Mr. Jide Johnson Chief Lecturer, Mass Comm Dept at Nigerian Institute of Journalism In an interview with Radarr.Africa on how vulnerable Nigerian elections are to political interference highlighted a few issues that have abounded in Nigeria’s election over the years, the viability of voting and how political interference can be curbed to achieve a free and fair election.
How would you describe previous elections in Nigeria so far?
A credible election is the fundamental element of a representative democracy and In a representative democracy, a credible election is one whereby the outcome is determined by the actual votes cast by the citizens and not votes manipulated for special interest or by a political party.
However in cases where the integrity or credibility of the election is questioned, the legitimacy of government would also be questioned and affected by the outcome of the election and in no time this eventually affects even the performance of such government because from the onset people lacked confidence in the government and as such, such government would be seen as an illegitimate government.
Now coming back home to Nigeria and looking at Nigeria’s previous elections, you would recall that we have had challenges with various elections that we have had from 1959 elections to 1964 elections which eventually led to the civil war.
There’s the second republic election of 1979 and the 1983 which was contested by other political parties, massively rigged and witnessed military intervention eventually leading to the collapse of the second republic.
The third republic took off with the June 12 elections of 1993 which up till date has been categorized as one of Nigeria’s freest and fairest elections but unfortunately, anti democracy forces worked against june 12 elections which led us to the fourth republic which we have now.
If you look at the transitional election of 1999, to a large extent we could say the elections were a bit free and fair, it was presided by the Abdusalam administration and the elections had no party in power.
Moving forward to the 2003 elections, its credibility and legitimacy were also questioned and challenged.
The 2007 election that brought the late president Y’ar Adua of blessed memory publicly on the other hand declared that the election process was flawed and that his administration would do everything possible to ensure that the process is tidied, made credible and all the flaws that were identified are dealt with.
So looking at the fourth republic, we wouldn’t say we have arrived at what we call a credible, reliable, free and fair election however if we take indications from what we witnessed in Ekiti and Osun elections where the 2022 electoral act was used as a test case, we can say that for a fact if the case of Osun’s election which was better organized than Ekiti’s election were properly harnessed and adopted, we should be looking forward to having a credible, reliable free and fair elections in 2023
How many times have you voted and do you believe your vote counts?
I’ve been voting since 1987, I voted in 1987, I voted in all of Abacha’s transitional programmes, I voted in all of the elections of the fourth republic. I have a voters card, I’m a registered voter and would surely participate in the electoral process.
It is my mandate, it is my responsibility, it is a civic responsibility that every Nigerian should participate in and I’m an advocate of the fact that we must ensure that every Nigerian participates in the process.
The system we have excludes people in the security agencies, excludes media practitioners and journalists, excludes people that are on essential duties on the day of the election so this increases the number of people that are excluded during election processes.
Most journalists don’t vote during the election, most security personnel don’t vote during the elections because they would be involved in the elections.
I’m an advocate of us having an absentee ballot that would make everybody that is a Nigerian vote. Every Nigerian should not be denied the right to vote and as a Nigerian you dropped your right to complain when you don’t participate in the process.
Unfortunately people in my industry don’t participate in the process because take for instance as a security personnel you are convinced and fully persuaded to vote for a particular candidate and you have voted for that particular candidate before you go to do your security duty on the day of election and there are attempts by people to manipulate the process and you were given a mandate which renders your vote useless, what would be your reaction?
This would affect everyone as everybody will be concerned about maintaining the integrity of the election.
So moving forward, we must as a matter of urgency, as a matter of national importance, as a matter of securing our elections ensure that we have absentee ballot for those that would be involved in one duty or the other during the election. All the staff of Inec do not vote? Do they vote? They don’t vote, most corpers don’t vote and people would talk about low voter turnout and we don’t look at it from another angle and systematically we have disenfranchised large numbers of people through their direct involvement in ensuring that they cast their vote during the elections.
Believing that votes don’t count is an assumption that has become an accepted norm. It is also a political narrative to ensure that people don’t come out to vote. When there’s a massive turnout of voters, it is impossible for elections to be rigged, it is impossible for the process to be manipulated.
For instance Lagos has up to six million voters and imagine that six million people came out to vote on the day of election. How many people’s votes can be possibly bought. Where will the resources be gotten from but in cases where we have less than one million people coming out to vote, manipulations of polls become easier and in order to ensure that people do not see their votes as something that counts, the narrative is told by the political class. This has become the norm and the general public has accepted that to be the truth.
Take for instance the Osun election from 2007 till date, you would see the dynamics in Osun’s election and also realize that votes count. If a critical analysis is done on the political interest and voting in Osun state, you would realize that votes of the masses really do count.
Elections in Oyo and Kano are also another example. When people come up with the narrative which the political class perpetuates as a result of maintaining their strongholds on their political quest, it is important we preach to people that their votes count and that should be what we should be advocating for. Your vote counts, come out to vote on the day of the election.
How do you think this political interference can be curbed so we can achieve free and fair elections?
One of the ways to curb these inferences is:
Media Advocacy: we have to continuously educate and enlighten people through the media that their vote counts. This would give people the confidence to go out and cast their votes because if people are not enlightened, they would not have the confidence or awareness to come out and vote.
Accountability: we have to hold electoral bodies accountable. one of the officials of inec granted an interview where he said the results of the 2020 elections were manually collated. There were responses from various Nigerians from different walks of life that the electoral acts of 2023 made an exclusive provision for results to be electronically collated and calculated.
INEC the following day came out to give a statement saying that it was an error of judgment and misinterpretation and announced that the results would be collated electronically. It is important we put pressure to ensure that the election is fair, credible and reliable.
Voter’s Education: this is where the National Orientation Agency comes in, we need to educate the people and let them understand the reason why they must participate in the process because it is also about what affects their life, it is about making decisions on who would take responsibility for all aspects of their life for the next four years.
Issue Paid Campaign and Elections: Also we should ensure we run issue paid elections and campaigns which would not focus on religious sentiments, ethnic sentiments or different segments of enlightened self interest. Candidates should be picked based on capability. For instance Asuu has been on strike, what can the candidate do to rectify this issue, how would security problems be solved?, How would the issue of Poor infrastructure be solved?, How would these crises and shortcomings be resolved?.
“These are some of the areas that I think we can look at to make the process credible and reliable.” He further added.
Elections are one major tool used by citizens of a state or country to influence the system of government beginning with choosing who their leaders would be, how they hope to be led and policies they hope would be enforced.
This applies to countries across the world and when it comes to Nigeria, elections are no different.
Over the years, the credibility of elections in Nigeria have from time to time been questioned in the aspects of its credibility, reliability and integrity.
The 2023 elections are soon approaching with political parties selecting their candidates and clamoring for a win, Nigerians are hopeful that the coming 2023 election would be one that makes a difference.
