Dr. Abubakar Saddique Mohammed of the
Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, Zaria said this at a one-day dialogue session with key stakeholders organized by the International Press Centre (IPC,) Kaduna with support from European Union.
According to him, the act of rigging which leads to failed elections has caused Nigerians to lose trust in the ability of the Electoral Management Board to hold free and credible elections, especially in the area of transmitting results.
He noted that “years after military rule, one would think that civilians and political leaders have learned their lesson but sadly, it is not the case and the mistakes of the past elections are repeated over and over again.”
He said that every institution, organization, party, and even citizen is guilty of evil electoral practices, especially in the area of vote buying and selling, adding that unless the political actors are willing to play by the rules, there will be no free and fair election.
“In 1996, the military intervened because elections were rigged, and there was violence, especially in the South-west where people were set on fire. There was anarchy all over and it was used as an excuse by the military to take over.
“We are very lucky in Nigeria that it is no longer fashionable for the military to rule and Nigerians are willing to resist but we shouldn’t take that for granted, we should strive to maintain good election processes.
“But we are lucky that the military has also learned their lessons that they don’t have the final solution to our problems which are complex and not as straightforward as they thought in the past. The Nigerian Society is very much more sophisticated than we were in 1983 and perhaps, it is why the military have learned their lessons.
“If Politicians continue the way they are going in the level of corruption, election rigging, manipulation of results, mobilization of thugs, people become fed up and that is what the military capitalize on to intervene.
“We also have the civil society in Nigeria, men of goodwill in the Nation who are always ready to point at what is wrong in the system and ensure that corrections are made. If you look at the electoral laws, they have been going through modifications as people observe problems, and the Legislature or Executive have come in to propose a correction to those laws.
“We finished the last elections and many observations have been made, it is left for us to go back to ensure that the abnormalities we observed are corrected by way of electoral reforms, by way of amending the laws governing our elections.
“INEC alone cannot conduct the elections. All over the World, it is not only the Electoral Management Body that conducts the elections. You have the bureaucracy, the CSOs, the Political parties, and others, and what they do determines the outcome of an election, whether it is free or fair.
“One mistake from INEC is over-amplified as if that is the whole election but it’s not. The election has five processes, from registration of voters to the organization of the election on voting day, before, on, and after the election, to the announcement of the result and the legal processes. So one item cannot invalidate a whole election.
“If you have political parties led by leaders who are determined to rig elections, there’s little to what INEC can do. The weight we put on INEC is too much. Secondly, we believe that the Judiciary can solve all problems and this is not true. People rig elections and say go to court.
“The result of it is that the Court had been politicized, they give all sorts of judgment that cannot stand the test of time. The only way to deal with the situation is to ensure that all those who participate in elections, INEC, Political Parties, Leaders, the media, everyone must play a role, that way, we will have a free and fair election.
“There should be internal Party democracy. The parties are not democratic. Money bags go and buy results, even when they lose, they use their money to secure it one way or the other, through thugs, the court to secure the outcome they want and unless the political actors are willing to play by the rules, there will be no free and fair election.”
The lead Paper Presenter, Professor Dung Pam Sha, in his presentation: ‘Rebuilding Trust in the Nigerian Electoral Process: the Role of Interstakeholders’, said that unless trust is restored, the desired results of democracy and good governance cannot be achieved since voters will always fight election results.
According to him, Nigerians have witnessed a lot of problems and predicament with the electoral system, and the role played by many stakeholders in the process have created a situation where trust is dwindling.
He opined that “trust is key to democracy. If there’s a high level of trust, it will increase Citizen participation which will increase the turnout in elections, leading to regime legitimacy, and we can then achieve stability in democracy.
“The actions of the Electoral Management Body (EMB,) affected the 2023 election due to the mishandling of the election process which led to a major issue in the transmission of results.
“The political parties have also played negative roles. Their lack of party democracy has also created a lot of problems in the process where they impose a candidate to run for elections and some capture the party types of machinery, that has also created a lot of problems of confidence.
“Citizens too have their problems because they help in maneuvering election results, they do double voting. So every person has a problem and what we should do is to honestly address these challenges. Nigerian Youths since 2015 have been active because of the campaign for them to join the political process.
“If you recall the Not Too Young to Run, which brought them out in the 2023 Elections but some of them felt very bad that the entire process at the tail end got the problem of lack of transmission of results.
“I pointed out the roles of politicians who manipulate the processes at various levels, during primaries in their parties or during National Elections. This has affected quite several people like the Youths who thought that electronic voting was going to be the best for Nigeria but that aspect failed us.
“We will continue to have programs that will sustain the interest of the Youths and all Nigerians in the electoral process and we hope that the next elections will play by the rules. The electronic systems that have been put in place will be improved.
“It is unfortunate that some of the University people have been captured in the process which has smeared the names of many who are very good in the system. But we hope that there will be an improvement, subsequently.
“We cannot go back to the open ballot system because we are hoping that the improvement in technology will help us solve most of the problem of transparency. So it is left for us as practitioners and stakeholders in the process, to insist that the technology is well used, appropriately for the electoral processes.
“That is, ensuring we use it the way it should be used then we will eliminate all the fears before us about the issues of transparency, accountability, and integrity of the electoral process but I won’t advise that Nigeria return to the open ballot system.”
In his remarks, the Kaduna State Resident Election Commissioner Of INEC, Mr. Aminu Idris who was ably represented by Mrs Rukaiyatu Sani Imam pledged to build a framework that not only addresses the challenges faced in the past but also paves the way towards achieving a free, fair, and credible election for a stronger democracy in line with global best practices and a brighter future for the country.
In his comments, the Kaduna State Director, of the National Orientation Agency (NOA,) Alhaji Abubakar appealed to Nigerians to change their attitudes towards the election by becoming honest, truthful, and sincere in their actions as only then will the elections the free, fair and credible.
