Without prejudice to whatever
willful inadequacies of every mortal, Attahiru Jega, a professor and out-going
National Chairman of Nigeria’s election management body, the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC, deserves to be commended.
As he exits that
office, there is going to be a fierce battle to fill the slot.
And were President Muhammadu Buhari be committed to
sustaining the transformative underpinning of Jega’s tenure, he would not need
to look beyond the suggestions contained in this piece.
More importantly, Mr. President would need to
divorce himself of any shade of nepotic and prebendal inclinations in
appointing a replacement for Jega so that he, too, would keep faith with the
need to build on what Jega started.
By
Jide Ajani
There are moves being made in some quarters by some prominent
Emirs to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint another northerner to
fill the position of the National Chairman, Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC.
Sunday
Vanguard learnt that as the battle rages, Mr.
President has come under considerable pressure by some traditional rulers from
the North directly and, in some instances, using proxies to make a case for one
of the National Commissioners.
Interestingly,
the Commissioner is also from the North West geo-political zone like out-going
Attahiru Jega.
And
in what appears to be a direct unintended though predictable consequence of
appointing retired civil servants and old men and women into the Commission, a
75-year old national commissioner (name withheld) was rushed to the Intensive
care Unit, ITU, of an You, Akwa Ibom hospital recently while the Commission was
having a retreat in that state.
Sunday
Vanguard was made to understand that even
while in a state of coma, he was flown in an air ambulance to an
Abuja-hospital.
He
is still in a coma.
The
impending exit of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, Professor Jega, and his peers of national and state Electoral
Commissioners brings to a potential an expected finale a remarkable
period in the history of the Commission. They are the first crop of electoral
Commissioners to midwife the affairs of the Commission after the significant
reforms enacted from the recommendations of the Mohammed Lawal Uwais Committee
on Electoral Reforms.
Professor
Jega and the Commission he led conducted two elections, considered
largely credible and acceptable globally.
Both
elections were principally between two main candidates, former President
Goodluck Jonathan and incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, both men won one
out of both contests, making any claims of bias to either difficult to sustain.
The
Commission, under Jega, can therefore be said to have creditably acquitted
itself in terms of the independence which the reforms were meant to attain and
sustain, but maintaining the relative credibility that the current peer of
Commissioners have engendered under the leadership of Jega will require a new
INEC Chairman with remarkable and exceptional qualities.
Such
qualities must be the focus of the incumbent president as he adds this task to
the list of appointments on his to-do list. The very important role played by
the Commission in consolidating democracy in Nigeria, therefore, impels a
closer examination of the qualities of Professor Jega’s potential successor.
Yet,
consider:
Protest
letter
Among
those who appear to be in the running for the office are some national officers
who, rather than make genuine contributions to meetings, would simply cow-tow
and flow with the tide. Because of the nature of the nominations to the
Commission – some state governors actually nominated most of the commissioners
– it is very important that President Buhari remains mindful of the need to
allow merit take precedence over relationship and patronage.
The
Commissioner, being pushed by the Emirs, once worked with PMB when he was the
Chair of Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, PTF. As a Commissioner in INEC, the
individual had been reported severally in the newspapers of a breach of oath of
impartiality in respect of a political party.
During
the 2011 presidential election, specifically, the individual was reported
to have encouraged a protest letter from a campaign organization to INEC during
collation of the results with a view to stopping the exercise.
Even
at that time, the out-going Chairman stopped collation and set up a committee
to carry out investigation relating to the contents of the petition.
This
development, Sunday Vanguard gathered, unknown to most Nigerians, almost returned
the country to the June 12 debacle.
It
was the protest of other National Commissioners, one of whom confirmed the
story to Sunday Vanguard, that averted another annulment as report had it that
a court injunction was already being procured to stop further collation.
This was in 2011.
In
the build up to the 2015 elections, the Commissioner featured prominently with
a few others, also from the North, who pushed for the implementation of the
criminally lopsided 30,000 polling units’ allocation that put the whole of
southern Nigeria almost at par with North-West Zone where the said Commissioner
hails from – such an individual is not fit to become INEC Chairman.
Appointing
such an individual would engender loss or erosion of public confidence, a clear
reversal of public trust in an umpire that needs to work harder to gain more
public trust.
National;
interest
This
is even more imperative because the 2015 presidential election, free and fair
as it appeared, suffered some discounts which Nigerians were willing to
overlook.
Apart
from having worked with PMB, the president is perceived as an uncle, from the
same North-West, which boils down to the Nigerian problem of nepotism – that is
if the individual is appointed.
This
all important decision of PMB would show whether he is a statesman or a
regional champion.
President
Jonathan acted statesmanly and in the national interest and set an
unprecedented record of appointing Prof. Jega, from the North-West, the first
northerner since independence, to the position of the Chairman of INEC.
His
appointment was made despite the fact that northerners, mainly from the
North-West, opposed President Jonathan from assuming the office of the
president even in acting capacity and equally opposed him in the 2011 elections
by not voting for him.
The
appointment of Prof. Jega by Jonathan was based on merit devoid of
ethno-religious or political considerations and party interest as most members
of PDP were opposed to the decision. But Jonathan placed the
national interest of credible elections above his party interest. Would PMB
fall below the standard set by Jonathan by putting his regional, APC and his
personal political interest above that of the nation in the choice he would
make of who succeeds Jega in the light of the disturbing reports?
As
Professor Jega and several national Commissioners bow out of INEC
next week, with many Nigerians expressing concern that the higher
benchmark they are leaving behind, regarding the conduct and credibility
of elections may fall drastically. This fear was heightened during the week as
the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) and its members displayed
undisguised desperation for political offices at the National Assembly.
With such unresolvable tendency to win at all cost and disregard
for any form of conciliation, many fear that the days of “do
or die” elections may be upon the country again come 2019.
To
assuage the fears of Nigerians that the electoral ambiance will be
conducive for both ruling and opposition parties, to contest and win
elections fairly and acceptably, heightened curiosity and anxiety now pervades
the expectations of Nigerians on the caliber of people who will succeed
the outgoing election commissioners. Appointing people with questionable
competency, integrity and credibility, will do untold and
foreseeable damage to the election integrity which the Jega team
have toiled to build since 2011, and which Nigerians now come to expect
to get better.
The
anxiety that attends the exit of Jega and this crop of commissioners is
worsened by the fact that, by next week when Jega and most of
the team at national and state levels would have gone, will leave the
Commission under the leadership of two National Commissioners, both
of whom were appointed under controversial conditions. One of them was accused
of partisanship, because he had been an obvious
beneficiary of the former ruling Party the Peoples’ Democratic
Party (PDP), as a former ambassador and the other recently
appointed retired vc just before the election regarded as too old for the
strain of leading such a dynamic organization.
Hence,
insiders within the Commission question how these men can meet the
often high pressure tasks that is often required of the Commission’s
leadership given these limitations. These issues of doubt were raised
against the background that one of the national Commissioners that will be left
is too old, and is described by insiders as “narcoleptic” meaning that it is
not uncommon to find him asleep even in public engagements, in full
glare of media Kleiglights which has prompted hurriedly arranged “public
relation positioning” of the Commissioner in some public
engagements to avoid such embarrassing incidents.
Given
the current atmosphere of political uncertainty that is creeping into the party
structures at national level, it is believed that the 2019 electoral
firmament may present new formations and possible party restructuring, in
the light of post-election developments, hence it is expected that much
more consideration will be given to the abilities of those who will man the
Commission further down the road, to ensure that they will be people that
are widely accepted by the Nigerian public as independent and competent,
but that can be trusted by all stakeholders not to be unduly unctuous to
political interests.
Given
this scenario, many have set their sights back to a short-list of
people who have been described as independent, competent but not politically
unpredictable. Who are the men and women that will fit this description and
meet the expectations of Nigerians? Answers to these questions are now more
germane as Nigerians are currently beginning to doubt the sincerity of
the ruling party to institute credible changes to national institutions.
Hence, Nigerians are eagerly waiting to see how these
appointees will emerge.
Maintaining
the autonomy of the Commission means that a significant quality of Professor
Jega’s successor will be the ability to be assertive of the Commission’s
independence, which, therefore, requires an individual who will not return the
Commission to the era when it was the smarmy appendage of the executive.
In
addition to such flare for independent thinking, sustaining the current momentum
in INEC will require someone with requisite knowledge, strength of character,
integrity, untainted by electoral scandals, vibrant and energetic enough to
meet the physical strain the office requires, and can demonstrate courage to
take tough decisions without being needlessly emotive.
In
addition, the individual should have a good working knowledge and understanding
of the electoral system and should be able to command public confidence
across all strata of the Nigerian society, particularly amongst political
stakeholders, the electorate, the civil society, professional groups,
development agencies, academics and other principal actors in the electoral
process.
Such
qualities, particularly the quality of having a very good working knowledge of
the electoral system and the reforms that have allowed the Commission to attain
its current credibility, are not widely common outside the Commission, a chief
reason many observers are looking more internally than externally for possible
successors of Professor Jega.
However,
while there are many in the Commission who have participated in the
implementation of the reforms, the allegations that bedevil the conducts of
many Commissioners during the period narrow any potential internal successors
to only a handful of untainted and credible Commissioners who distinguished
themselves in INEC throughout their assignments. This is an important
consideration given the avowed commitment of the current government to
meritorious public service and its anti-corruption posture.
With
the contemplation of such qualities dominating the discourse on the future of
INEC and its potential leadership in the near future, many observers are keen
to find out if President Buhari would foot-drag on constituting a new
INEC Board given that, on or before the end of June 2015, INEC would be
left with just two National Commissioners, one of whom was appointed just
few weeks to the general elections and whom insiders say has not spoken a
word in any meeting held so far and hardly expresses his opinion despite being
a former Vice-Chancellor . The other one, albeit relatively longer in the
system and also a one-time INEC Commissioner, and hence could be in acting
capacity, has been described as “a former card carrying member of a
party”, whose appointment was protested against for being a party-nominated
minister under the Obasanjo regime, as well as also having been an Ambassador
to Mexico as a potential party patronage before his controversial appointment
as an INEC Commissioner?
Given
this background, therefore, not a few people are pondering if President Buhari
will exhibit the kind of states manly disposition of former President Jonathan
who pressed the case for credible elections and who, despite the pressure from
his party and the concern for electoral victory, appointed a northerner,
considered by many as a leftist, and an activist professor to be the Chairman
of INEC.
Hence,
those who ponder such question also wonder if the next Chairman of INEC will be
appointed from outside or from within the current crop of Commissioners? Also,
such speculations lead to questions on what the advantages and disadvantages of
appointing from outside or from amongst the current Commissioners would be,
having regard to innovations like the Card Readers and a whole regime of
innovations like customized ballot papers introduced by the outgoing Jega-led
team that would obviously need consolidation?
If,
however, as suggested in several quarters that, appointing a new Chairman from
amongst the current set of Commissioners is best for the sake of continuing,
perfecting and consolidating various innovations introduced by the
Commission, and which have renewed public confidence in the electoral process,
then the search will have to be narrowed down to a very credible few
Commissioners in the system who have distinguished themselves.
Such
a search must, therefore, have behind it, those pristine qualities that have
already been discussed and the acceptability of all stakeholders across party
lines as the chief criteria.
That
search should have started yesterday.
Source Vanguaed
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