A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, shares his assessment of the presidential and National Assembly elections, and what the Independent National Electoral Commission can do differently in the remaining elections

What is your general assessment of the elections held on Saturday?

Like most things in this election, there are no easy answers to that question. It should have been easy to say the enthusiasm and turnout of the voters was the big news, but if you look at the numbers just released by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the presidential vote, the top four parties polled 23.38 million votes; total votes cast was 24,965,940, which is nearly three million votes less than what we had in 2019 when we had supposedly 10 million fewer voters. If you remember, the official turnout figure from the 2019 presidential election was 34.75 per cent, which was the historical low before now. It is either INEC has done an abysmal job or the numbers are not right. Something is askew, and in a sense, these numbers dramatise the entire picture in these elections. Howsoever you look at it, these numbers don’t make sense. Essentially, if these numbers hold good, they will say INEC under the current leadership has written itself into infamy. But it will be good to compare the turnout numbers for the presidential election with the totals for the National Assembly election, which was held on the same day. Until I see those numbers, I will suspend a dispositive opinion.

Many people have expressed disappointment with the exercise, looking at the invasion of polling units and collation centres by thugs, killings, violence and late arrival of electoral materials and INEC staff members, why has it been impossible to address these recurring problems in Nigerian elections?

How can I possibly tell you? Surely, it cannot be the stuff of rocket science to see or to address these things. INEC was on an upward trajectory between 2011 and 2015 under Prof Attahiru Jega, who was clearly quite committed to addressing in a methodical manner the historical challenges that had afflicted Nigeria’s elections. Under the current leadership, the gains of the Jega era have been wasted and the current INEC chair has taken election management in Nigeria into disrepute.

There were assurances from INEC and the security agencies that they were fully prepared, but eventually there were delays in many polling units and there was violence in many places, such that a pregnant woman was even killed in Rivers State, among other issues. Did you see all of these coming, despite the assurances?

I had said it many times before the election that INEC’s assurances were not to be taken seriously and that the reality of the elections would be different. Indeed, I did write at the beginning of 2022 that the elections under the current leadership of INEC in 2023 could be a ‘tragic farce’. When I wrote that, it was in the hope that the INEC leadership would at least make a genuine effort to reciprocate the belief of Nigerians in elective government. It seems evident that they were even by then too far gone. So, no, I did not expect much more from this INEC. As for our security services, they have not proved to be particularly dominant in other theatres before these elections. At election time, in any case, they were already stretched and, long before now, security provisioning in the country had become transactional. I am not sure there was room to expect much more from them.

The delay in uploading polling units’ results by INEC has been cited as a major hitch, but the commission said it had network issues, do you sense any sabotage within INEC or the excuse should be tenable since it is technology?

Let me put it this way: I do not think the delay was an accident. The INEC chairman had been so emphatic about this; you would have thought that at the minimum, they would make every effort to ensure that it worked. And if it did not, they would at least ensure that they addressed any challenges in a manner that kept the confidence of the people. In the end, they could not be bothered. It was as if they were on a journey to a predetermined destination.

Opposition parties, including the PDP and LP, have called for the cancellation of the election; do you think that is the way to go, given the funds spent and tension already generated by the exercise?

INEC has done its thing. What did you expect him (the chairman) to do? He has been egregiously wilful. Once it announces the winner, the competence to address complaints and cancellations (if any) heads to the election dispute resolution process. Quite clearly, few people believe that Nigeria’s courts are capable of doing much to address or correct or offer credible relief for the systematic infractions by INEC. If there is anything that this situation shows, it is that public confidence in the judiciary has never been lower. Do I expect the courts to really do much about the flaws in these elections? Let them surprise me! This is not really about funds spent. The challenge is how to retain the support and attention of the people in the democratic process. We are supposed to have elections again on March 11. It will be difficult to persuade people to turn out again when many of them have good reasons to believe that they have been robbed, jobbed, and rather literally, kebabbed.

Just as former President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote, do you also sense danger looming ahead with the outcome of this exercise?

I am not a babalawo, so I don’t do a lot of gazing into crystal balls. It seems quite clear that INEC has been a scandal in this presidential ballot. But I would have preferred us to address the issue of the lack of credibility of this election without Obasanjo getting involved. In 2003, he worked with Abel Guobadia to mess around with the elections. Then, in 2007, he organised a very criminal election, writing up results and inventing numbers for counts that did not happen and never happened. As we speak today, the state by state breakdown for the 2007 elections do not exist because they were not allowed to happen. In my view, sadly, Obasanjo set us up for where we are today. If you ask for my honest view, I will say he should sit this matter out. There are young Nigerians engaged with the subject matter and they will battle this matter as they see fit. He can support them in more quiet, less visible ways.

INEC has declared its version of outcomes. In the circumstance, the matter now turns over to the courts for what they are worth. Election petition is a very performative ritual in Nigeria. It can also be destructive and toxic, as with the kind of outcome we got from the Supreme Court in relation to Imo State in January 2020. The most anyone can ask of INEC now is that they preserve the evidence of everything they have done or failed to do. But even that task could be too much for them.

This will inexorably lead to a plethora of court cases that will further burden the judiciary, and now that judgments of the courts in political cases are now serially subjected to heavy criticism, where do you think all of these would lead to, especially for the judiciary?

We should ordinarily leave the judiciary to figure that out. I am aware that many judges at different levels have lobbied heavily to be put on election tribunal duty. That can only be because many believe there is good money to be made there. That on its own says a lot. I am also aware that many senior lawyers have concentrated on seeing no evil in these elections because they are positioning for lucrative election petition briefs. There have, of course, been some exceptions. For instance, former Nigerian Bar Association President, OCJ Okocha, SAN, has been admirably candid about what he experienced. But, you see, rigging elections is big business in Nigeria – it puts money in the pockets of all manner of people; a lot of money. Sadly, it also has serious adverse consequences for the courts and for what they exist to do. Ordinary cases now languish in courts and the people have lost faith in the courts, which are now seen increasingly not as the proverbial ‘last hope of the common man’, but instead as the last rope with which to hang the common man.

While INEC and security agents could have done some things better, some people will also argue that for the commission to succeed, it needs the collaboration of Nigerians and that it should not be INEC versus the Nigerian system. Isn’t that the ideal?

Nigerians gave every support to INEC and much more. The reality is that it is INEC that has failed to support Nigerians. The people were not asking for too much. They did not ask INEC to do anything outside its powers. Instead they asked it to obey the rules it had set up and to make a diligent effort to count every vote fairly and honestly and call the outcome howsoever it turned out. Instead, of doing that, the INEC Chairman and his team set about subverting all of these systematically. The good thing is that INEC is run by Nigerians. Everyone, including the INEC chairman, his commissioners and staff members at all levels will be served breakfast. We all will live with the consequences.

Ahead of the governorship and National Assembly elections on March 11, what should INEC do differently?

INEC’s wilful egregiousness has already compromised the state-level elections. Many people, I fear, will not be willing to expose themselves to the danger and inconvenience of voting again in deliberately mismanaged elections, and who can blame them? It is very much as if INEC actually went out of its way to programme the state-level elections for irrelevance. It can as well just write up whatever it wants as the outcomes there well ahead of 11 March 2023.

Given that many results were not uploaded on the INEC portal from the polling units, do you think that could form a sufficient ground to nullify the exercise?

That is the business of the courts and tribunals, and given the way our courts function these days, I will have better luck predicting what a Juju priest will do or whom the sex worker in Obalende would encounter as their next customer!

There are people who believe that Saturday’s elections were a setback from the progress and commendations received by INEC in recent elections, and even compared to 2015 and 2019 elections. What is your view on this?

I have already addressed this. The current chairman of INEC had done incredible damage to the management of elections in Nigeria. It will take the country a lot of time to recover. The terrible thing is the waste he has inflicted on the country. Attahiru Jega had only 10 months to run elections in 2011, but succeeded in cutting election petitions from over 86 per cent to just over 51 per cent of the offices contested. I will not be surprised if in 2023, the current chairman will probably take them closer to where we were in 2007, even with greater lack of faith in the judicial system. The man is a miracle worker.

Many people had thought that the BVAS and timely upload of results were the game changer until the outcome of the polls started manifesting. How best can the nation make elections more credible?

The chairman of INEC worked hard to make the BVAS irrelevant in the election and, in that task, he succeeded magnificently. Shouldn’t we congratulate him? There is no way to make our elections more credible in Nigeria if the people, who are to administer them, like the chairman of INEC, end up like what we have just witnessed. This is not rocket science.

Does it mean that whoever emerged as the winner of this presidential election cannot claim to have the mandate of the electorate, given the level of irregularities that surrounded it?

Nigeria has too many problems. It has always been my prayer that whoever emerges from these elections will have the political capital and legitimacy to spend on addressing them. Sadly, the chairman of INEC and his team have done substantial damage in my view to the mandate they have conferred on the person announced as the winner of these elections. They have made his work a lot more difficult. Most of us who are Nigerians find ourselves in an abusive relationship with the country. We want it to succeed even when those who run it don’t seem to want us to. Most Nigerians would like to see a country that works well for all who live in and come from it. I am not sure if this INEC too does.

The Electoral Offences Commission Bill has yet to be passed by the National Assembly, do you align with those who feel the delay is deliberate?

I have never been convinced about the need for a new law to punish infractions, because the laws are already in the books. It is like if you can’t enforce the law, make a new law. That is not sensible to me. We have shown no will so far to punish and enforce the existing framework of election-related offences. Even if you established an Election Offences Commission, it will still function under the overall authority of the attorney-general, who has control of criminal cases. In turn, the attorney-general is appointed by the president or governor, who themselves could be beneficiaries of election offences. You get my point?

The President and some political leaders, including a senator and a governor, flashed their ballot papers to show people who they voted for, which is in violation of the law. Do you see anything happening to them for that brazen violation of the law?

The President has immunity from legal process, while he is the president. The other electoral flashers don’t. But then, the flashers include the attorney-general of the federation, who, himself, should be responsible for ensuring effective enforcement of the law. So, what’s the need to ask what should happen to the people who break a law when the leading lawbreaker is the person charged with implementing that law? Nigeria is a country that normalises abnormality and these lot have taken that tendency several notches up.

Some people have hailed the Labour Party for its victories and the disruption it caused, especially for defeating the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, in Lagos and winning in some parts of the North. Does that disruption symbolise anything for the future, especially when people think such was almost impossible?

There will be time to read the granular tea leaves from this election. I don’t think that time is now. Ask me this question again by the middle of the year. By then, we will have perspectives and the implications can be a lot clearer. (Sunday PUNCH)

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