By
Dr. Anthony Philips
Could it be the same gladiators still in action? The playbook is quite familiar. If it is what I think it is, Nigerians must tread cautiously. We walked along this narrow path before and we paid dearly for it.
The biggest price was the Time Lost. We lost over thirteen years to military rule.
No matter what anyone says, this option retarded our democracy and economic development. The military handed over power to democratic civilian administration with a flawed Nigerian Constitution. The first President of the Fourth Republic was a retired military General, President Olusegun Obasanjo, who exerted much influence on the emerging democratic Republic. These became the albatross of our democratic system today.
The people’s clamor for restructuring today is a testimony to the request for removal of booby-traps built into the military arrangement. Apart from the imposed leadership and the disruptive mechanism inbuilt into the system, they also imposed their surrogates to keep it perpetually under control. This Fourth Republic, packaged by the military in the name of democratic Nigerian government, is failing because any structure built on an unstable foundation is bound to fail.
The only credible election since the beginning of this Fourth Republic experiment was the first election conducted in 1999. But the turnout was low because of lack of confidence in another democratic experiment. All the other elections conducted thereafter in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 to2023 were no elections. They were modified selection of functionaries by the powers-that-be. All those elections were negotiated as settled by powerful leaders who were totally disconnected from realities of true democracy. These people failed to understand democracy as a culture sustainable by certain tenets. They lack knowledge of what democracy is and have never bothered to learn about it. However, they will be understood if we appreciate their background as former military generals. Better yet, if we read their opinion of democracy in Africa prior to being selected. They did not believe in democracy. They belong to the school of thought that believed that Nigerians were not ready to choose their own leaders by ballot. Hence, they opted for one-party system of government with leadership rotating between North and South.
Upon conclusion of the Constitutional Conference, this Nation was again given the same Constitution with minor amendments. The argument that won finally was that a multicultural society like ours could only be sustained by a multi- party system of government. Hence, the Nation adopted a multi-party system of government. But the New Democratic experiment was test-run by government of those who hadn’t any flair for democracy. They invested nothing in it and no reward is being expected.
The Constitution has been amended four times since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. Against this background, the first to assume the National leadership was one of those who advocated for a one-party State. True to his belief, he governed the country with reckless abandon of the tenets of democracy. He removed people who became National Chairman of his own party four times in a space of two years. He removed several state governors by using the state legislatures without a quorum to impeach their governors.
In 2003, registration of voters was very low because Nigerians did not trust that INEC could deliver free and fair election. And since their votes would not count, what was the point? Voter turnout was low, resulting in the electoral umpire INEC and the moneybags determining the outcome of the election results. Year 2023 smacks of the culture of vote-buying and monetarily inducing INEC officials to rig the election in one way or the other.
After completing two tenures of four years each, this same administration initiated the move for tenure elongation (tagged Third-Term Agenda for the President) that was rejected by the Senate.
In 2007, this same head of government conducted such a shabby election that the benefactor, Musa Yar’Adua, who won the election, admitted that it was a sham. The opposition party rejected the results of the election. The Supreme Court, in its ruling on the case, decided in favor of the defendant who was the beneficiary but mentioned that the conduct of the election was questionable. Nigerians settled for a compromise in 2011 for the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to complete the tenure of the late President Musa Yar’Adua, serving only one term.
Again, our democratic processes were compromised by INEC and the security apparatus of government under the control of the same power that midwifed our Fourth Republic. The seating President GEJ was at odds with the powerful people who negotiated one-term tenure for him. According to my source, the one tenure agreement was a result of GEJ having presided over the nation for two years between 2009 and 2011, when he completed Yar’Adua’s tenure.
Thus, another President, a former military General, Muhammadu Buhari, defeated GEJ in 2015. Again in 2015 and 2019, both elections were rigged and the powers-that-be negotiated a settlement. Judicial decisions on the election case were as good as the rigged election. So they were settled and again Nigerian democracy suffered major setbacks as voter participation reduced tremendously. The people were no longer interested in the electioneering process because their votes did not count. The results of both elections in 2015 and 2019 did not reflect voters’ expectations. The results were auctioned to the highest bidders.
The last election conducted in 2023 was rejected by the people because in the last eight years, people grew tired of bad government, a government they rejected at the polls. The results were auctioned to the highest bidders not at the polling units this time but at the central collation centres where the winners were being declared without reference to the votes cast. President Buhari, who told the whole Nation to count on him to provide security, was nowhere to be found. He promised to ensure that people’s votes counted. By the time INEC started working for only the APC at the point of collation of results, we lost the captain of our ship. It became clear that the results of the elections had been predetermined and compromised.
Again, this act of disrespect for our democracy, to settle old scores by the powers-that-be by handing over victory to whomever they want regardless of whomever the people voted for, must stop. The whole nation was not suspecting when Tinubu said it was his turn, Emilokan. But Buhari seemed to want to deliver to his chosen successor, just as IBB delivered to Abacha. Why does Tinubu deserve to this demand he made? Buhari seems very committed to it, from all indications. The outgoing President’s attitude is unbecoming of a Democrat, which is understandable; but he appears not to be mindful of the danger to our democracy; that such conduct is capable of dislocating it. It takes a lot to restore confidence in the people to accept it as a better alternative to other forms. It takes quite some time and resources for us as a people to accept and tolerate democratic cultural values. We still have a long way to go in terms of investment into the democracy project for sustainable development and growth.
Now the government of President Buhari is looking for a way to justify its INEC-declared victory in an election whose collation was not concluded. But the opposition parties and Nigerians at home and abroad witnessed the processes of the election all through the campaign and the voting on both 25th February and 18th March, 2023. In addition, election observers locally and internationally observed the voting processes from the polling units to the collation centres at all stages. INEC was rated low by all accounts.
The question raised by INEC’s performances in both elections is, “Why did INEC sabotage itself?”
INEC had everything it needed to deliver a free and fair election yet it shied away from doing so. Who seized control of INEC on those days? Who was INEC Chairman taking instructions from?
We know that Professor Humphrey Nwosu refused to listen to the Supreme Military Council in 1993, and his office was invaded for rejecting their interference; he was whisked away and punished by the military for protecting the course of democracy.
Who and what was INEC Chairman Professor Yakubu Mahmood afraid of, in collating and declaring the results of the year 2023 election? It was obvious that he was acting a script when collating the 25th February election results, up to the last day in which he declared victory in favour of Tinubu.
But other maladministration of INEC was exposed in Adamawa State’s rerun. If INEC in Adamawa could have been that blatant to declare APC that lost the election conducted in a few LG polling units, God knows what mischief INEC perpetrated in collating and supervising 176,660 polling units nationwide. Yet INEC Chairman Yakubu insists that Nigeria should not mind the usage of BVAS but trust him to deliver the victory to the winner in accordance with voters’ wishes.
Nigerians disagreed and insisted that so much was expended on BVAS, and in BVAS we put our trust.
Whereas in Adamawa 37,000+ voters were not able to vote on 18th March, and there was a leading gap of 32,000+ between PDP leading APC, yet INEC declared rerun of the gubernatorial election. But in Ogun State, where there was only 10,000+ gap between APC leading PDP, and there were over 60,000+ voters who were not able to vote, INEC declared APC winner of the gubernatorial election. Other states where these atrocities were committed included, Nassarawa, Ekiti, Katsina, Kwara and Lagos.
Just of late, the President admitted somewhere that he was saved by the electronic election devices. It will be problem solved if the same devices can save the whole Nation by allowing the process of the collated results by INEC be transparently delivered by BVAS.
From 1999 to 2023, it has been 24 years of muddling up the water, and people are being asked to be patient. We are talking about one quarter of a century in a lifetime, which translates to a quarter of a century on a project whose components are still strange to us.
If we cannot set the pace this time around, it is best we seek an alternative way to govern ourselves because this is not working.
Only madmen will continue to practice a system that does not show any sign of improvement. Otherwise, forcing it on the people may result in a disaster. Democracy, as being practised in the last 24 years, is condemnable. Unless we stop fooling ourselves, by creating an enabling environment for sustainable democratic development and growth, we might inevitably burn down the bridges after six consecutive election cycles in 24 years, should we continue to move in a vicious cycle missing the opportunity to kick-start the democratic process.
The disbelievers continue to damn the consequences and dare the sovereigns. It should not be so.
One day, monkey go go market, he no go return. It should not happen here for the sake of our nation.
The parties may negotiate amongst themselves and come to an agreement about helping themselves. Even that can only be a postponement of the evil day. No two ways about it: get it right or not at all. Well must it be democracy or nothing?
Democracy gives everyone the chance to vote and be voted for. When our right to vote and be voted for and our votes do not count, our liberty, freedom, equity are inadvertently taken away from us.
ANTHONY PHILLIPS WRITES FROM LAGOS