Last week, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu visited the National Assembly Complex. It was not a courtesy call on principal officers of the national legislature. He was there to defend the commission’s budget before the Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Budget Defence. I am still not using the appropriate description. Chairman Yakubu did not go to defend INEC’s budget. He went to reject the N40 billion allocated to the commission in the 2025 national budget. Against the backdrop of what the commission is proposing to do with big money this year, which includes conducting governorship election in Anambra State and bye-elections in some 21 vacant constituencies nationwide, professor Yakubu came very close to describing the N40 billion allocated to it as chicken feed.
He didn’t also leave the matter hanging. He audaciously went ahead to name what he considered adequate for his purpose. Hear him: “Our proposal for the 2025 budget requires the sum of N126 billion. We have the document that has provided details line by line on how we intend to spend the N126 billion.” He added a line to underscore the insufficiency of the N40 billion vote: “This year, personnel costs alone on account of the new minimum wage will eat up the N40 billion budgetary envelope.”
The Senator Sarafadeen Alli-led National Assembly joint committee did not have any tough questions for the INEC boss and I wouldn’t know why. Its members were, a sort of, carried away by the arguments of Professor Mahmood and instead of standing up to their oversight role, they were excited about underwriting both the calculable and incalculable risks of INEC for nothing. The Distinguished got diminished in my estimation. They failed to be detached and critical. Their patronage was palpable. They did not insist on a hefty premium or some levels of guarantees from INEC. It was as if INEC, on account of its sterling performances with huge budgets allocated to it in the past, had grown beyond reproach and whatever estimates its chairman had brought this time around to ensure a repeat performance, should be taken as the whole truth, and nothing, but the truth by the legislators. On the matter, INEC had seasoned salesman in Mrs Ireti Kingibe, the Labour Party Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). She spoke better and sounded more patronising than the paid image maker of INEC. “The situation at hand is not about looking for N126 billion for INEC in 2025 fiscal year but providing it” she enthused with finality.
It has been sealed. Nothing to add. INEC has won again the battle of the budget. Yes, it is real. In addition to its core mandate of birthing political regimes, INEC has come to understand how fiscal schemes are created and managed in Nigeria. It understands, for instance, that budgets could run forever on aspirations and just more aspirations without a descriptive or definitive anchor. The build-up to the 2023 general election was feverish. There was a seeming national consensus to get it right at all costs. And that somehow became like a blank cheque for INEC to draw funds. No technology was considered too expensive to bring to bear to make the processes transparent and a reflection of the peoples’ views.
Since Professor Yakubu isn’t from Mars, he simply keyed into the national mood to make himself and his commission inevitable in the fiscal calculations. The INEC’s budget of N306 billion to conduct the 2023 election was also tagged ‘Not Negotiable.’ It could only be negotiated at great risks. In fact, if anything, it could only be reviewed infinitely upward to accommodate every quoted novelty in the package. And the INEC Chairman, now loaded with inventions, was going to and coming from the National Assembly like ogbanje to add the latest cost items that would deliver free and fair elections as proposed. Clearly, beating down the huge budget for even good reasons was out of question. The risk of compromising all the fine promises of the election made by INEC appeared real and neither the legislature nor the executive wanted to be counted on the wrong side of history.
The summary anyway was that INEC got all it had asked for and perhaps more to create an electoral watershed in 2023. New vocabulary and physical concepts were introduced into the voting lexicon and arrangement. The Bi-modal Voting Accreditation System (BVAS) machines were massively procured to stem incidences of multiple registrations and voting. Another, called INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) was added to the mix to resolve all the wonders associated with collation of election results. INEC had been equipped to upload election results in real time. It meant live transmission (real time) of election results such that you and I could view it with our kro kro eyes as it was happening. It was discovered that the number one evil of the electoral system, namely manipulation of real figures to create false results happens among returning officers at collation centres.
To come around that, the responsibility for accuracy was removed from humans and placed on machines which did not have vested interest. Machines could however be manipulated to serve human interest and this was what happened in 2023. Unintended concepts crept into the mix and instead of a straightforward operation as planned and advertised by INEC, things got convoluted. INEC reported constraints in place of performance. Hitches and glitches had the upper hand in the duel for the soul of Nigeria’s electoral system. The huge budget of N306 billion; N313 billion actually, to create sanity had just gone down the drain.
The madness would continue unfortunately. From the polling booths, players migrated to court rooms for the determination of matters that the national electoral commission had been enabled in every conceivable way to handle.
It wasn’t only big money that INEC got in 2023. The Amended Electoral Act of 2022 was an additional tunic. In fact the commission’s appetite for big money was a direct consequence of the new law which granted the commission financial autonomy with a dedicated fund to support its operations. The law allows INEC to start preparations for election 360 days before the election. It was like former President Muhammadu Buhari having failed on almost all counts wanted to deliver a credible election as a redemptive parting gift to Nigerians. The hitherto forbidden electronically assisted processes of verification and collation were approved. What was uppermost was just one thing that Buhari could be remembered for after leaving office. It didn’t happen. Both the enhanced law and budget went down the drain. The polls failed to pull the magic. It is not even looking as if anything was ever done in the first place to improve the electoral process and jurisprudence in 2023.
Times were hard under Buhari. They have become harder under Tinubu. Nigeria does not have money to throw away. I am saying the national treasury cannot continue to fund INEC and the courts to do exactly the same thing. We can choose either and save money for more important things. And if there is nothing important to do with money, whatever that is saved can be used to sponsor pilgrims to boost the economies of Saudi Arabia and Israel. Both countries will be grateful to Nigeria for that good gesture. Alternatively, we can use the surplus money to acquire more planes, yachts and cars for the presidential fleet to enhance the prestige of the presidency. Both expense heads are better than spending money twice over for the same purpose.
Come to think of it. After the huge investment to make the 2023 election come out noiseless, INEC still reportedly spent another N5 billion litigating some 327 petitions against it by aggrieved players. The judiciary is beginning to look like a department of INEC as election petitions take the centre stage in court businesses. It should not be so. Instead of this endless double jeopardy, we can as well add even half the budget of INEC to the allocation of the judiciary and then ask their lordships to take over the task of conducting of elections in Nigeria. Since they are the one to adjudicate electoral disputes, their verdict in the polls shall be sacrosanct because they would naturally do everything to avoid pronouncing electoral results that would be contested in their courts. They cannot possibly say yes and no at the same time.
Thankfully, INEC was most conservative in its last year’s estimates. It spent about N11 billion only to conduct governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states and bye-elections in a handful vacant constituencies. As usual, the court elections after INEC elections have continued. Petitions arising from both polls are lying at various stages of adjudication in the courtrooms. I don’t know what else Prof. Yakubu told members of the National Assembly Joint Committee on Budget Defence. What would be interesting however are the assurances by INEC that this latest request of N126 billion would be used in a manner to minimise to the barest, the role of the courts in the determination of electoral victory.
Also, next time that Yakubu will visit the National Assembly to ask for big money, somebody should have the courage to tell him that rationalisation is not specific performance. That he should always strive to reach his set goals and not wait to explain why such goals are unattainable as a result of factors not pleaded in the original bargain. I don’t have the full picture but I am ready to be told any other democracy that is more litigated than the Nigeria’s brand. I guess also that the courts will enjoy some respite if INEC pursues its statutory mandate with the same passion that it argues for enhanced budgetary allocations every electoral season at the National Assembly.
and then