INEC and Electoral Process in Nigeria: a Study of 2010/2011 Voters’ Registration Exercise
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The general or broad objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of negative perception by the Nigerian publics of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on voters’ registration in Nigeria. The study will examine the impact of voters’ registration as prerequisites for credible and generally accepted elections in Nigeria. The specific objectives are as follows
- To ascertain if there is any relationship between the structure and composition of INEC and the conduct of free and fair electoral process
- To determine if there is any relationship between negative perceptions of INEC by the public and the credibility of voters’ registration
- To establish whether there is any significant relationship between the credibility of INEC and public confidence in the electoral process
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Elections in Nigeria
Election in Nigeria relies on two major legal documents which are the 1999 Constitution as Amended and the Electoral Act 2010. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the agency that is saddled with the responsibility of the conduct of elections and other related matters such as registration and de-registration of political parties, regulating the conducts and activities of contestants and political parties and designing regulations for the electorates towards the conduct of the election proper. The INEC has been perceived as one of the challenges of electoral conduct in Nigeria due to alleged corruption, partiality, irregularities, shoddy preparations and lack of expertise and professionalism among others (The Centre for Public Policy Alternatives, 2015).
Election in Nigeria usually has the political culture and voting pattern of ethnicity, religion and regionalism which is part of the issues that are bedeviling the successful choice of good leaders in the country (Abdullahi, 2015). Closely related to the above is the politics of winning at all cost where elections in Nigeria are marred with rigging, violence, manipulation of results and intimidation of opposition and their supporters using the apparatus of security personnel and political thugs (Auwal, 2015). Election in Nigeria took the dimension of money politics where vote buying, godfatherism, bribery, corruption, overspending, violation of electoral rules and other irregularities affected the process and its outcome (Sule et al., 2018). The phenomenon of money politics reached its zenith in Nigerian politics during the 2015 Presidential Election.
The political elites found it expedient to manipulate religion as the easiest means of acquiring power because of their failure to deliver their responsibilities. Politics has been turned into a business venture in Nigeria for self-services and personal accumulation of wealth. The religious clerics are bought and corrupted by the politicians to sway the voters’ opinion into submission to religious sentiments in politics. This has been reported by Sule et al. (2018).
The political culture in Nigeria is that of the politics of violence, zero-sum game, militarism, utilisation of thugs by politicians and the use of all available means to secure power at all cost including killings, political assassination, intimidation of opposition and voters. Because of the elites’ nature of capturing power at all cost for personal gain, election in Nigeria is turned into a war-like affair (Falola & Heaton, 2008).
Election can thus, be held peacefully, safely and fairly if the process of the conduct is improved. One of the ways is to prevent rigging through e-voting which will make the voters’ choice to count and to ensure policy compliance from the politicians. There should be aggressive public awareness creation on the evil consequences of involvement in rigging, violence and all sorts of manipulation from the electorates. Furthermore, election can be held safely if the politics of ethnicity, religion and regionalism are mitigated.
CHAPTER THREE
THE ELECTORAL FRAMEWORK AND ELECTION ADMINISTRATION
Legal framework for elections
The legal framework, which governs the Presidential and National Assembly elections in Nigeria, comprises:
The 1999 Constitution (as amended); and The Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which was established under Article 153 (1) of the Constitution, has also issued guidelines and procedures – including INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections (2011), a Manual for Election Officials (2011), Framework for Voting by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) (December 2018), Regulations for Voting by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) (December 2018), Code of Conduct for Election Officials (2014), INEC Guidelines for Election Observation (2018), and a Code of Conduct for Political Parties (2018) – to guide their conduct before, during and after the elections.
In accordance with its international obligations, Nigeria has signed and ratified key international instruments relating to the conduct of elections, including the UN Declaration of Human Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; African Charter on Human and People’s Rights; African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance; and the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. Nigeria is also party to the Commonwealth Charter.
CHAPTER FOUR
GENERAL IMPRESSION OF ELECTION PROCESS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS
Electioneering is a major component of democracy. It gives citizens the opportunity to decide who represents them at local, state and national levels. Thus, in principle, elections are important for the sustenance of democracy in any country. The findings from this study (Figure 1) buttresses this assertion. While 68% of the respondents in the North Central region felt that elections were important, other regions recorded a relatively higher positive response. Overall, at least four out of five respondents affirmed that elections were important.
Voter Registration
Voter registration is a basic requirement for political participation in Nigeria; without registering, a person of voting age is not allowed to vote. Although the act of registration is supposed to be an evidence of an individual’s determination to vote, observations from previous elections have shown that voters may be registered for different reasons other than to vote. Therefore, a very important question posed to the respondents in this study was, ‘Did you register as a voter?’ Among the sampled respondents, 93% registered for the 2011 April election. Although there are variations in the responses by region, at least nine out of 10 persons registered for the April 2011 election (Figure 3).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
The 2011 elections in Nigeria was held in February 2011 under the legal regime of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 , the Electoral Act 2010, and guidelines regulating the conduct of institutions and agencies involved in elections. The National Assembly did a commendable job in 2010 in its amendment of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral
Act 2010 among which were: making the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) financially independent when it made its expenditure derivable directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund; inclusion of time limitation for the hearing of election petition, appointment of secretary to INEC, IDP enfranchisement etc. The Electoral Act 2010 now contains provisions to address delayed hearing of election petition unlike the position under the repealed Electoral Act 2006. However, there is the need to further amend the Constitution as well as the extant Electoral Act to further guarantee and strengthen the independence of INEC by making the Commission not subject to the direction and control of any person or authority in the exercise of all its operation. Additionally, the constitution as well as the Electoral Act should be further amended to accommodate other recommendations of the Electoral Reform Committee such as independent candidacy, giving greater weight to the substance of the petition rather than mere technicalities among others. This is imperative to restore credibility in the electoral process in Nigeria and ensure the conduct of free, fair and credible elections in the country.
The need to enfranchise Nigerian Diaspora in subsequent elections is necessary giving their economic contribution thus the amendment of the Electoral Act 2010, to grant Voting rights for Nigerians in the Diaspora contravenes neither the Nigerian constitution nor any other known law in Nigeria. Rather, it revolves around and seeks to strengthen the following constitutional issues as provided for in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
- Franchise: Right to vote and be voted for; ii. Rights of representation; iii. Right to choose a candidate in an election; iv. Right to be informed of what representatives are doing with your mandate
- Right to ascertain the level of constituency development; and vi. Right of recall.
The reports of various independent observers of the 2011 general elections shows that Nigeria has made a major leap in its democratic development with the organization of elections that was rated as being credible, free, fair and conclusive. Massive political education of the citizenry and the political class, will to a large extent correct some of the identified anomalies, through discouragement of involvement in electoral irregularities.
The post-presidential election violence of 2011 revealed the major shortcoming of the National security system of the country, which despite reports of electoral violence in previous elections could not proactively work to avert such a very unfortunate occurrence, which led to loss of innocent lives and countless property. The Nigerian government needs to train and equip its security agencies to be able to forestall violent breakdown of law and order, either before, during and after elections, utilizing the instrumentality of community policing; with the enlightened participation of the citizenry.
The litmus test for democracy in Nigeria will be the extent to which the electoral process through the electoral law instituted is able to engender fair, participatory, and inclusive electoral participation by the people. If the electoral law is weak, deficient, or poorly enforced, the electoral process will be easily subverted. There is need, therefore, to reform and strengthen the electoral law to ensure full adherence to those laws.
Unfortunately, electoral process has always been faulty, skewed and manipulated in favour of one party or candidate at the expense of the others. This has been the practice from one election to the other, thereby making electoral management a daunting task since independence in Nigeria. In most cases, election results have been rejected by the electorates and followed up by violence. This has led to the collapse of the first and second republics as well as the aborted third republic in Nigeria. This is a great lesson to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Any attempt to skew or manipulate election results either in favour of a political party or candidate at the expense of others may spell a great doom for the fourth republic in Nigeria. Therefore, INEC must be truly independent, transparent and impartial in the performance of its functions as stipulated by the 1999 constitution and the 2010 electoral laws. It must carry out its operational activities in such a manner to be perceived in reality by all actors in the electoral process, to be neutral, objective and above board. Apart from this, INEC must be able to exhibit high-level of competence in the discharge of its constitutional assigned duties with minimal or no institutional, structural or financial hindrances. INEC must be seen to be truly independent in every sense of the world. It will be stressed here that without vibrant and competent people being appointed into INEC to strengthen it and manage elections there will be no strong INEC and the conduct of elections will be seriously flawed and the whole democratization process will be thrown into disrepute or grounded to a halt.
Electoral violence continues to be a recurring decimal in the polity. This is largely fuelled with the amount of money associated with elective offices. The just concluded elections in 2015 posed a different challenge considering the level of insecurity pervading the country. The Boko haram insurgency for once raised the bar as there were fears that elections will be impossible to conduct in several parts of the country while the insurgents can also exacerbate existing conflicts.
While the death tolls in the 2015 elections cannot compare to the post-election violence of 2011 that led to the death of hundred and displacement of thousands of people, the tolls in the elections still remained high.
Section 227 of the Constitution and section 81 of the Electoral Act prescribe punishment for the contravention of electoral offences. However, the adequacy of the provisions to fight electoral violence, remains in question, one is that the sentences is very light, secondly is the trial of election offences in regular court makes prosecution highly ineffective as INEC is hampered by the small size of its legal department and cannot effectively prosecute.
Elections are seen as the hallmark of democracy because it provides the legal framework through which the change in political office holders and legitimate government is established. For any government to be legitimate, the Electoral process must be in line with the dictates of the electoral laws as enshrined in the regulatory framework. There were gross violations of the 2010 Electoral Act by the ruling elite which has adversely affected the electoral process and democratic consolidation in Nigeria‘s Fourth Republic. Several sections of the Electoral Act 2010 were violated e.g. Section 91(2); 95(2); 99(1-3) etc also Section 221 etc of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The need to implement the Justice Uwais commission‘s recommendation of the setting up of an Electoral Offences Court in order to punish offenders; and for INEC to be strengthened and given the autonomy in order to enforce the laws as enshrined in the Act.
Conclusion
The paper concludes that the 2011 Election has similitude with the previous Presidential Elections in Nigeria from 1979 in terms of voting pattern and political behaviour. The electorates voted for their Presidents with much emphasis on ethnicity, religion and regionalism. The phenomenon seems to continue despite the development of democracy in the country. The paper also concludes that the 2011 Election differs in many ways from the previous Presidential Elections in the history of the country. One of the ways is the higher number of political parties with a total registered number of parties up to 91 and 71 of them fielded candidates for the Presidential contest. The work therefore recommends that for a voting pattern to change in Nigeria towards evaluation of performance instead of sentimental cleavages there must be parties with political ideology that can distribute power and resources based on equality and equity instead of clientelism. It is also recommended that there is a need for an intensive and aggressive enlightenment of the voters towards political socialisation.
Recommendations
Further to the above findings, the following recommendations are hereby proposed:
For the prompt prosecution of electoral offenses, the Electoral Act should be amended to accommodate the establishment of an Electoral Offences Tribunal to be composed and inaugurated on the year of elections to handle all pre-election and Election
Day Offences ranging from registration of voters, buying and selling of voter’s cards, violation of time of commencement of campaign, financial inducement of voters on Election Day, corruption of ad hoc election officials etc. The proposed tribunal should be manned by both serving judges and retired judicial officers that are still active to handle strictly electoral offence throughout all stages of elections in an election year and six months after the election.
In addition to the above, the Electoral Act should equally be amended to provide for an autonomous Electoral Offences Commission with the capacity to investigate all electoral fraud and related offences, coordinate enforcement and prosecution of all electoral offences. The Commission should have the capacity and legal instrument to set up Mobile Courts to try election offences on election days and adopt measures to prevent and eradicate the commission of electoral malpractices.
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