Those who think that the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) that have, so far, conducted local government elections, did not do a good job should think again. As locals that they are, they should sit back and reflect on when the rain began to beat us as a people. To ignore the hard and harsh realities surrounding the situation we are trying to pigeonhole will amount to grave omission. It could lead to a logical error known as illicit jump.
Since the charade taking place across the States of the Federation in the name of local government elections began, Nigerians, as always, have been howling. They have deployed very unkind words for the SIECs. But there is a missing link in the entire drama. The critics simply went to town with condemnations without bothering to probe into the root of the rot. How do you deal with a cankerworm whose nature you do not understand?
As if the thoughtless howls of the excited publics is not bad enough, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which is supposed to be a very responsible institution, has dabbled into the matter without giving consideration to where we are coming from as a people. Like excited ostriches, the senators are acting as if all is well. The states are simply wrong, pure and simple. That is why they have asked the federal government to deny allocations to local government councils whose elections fall below the democratic threshold.
But has Nigeria ever been above board on issues of democracy? What yardstick could have informed the decision of the senate to paint the conduct of local government elections in unflattering colours? The Senate, strictly speaking, just acted as if it is a stranger to the tale of the bizarre that Nigeria’s democracy has been. Just like the senate that is taking a childish, if not hypocritical look at the issue, some Nigerians have also chosen the path of thoughtlessness on the matter. They want the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to take over the conduct of local government elections from SIECs. What this proposition suggests is that INEC, in its conduct, is better than SIECs. If this line of thinking is not nonsensical, I don’t know what else can be so described.
In asking the federal government to deny allocations to local government areas where the recently conducted local government elections did not follow democratic principles, the senate singled out the recent council polls that held in Benue state for special mention. In a proper country where elections are respected as the bedrock of democracy, the position of the senate would have appealed to those who subscribe to democratic principles. But Nigeria, the country of the bizarre, hardly fits into the outlandish democratic picture that the lawmakers were painting. Using Benue State as a point of reference is sheer scapegoatism. What took place in Benue state on Election Day was not different from what took place in the states that conducted local government elections earlier. It is also not going to be different from what states that are yet to conduct local government elections will do on the day of their own elections. The pattern is the same.
The SIECs have the instructions of the governors on what to do. More often than not, the results of the elections are determined before the elections take place. The ugly setup makes a mess of the democracy that we claim to practise.
But as I noted earlier, it will amount to illicit jump to blame SIECs in this matter. Those who feel sufficiently concerned about what is going on in the states about the conduct of the local government elections should go back to the basics. How did we get to this dangerous bend? Anybody who knows a thing or two about Nigeria will agree that the country is a joke. Those who know will readily attest to the fact that Nigeria’s elections can hardly pass the test of democracy. But the malaise got to its apogee in 2023. It was the year Nigeria witnessed the worst election in its history. It was the year election results were brazenly manipulated to produce a predetermined outcome. That election produced the sitting president. It also produced members of the Senate who are trying to give SIECs a bad name. The selection that INEC presided over in 2023 is what SIECs are replicating across the states in 2024. In other words, SIECs are good students of INEC. Those who are blaming the state electoral umpires should, first, blame INEC for the democratic assault that it inflicted on Nigeria in 2023.
That is why I say that those who want INEC to take over the job of SIECs did not think through their proposition. In what way is INEC better than the SIECs? Is it not the criminal conduct of INEC that emboldened SIECs to do what they are doing?
In any case, when did the senate become the watchdog over our elections? It has never been and will never be. The legislative chamber is an interested party in election matters. Most of its members are products of electoral fraud. Nigerians do not therefore look up to the chamber on how to right the wrongs of electoral malfeasance. What happened last week was that the senate was dragged into a matter it should have overlooked. The senators from Benue state who cried foul over the conduct of the local government election in their state certainly have an axe to grind with their governor. They were probably not satisfied with the sharing formula that Governor Hyacinth Alia adopted.
Otherwise, if the senate were interested in the conduct and outcome of democratic elections in Nigeria, it should have taken interest in the September 21 governorship election in Edo State. Like the February 25, 2023 presidential election before it, the Edo governorship election was recklessly manipulated. Regardless of the hue and cry that attended the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, Nigerians were forced to live with it. In the same vein, the people of Edo State will do nothing other than to live with the ugly outcome of their own election.
In all of this, the senate never got involved, and it should not, as a matter of fact, be involved by virtue of the fact that it is an interested party. Its intrusion into the conduct and outcome of council elections in the states is therefore a wild goose chase. The senate should redirect its attention to issues that fall within its legislative ambit.
QUOTE:
“The selection that INEC presided over in 2023 is what SIECs are replicating across the states in 2024. In other words, SIECs are good students of INEC.”
