The 2023 elections appeared well planned, with more than adequate budgetary provisions to ensure that the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) would deliver all promises and be firm at every point, not yielding to pressures and causing doubts. And there is a substantially improved Electoral Act 2022 to make some difference. What remained, largely, was for political parties to stage reputable primaries to produce candidates. That required sincerity and unanimity of purpose among stakeholders.
For the outcome to be reputable, parties must be reputable. And it was at that stage spinners of political mischief went to work to create doubts in the minds of those who have invested high expectations in the elections.
First, INEC had announced timeliness within which parties were to conduct primaries. June 3, 2022 was assigned as the last date for parties to conclude the exercise. While other parties worked hard to comply with the deadline, the All Progressives Congress (APC) busied itself with self-destructive plots, such that it was unable to meet the deadline. Were INEC to comply with its rules, that failure to meet that crucial deadline should have come with severe sanction. Instead, the ruling party that was supposed to set the standard got rewarded with a six-day extension.
Among those who went to the commission to lobby for extension is the pack of fringe political parties known as the Inter Party Advisory Counci (IPAC). They are reputed for taking unpopular and queer positions on national issues provided the ruling parties are comfortable at that. Even though they field candidates for elections, they perform poorly because they largely do not bother to mobilise the electorate. Since 1999 both APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) love having IPAC as closet ally, to spin intrigues. At the expense of electoral integrity, they are usually the first to endorse disputed elections and congratulate dubious winners.
Not mindful that going back on its timelines would be counted for it as a minus, INEC approved one-week extension to accommodate APC’s presidential primary. For an electoral umpire, that was plain unserious because there was no justification for it.
“I hereby reiterate the position of the Commission that there will be no review of the timelines. There are so many inter-related activities that are associated with the timelines, which must be carried out.
Any review to extend the timelines for one activity will affect other activities and put unnecessary pressure on political parties and the Commission. This will ultimately result in more complications than what the extension seeks to achieve. Therefore, the Commission will not review the timelines,” the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu had stated two weeks prior to bowing to pressure from IPAC. For many stakeholders, that was a major turning point on the 2023 elections. A chief electoral officer should be sincere. He should not yield to pressure or persuasion of whatever kind, in a manner that could subject their integrity to the scrutiny of another set of umpires, as we are having.
That one-week extension for APC was spent on intrigues because it was yet to make up its mind on who among its aspirants was deserving of the crown. Clearly, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was the single politician who made the most investment that saw the APC shedding its ragtag status to become so formidable to ‘win’ elections, just like the PDP used to ‘win’. Among other aspirants, he remains the most formidable in resource ownership and a retinue of disciples whom he groomed over the years. If the political party were a family dynasty, Tinubu would have been crowned as flag-bearer in APC with little or no objection. But it is not.
So, while a few remembered his labour and sacrifices, the national chairman of their party, Abdullahi Adamu and others became alarmed that if the primary were to be left for market forces to determine, it was too late in the day to stop Tinubu. Ahmed Lawan, President of the Senate was drafted into the race, with the hope that a northern consensus could be built around him. In that indecorous stampede, the argument that power should come to the South after Buhari’s eight years was no longer a serious argument.
The northern governors who later swung the primary in Tinubu’s favour had to think critically about their own survival. In the absence of a common position under the party leader, that is Buhari, it was safer they invested votes of their delegates in reliable hands, which guaranteed inclusion in the next government as well as instant settlement of bills. Someone has to clear the bills incurred on the night of the primary.
Meanwhile, Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a Tinubu ally, was also persuaded, together with the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to join the race. In normal times, it was good business for the party to throw open its doors to anyone who could afford N100m for a nomination and expression of interest form. For APC, perhaps, estimated revenues of around N30b earned from the process justified the enrolment of many aspirants, including drafting the Vice President into the fray. Maybe the experience will enrich theory and practice of politics, with a caution that some invitations to serve are not to be trusted.
But the scenario in today’s Nigeria became so tempting, even for the electorate. Here we have an outgoing government that has elevated the collective leadership deficit to frightening heights. All the promises of transformation and economic prosperity have failed. It was thought that if the APC by hook or crook should last longer than necessary, let it be the Professor who has exhibited considerable intelligence and sensitivity at very crucial moments the one they are leaving behind to salvage their wreck. Osinbajo had gained experience and would not begin to learn the ropes, so we thought.
In the few times he acted while President Buhari was away, just as he has gone to attend to his ear in London, Osinbajo showed candour and discipline, such that Nigerians quickly switched from the blight and lethargy that hallmarked their Presidency. Nigerians remember with pride the deft handling by Osinbajo of the invasion of the National Assembly in August 2018. On that occasion, hooded men of the Department of State Security (DSS), who were prompted by the political leadership to unseat the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, met their match in an acting President, who will not sacrifice the rule of law for politics. It was a risky business but he pulled it through. We were told later that his principal was not too comfortable that Lawal Daura, a very central figure of Buhari’s kitchen cabinet was disrobed so casually. Maybe that still counted against him during the presidential primary.
The impression was that the VP was the candidate of a President who didn’t need to look far to safeguard his political heritage, assuming he had any. Some Aso Rock insiders confirmed this impression. On one occasion, canvassers wondered why the Southwest was not rallying behind Osinbajo, pledging that, that was what they were waiting for to roll out. But that was not to be because President Buhari and APC became confused when it mattered most.
And that reduced the enthusiasm for 2023 elections, for many who expected the President to ‘moderate’ the process without tampering with its due processes, just as Tinubu and Co moderated the process to enable Buhari win the party primary in 2015. No one expects a sitting president be uninterested in the choice of successor. Buhari had said in a television chat in January 2022 that he had a preferred candidate but didn’t have the balls to make disclosures so that his choice would not be eliminated. Sounds cowardly. But once the President said so, there was little room to doubt him, given the amount of Intelligence available to him. But he did nothing to protect his so-called preferred aspirant on that frosty night of the presidential primary
The cloud of doubt and the conspiracy theories that were bandied around 2023 elections stemmed largely from APC’s cloak and dagger intrigues. It appeared they knew the man who could win election for them. But they were afraid of him. They decided to starve themselves of resources to prosecute the elections by introducing late night policies of currency redesign and other stringent policies. And now, they are giving the impression that May 29 is no longer in the radar. No one else has power to do that, only the ruling party.
Going forward, the next government should decide early whether it wants democracy to thrive. That should begin with genuine proposals to further reform the electoral system. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua confessed in 2007 that the elections of that year were fraudulent. Hence, he instituted the Justice Uwais’ electoral reform commission. The government of Goodluck Jonathan, clueless as it was touted, built on that process and there was little or no contention.
Let there be more technology and less paper work. Those who are afraid of more electronics belong in the past. Let the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer and others be democratised to free the system from political manipulation.
