms Commission is that which stipulated that the electoral commission’s chairman be nominated by a panel of the judicial arm of government. That singular recommendation is for the good of Nigeria. It is no use making any imputation of rivalry between the executive and the judicial arms of government regarding this recommendation. The commission’s men and women are altruistic and patriotic.

Usually the buck stops on the table of the electoral commission's chairman when election matters are on the table, therefore, to what degree he is seen by the politicians and the electorate to be independent of external meddlers determines the credibility of any elections conducted by the commission. The president being a politician and a member of a political party must always be seen to be protecting the interests of his political party; therefore, when the electoral commission’s chairman is appointed by the president, both the electorate and the politicians, more so, those from the opposition camps, automatically develop a lack of confidence in the electoral system. We all know what follows such a development.

In the first paragraph of this essay, the judiciary can to a great extent represent the uninterested, or, better said, the neutral ‘he’ who appoints the piper. This is among the reasons why the majority of the population in Nigeria is rooting for the judicial arm of the government to nominate the electoral commission’s chairman. Nigerians do not expect the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to give them something less. For elections to be seen to be credible in contemporary Nigeria, the electoral commission must be seen by the majority of the population to be headed by a neutral umpire. Any thing short of that is retaining the status quo.

The time has come to end the ‘do-or-die’ election syndrome which has characterised most of our electoral processes. The time has come for us to realise that a credible electoral process is among the most potent of remedies for Nigeria’s numerous afflictions. This is another defining moment for Nigeria, another attempt to salvage the country from the forces of attrition.