2011 is finally here and running like a demented animal. At a time, it seemed so far away like the proverbial year 2000 when previous crooked Nigerian governments promised they would recreate Nigeria. Recreate they did, but only in their own wretched images.
2011 is finally here and running like a demented animal. At a time, it seemed so far away like the proverbial year 2000 when previous crooked Nigerian governments promised they would recreate Nigeria. Recreate they did, but only in their own wretched images.
Jega is the chief electoral umpire in the present dispensation. He happened on us like a thunderbolt. The credibility and general acceptance that followed his surprise appointment remains unprecedented in the history of appointments of public officers in Nigeria. This is largely because of Jega’s gargantuan stature as a public intellectual prior to his appointment. The noisy radical community saw him as the best man for the job as the quickly appropriated him as one of their own. President Jonathan and his handlers were not left out as they celebrated for months, the glory of this appointment. Not a few discerning members of the public called for caution especially for the sake of citizen Jega who was riding the wave of acceptability. Their concern stemmed from the fact that INEC has remained the singled deepest grave where they bury the integrity of most Professors and supposed good men before him.
Most past electoral umpires in the country invariably have enjoyed this short bliss of romance with the electorates though not on equal measures with Jegas’. May I state upfront that at every point, Jega has tried to lower our expectations the moment he came into full grip with the enormity of the task before him and its complexity? He wasn’t quite four months in office when he started hinting that ‘”he didn’t promise anyone 100% free and fair elections”. It wasn’t like we were expecting anything near that percentage which is extremely unrealistic. However, for some reasons, his emergence in the scene lifted some spirits and restored some measure of hope among those who have given up on witnessing a semblance of Free and fair election in Nigeria in their lifetime. No thanks to Baba Iyabo’s brand of ‘politrics’.
My major concern here not what Jega did or failed to do because all those are information in the public domain. One will try to re-appraise some of those salient issues that are daily shaping the 2011 elections that are outside the powers of Jega but must unwittingly serve as some of the checklist in his performance appraisal. Chief among this is the little matter of internal democracy among the registered political parties. Bad habit, they say, dies hard. Absolutely no political party in existence in Nigeria today will beat her chests and shout, “we are internally democratic in our party”. This includes those ‘room and parlor’ political parties that conduct their own special conventions over the telephone. Theirs is so bad that you may be a candidate now and hear an hour later that your friend has been offered the same ticket. They have perfected the act of preying on the fall guys of bigger parties. The tickets are displayed like wares in front of their dingy rooms they call offices waiting for the highest bidder from those not favored by the Godfathers in the opposing parties. They are in brisk business at the expense of politics and our future. Often, they fancy themselves as opposition political parties. Whom are they opposing exactly? I dare ask.
One is wont to ask “why the desperation by these politicians”. The answer is politics has become our own variant of fortune 500 business. If you cannot make the list of these fortune 500 businesses, you have not arrived. The effect of this lack of internal democracy is no democracy, and that is beyond Jega. At best, Jega would have conducted free and fair elections among those that emerged from flawed electoral process. I observed the primaries of a political party that adopted the much talked about “option A4” {unmodified} where candidates are meant to queue behind their favored aspirant. Two candidates appeared to have the longest line among the four contestants. One was said to be the anointed aspirant by the leadership of the party while the other was popular among the electorates. The anointed dude was said to have a heavy pocket and no brains while the unfortunate popular guy is an Engineer with little cash. Nonetheless, the electorates seem to have favored him. When the counting started, the anointed fellow scored 75 votes and by the time, counting started on the line of Mr. popular and got to 55, the guy counting sensing that Mr. popular might carry the day, stopped counting and just recorded the 55 which in his opinion he thought he deserved ignoring the remaining poor fellows standing there to be counted. When the supporters of Mr. popular Engineer protested this obvious fraud, the officials fled to their party Headquarters promising the unsuspecting electorates that they were going for consultations and will soon be back for a re-run. I was curious and followed them to their Headquarters where the so called ‘consultation’ resulted in further inflation of the results of the favored up to 200 votes and the popular Engineer was ‘graciously’ awarded 75 votes and that’s their own way of resolving apparent injustice. Now, the low brainer may eventually emerge as a legislator and the blame will go to a Jega of course.
Following closely to the above is the on-going registration of voters exercise. The noise that surrounded the Direct Data Capture machine {DDC} can only compare to the huge amount of 87 billion naira specially appropriated by the National Assembly for its purchase. My curiosity to be among the first to register for voting was informed more by the mystery of the DDC machine. I have seen enough in the last few days to shake to its very foundation my overdose of patriotic engagements. I see nothing quite spectacular about a regular laptop, external camera, power pack, the cheapest HP printer out there, a detached data back-up device and the almighty Data Capture device that appear to discriminate against electorates along bloodlines. Seriously, I have been worried sick since realizing that the DDC machine grouped my genotype with those of Chief Obansanjo and his wife, David Mark and a few other bad guys that have launched relentless war against democracy. What we have in common is that the Shenzhen Aratec Biotecnology China ltd made DDC machines appear to have been programmed to accept some voters and reject some without explanation. I could have gone home quietly if they machine had not grouped me among the OBJs’ of this world. However, this is calling on Jega to quickly invite the suppliers of those machines to do something immediately to redress the hardship Nigerians are going through before we call-in forensic experts to determine the true value of those DDCs and accompanying devices that work more in breach of their original intentions.
On the logistics side, nothing seems to have changed except that the Presidency perhaps in response Donald Duke’s expose` of how they rigged elections in the past took over the duties of buying Prado trucks for State Registered Electoral Commissioners {RECs}. This was the duty {according to Duke} the Governors used to entrap the State RECs. Now that the Presidency appears to have taken over this function, we hope it will not be a case of taking over the Assets and Liabilities of this gesture. On the larger scale, Politicians still provide logistics to Registration Officers {ROs} and the Local Government Electoral Officers. I witnessed first hand as the Youth Corps members employed as ad-hoc staff were ferried to and fro Registration Centers by Politicians and their Staff. I witnessed as they Corps members fiddled with the Registration devices like ill-trained bunch of semi-illiterates they possibly are. I witnessed as they struggled with phones without credit to reach their bosses and colleagues for assistance and direction. I witnessed as they receive with broad smiles generous phone credits provided by politicians. I witnessed as enthusiastic voters walked away in frustration after answering the call for patriotism, only for them to stand for hours on end watching equally frustrated Corps members fiddle with non-functioning DDC machines.
Then, there is this little matter of all conquering Governors currently holding the polity to ransom. They have carried-on as if Jega is a synonym for joke. They neither respect his call for internal democracy nor pretend to care about what he is trying to achieve. They perceive him largely as an unnecessary irritation wrongly foisted on them by a President they suspect does not understand the implications of such appointment. They are neither campaigning nor worried about the consequences of not so doing. One is therefore worried of the bases of their confidence. I am worried because my people say, “if you see a man dancing along the footpath without the drummers at sight, the drummers must be around the bush”. However, I seem to have stumbled on their game plan. I suspect they want to create violence, violence and more violence to flog the electorates into line while they do with our almighty brand new voters register whatever they like. My fellow citizens, unbelievably, most states especially in the South East have erected their own well-armed Army of thugs they call “Vigilantes”. What they intend to do with these marauding untrained hippies is better not imagined.
Conclusively, Jega might mean well but beyond good intentions stand fundamental flaws militating against his job description and enthronement of genuine acceptable elections.
Chike Orjiako.
[email protected]
08032030557{Text only}
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });