No election since 1999 passed integrity test in Nigeria —Shonibare, SDP national chairman

SOME people are raising issues on the extent to which the February 23 election passed the integrity test, in view of the promises by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deliver free, fair and credible election. With the accusations and counter-accusations trailing the outcome of the election, what is your reaction to the controversy?

Elections are opportunities for members of the society to assess the performance of an incumbent political office holder, a party or an individual seeking re-election or seeking to present himself for service. It would normally entail a contest between competing elites. It should normally be a judgment on the policies and party manifesto choices.

Our moral and sense of propriety keep on being subjected to diminishing standards in successive elections in our country. We tend to devise new tools to circumvent the process of enabling free and fair elections.

The presidential elections in our country since 1999 have not been conducted in a manner that one can say qualify the exercises to be commended as having passed the integrity test. We must commend the late President Umaru Yar’Ardua for acknowledging this in 2007.

 

Would you be more specific, especially by considering the argument for and against the integrity of, particularly, the presidential and National Assembly elections?

Our elections, so far, appear to be bereft of all the imperatives that will make the people have an informed knowledge of the political choice or options and even when choices appear apparent, it is often not subjected to a debate between the leading contestants.

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The elections of a few weeks ago are a good example. President Muhammadu Buhari, in his capacity as the standard-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), should have had a debate with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on the critical issues of restructuring and economic management policy. I understand the president declined. To compound matters, many state organs and leaders relied on falsification or suppression of results to enable their candidate to emerge. Violence was unleashed by either hired thugs or (as we now have allegations of) security forces participating to support one side or another to circumvent the process. It was so very contemptuous there was no reliance on lawful votes. That cannot be a democratic process.

 

Is the problem limited to elections conducted at the federal level?

No, elections conducted by state electoral bodies, for local government councils, are even worse. They hardly make attempts to conduct a fair, democratic process. It is even more blatantly manipulated without any apology. This is worse than dictatorship. One knows the score in a dictatorial dispensation; there’s no misrepresentation or pretence. We need to build the critical institutions like the electoral bodies, security agencies and courageous judges capable of comprehending the fact that their role must be non-partisan in the process leading to and during elections. Their allegiance should be to the people and the constitution of our country and not temporal political leaders.

Until many officials from these agencies are indicted and sentenced to serve terms in prisons, we may never be able to conduct presidential, National Assembly, governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections without the integrity of the process being compromised.