By Uche Ugboajah
So, in 2027, when Mama Nkechi is forcefully stopped from voting in Lagos with the police watching or ballot papers thrown into the gutters in Okota area or burnt because a particular candidate was losing; when a horde of underaged voters show up at polling booths in the North; or when a Resident Electoral Commissioner is disappeared by security operatives somewhere in the South-East on the eve of election, just know that they happened not necessarily because of what the ruling party did. They happened because of what the opposition did not do; the dangers they refused to see, and the road not taken.”
Very recently, Peter Gregory Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, appeared to have rubbed some notable politicians in the wrong places by sternly insisting not to join any coalition for 2027 elections that does not put Nigeria first. To break it down, the idea behind a possible coalition in the build up to 2027 general election has been underpinned by this non-factual argument that for the incumbent president and his political party to be defeated, there was need for some kind of coalition among the opposition. Purveyors of this argument easily point to the result of the 2023 presidential election to push that had Peter Obi worked with Atiku Abubakar in 2023, they would have defeated President Tinubu and the party in power, the All Progressives Congress, APC. That is a simplistic position for a more complex problem; a fortiori, an alibi put forward to gaslight the opposition and further justify the heist that was the 2023 presidential election.
If you had followed most of the mischievous or ignorant analyses of those who tried to defend the brazenly criminal conduct of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2023 presidential election, for instance, you must have heard that familiar refrain of how the opposition – meaning Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi – split their votes and thus played into the hand of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the ruling APC. That argument may be statistically correct given the numbers put out by INEC. But like a bikini as the late Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, would say, statistics hide more than they reveal.
Beyond those figures are the more important empirical and other value laden issues of how those numbers were arrived at. Were those figures correct in the first place? Do the numbers reflect the vote choices made by the electorate at their various polling booths? Were those numbers contrived by “grab it and run with it” politicians and handed to willing and suppliant staff of INEC? And the only thing that can attest to the veracity of those numbers is a thorough interrogation of the process that threw up those numbers referred to as “total votes received” by each candidate. Yes, the courts had adjudicated on the petitions arising from the election and their verdicts given. Yet not a few Nigerians think that justice was not served by the judiciary, which by the way is now largely seen as a co-opted member of Nigeria’s rigging machine, that also includes heads of the security agencies, and ably marshalled by politicians.
This renewed talk about coalition and alliance formation by opposition politicians in the country preparatory to 2027 while it may be healthy, sadly loses focus on the central problem of our electoral process. This problem with our elections has since 1999 robbed citizens of the main dividend of democracy, which is electing the leaders they chose for themselves. This is another way of saying that the results of our elections especially under this present INEC do not reflect the choices of voters. In short, votes do no count!
It is indeed disappointing that two years after the charade that was the last presidential election and two years to another one in 2027, the major opposition candidates have done nothing to advocate the blocking of all the loopholes in the electoral laws that enabled the shenanigans that INEC unleashed on the nation in the conduct of the sham called 2023 polls. Instead, they’re dissipating their energy on forming a coalition for the purpose of wresting power from the APC in an election still to be conducted by an utterly biased and duplicitous electoral management body headed by Professor Mahmoud Yakubu.
If these opposition politicians were serious indeed, immediately after the swearing in of President Tinubu, all the talk of moving forward would have been underlined by stringent calls and activism towards reforming the electoral process with the sacking of the INEC chairman at the centre of it. It is rather disappointing that Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president for eight years; and Peter Obi, a two-term governor – the main opposition figures (never mind the other pretenders who are mere dealers in the political ecosystem) – have succumbed to the gaslighting with a knee-jerk desperation for an alliance.
Even the recently held Edo State gubernatorial election was not enough to nudge the PDP and LP leaders into any reasonability that this APC government does not have reflexes to allow any first mover disadvantage, the type that President Goodluck Jonathan suffered in 2015. Again, INEC as presently constituted, is not like the one headed by Professor Attahiru Jega, which at least tried to appropriate its independence by striving not to show open bias. The Edo election, no matter what the courts would rule on the conduct, clearly showed the dizzying urgency of reforming the electoral process by taking away too much discretionary powers in the hand of INEC, which it is most certain to wield in favour of the ruling party. Did you hear anyone push the same argument that the PDP and LP played into the hands of APC by dividing their votes in Edo State?
It is even more disappointing that leaders of the opposition parties are experienced enough to understand the simple template for rigging elections in Nigeria as elegantly articulated by activist lawyer, Sam Amadi. According to the former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), “all you need to rig election in Nigeria is to bribe INEC; bribe the judiciary; and commandeer the security agencies.” What Dr Amadi did not add is the now popular “Imo Formula,” (or more appropriately Uzodimma Formula, not Kalu Idika Kalu’s fiscal discipline policy in the 80s) which involves securing a fake result from a rogue security agent and passing same to pliant INEC officials and proceeding to the Supreme Court to obtain a favourable judgment. Interestingly, both strategies have the usual suspects as the dramatis personae.
While much cannot be achieved in tackling the security agencies and the judiciary, a lot can be done in respect of INEC. It is not for fun that its name starts with the word “Independent.” That independence must at all times be preserved if we want our elections to reflect the popular will and not the whims of the ruling elite and corrupt INEC officials.
One of the greatest sins that the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, (himself a beneficiary of a relatively free and fair election) committed against the Nigerian people was the destruction of what was remaining of our electoral integrity in his eight years of catastrophic rule. Under Buhari, INEC increasingly became politicised or perhaps reduced to a mere extension of the APC. More and more allegedly card-carrying members of the president’s party were appointed into sensitive positions in INEC as Resident Electoral Commissioners and National Commissioners.
The audacity to completely destroy the electoral management body was such that Buhari even nominated one of his aides to be appointed a Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) until the happy rubber stamp 9th Senate led by Senator Ahmed Lawan was overwhelmed by public outrage to refuse the confirmation of that controversial nomination. Again in 2019 Buhari refused to sign amendment to the Electoral Act that would have guaranteed some kind of electronic voting ostensibly because the bill came too late and too close to the 2019 polls.
Similarly, despite his promises of leaving behind a legacy of free and fair election, Buhari did the exact opposite by refusing to sign the 2022 Electoral Act until it was watered down into a near-useless document, which was taken advantage of by his party, INEC and the judiciary in the 2023 general election. If President Jonathan had played that unpatriotic hand that Buhari played in 2015, there was no way Buhari would have ended up becoming a president!
Forget all those deceptive talks about ‘how it does not matter who the REC is in an election.’ It does matter that the REC is honest and independent. If for instance someone like Mike Igini, the former INEC REC in Akwa Ibom State, was still in office, there was no way a Godswill Akpabio would have been in the Senate. He would not have enlisted him as a candidate in the primaries in the first place and that would not have allowed any corrupt judiciary the leeway to unleash him on Nigerians taking into considerations all the shenanigans coming out at the moment from the Senate that he presides over.
The other side of the coin is that no matter the efforts the opposition parties put in, it is almost impossible to defeat the ruling party in any election that Wike’s cousin is a REC and Yakubu the chairman of INEC. You can take that to the bank.
Is it therefore not a crying shame that while INEC is allegedly being filled with politically exposed persons, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have been playing the ostrich or at best chasing shadows. Both politicians it would appear have already fallen into the trap of building a coalition rather than pushing for reforms to strengthen INEC’s independence and revisiting the issue of guaranteeing electoral integrity through the critical matter of electronic transfer of results.
With what went down in 2023, especially the going back on its own promises on electronic transfer of results by INEC, and the court pronouncements thereof, the least expected of any serious opposition leaders would be the galvanising of action by citizens and the civil society to demand for electoral reforms. This matter of real time electronic transfer of results is at the root of restoring confidence to the electoral process and should not be left as a discretionary power in the hand of a corrupt election management body; and the interpretation of judges cashing out for their retirements.
This is where President Tinubu is ahead of his peers. Yes, you can fault the election that brought him to power and his “grab it, snatch it and run with” stratagem. But what you cannot fault is his understanding of the philosophy of the man on horseback. He supported and waited out Buhari knowing his time would come the way Atiku’s desperation for power could not allow him do to Jonathan. As opposition leader, he led from the front. He sponsored and participated in protests, used the media, mobilised labour, students and the civil society and threw everything including the kitchen sink at the PDP government. Even when the topmost echelon of his party visibly was against him, he outwitted them with his political sagacity. I am sure he’s having a good laugh everyday with tepid challenge the major opposition politicians are throwing his way on the road to 2027 assuring himself that the worst days are over now that he is in charge of everything – including INEC.
I have heard all manner of talk of how a massive coalition is gradually being coupled by the opposition to torpedo Tinubu’s reelection in 2027. I hear also that what remains the biggest headache of the alliance partners is who would lead it as the presidential candidate. Peter Obi has built a network of strong and vociferous supporters across the entire country. They proved in the last election that they are not that two men tweeting from a room. Perhaps but for INEC’s alleged sabotage, the ‘Obidients,’ as they are called, could have changed the political landscape of the country in 2023. Obi himself has kept busy since after the election visiting different parts of the country trying to improve the life chances of his countrymen and women by donating to nobble causes. He is also contributing to national conversations to keep the government in power in check. Who can quarrel with that? On his part, Atiku is also doing his best to portray himself as the leading opposition figure. Sadly though, both Atiku and Obi do not have a stable political party to launch out from. That’s another matter of its own. So, who will lead this so-called coalition party?
By concentrating on building an alliance towards 2027 and not pushing for electoral reforms, Atiku and Obi have wittingly or unwittingly played into the hands of President Tinubu. Clearly, they have not learnt any lessons from the 2023 general election and the 2024 Edo guber election. They are still working on the erroneous assumption that somehow INEC might on their own turn a new leaf without any prompting.
Rights activist and lawyer, Deji Adeyanju brilliantly summarised the situation when he stated thus: “Tinubu can’t lose any election that he organises; so it’s pointless. They shouldn’t merge, they should just entertain us and their supporters…”
So, in 2027, when Mama Nkechi is forcefully stopped from voting in Lagos with the police watching or ballot papers thrown into the gutters in Okota area or burnt because a particular candidate was losing; when a horde of underaged voters show up at polling booths in the North; or when a Resident Electoral Commissioner is disappeared by security operatives somewhere in the South-East on the eve of election, just know that they happened not necessarily because of what the ruling party did. They happened because of what the opposition did not do; the dangers they refused to see, and the road not taken.
Uche Ugboajah, a political scientist, is Editor-in-Chief, Ikengaonline.
