Preamble
1.The conduct of free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria has been a huge and intractable challenge and more than anything else has polarized the country usually along the lines of the government in power and the opposition parties.
2. This situation has arguably pervaded all the 19 listed elections that have been conducted from the colonial times to the post-independence Nigeria. As all the elections in view have been serially characterized by electoral breaches inclusive but not limited stuffing of ballot boxes, over bloated voting registers, special treatment of voters and election officials, disappearance or destruction of ballot boxes, distortion of results, intimidation of voters and political opponents by law enforcement agents, violence, arson and the wanton destruction of lives and property.
3. This situation is made more precarious by the interference of political god fathers” in the administrative and governance structures of political parties leading to the lack of party internal democracy, negation of the provisions of the political grundnorms, impunity and imposition and lack of accountability in the management of the parties.
4. This debacle has introduced the monetization of the Nigerian political space, leading to the consistent and unrelenting of the looting of the public treasury at both the national and sub national levels to build formidable war chests to execute premeditated political programs that more often than not negate the popular will of the populace. It is, therefore, less surprising that out of the 36 governors that ruled the states from 1999 to 2007, at least 21 were indicted for looting their state treasures. Consequently, elections in Nigeria are progressively becoming monetized with kidnaping, killings, maiming of political opponents and perceived threats and massive protests by disgruntled electorates.
5. The country is in dire straits with not only its internal conflicts , but is presently touted as the world’s capital for poverty and a failed state and has created the situation where government institutions cease to function and instead end up turning inward towards themselves rather than outward towards society.
6. This means that state institutions become progressively irrelevant for society. This reasoning best explains the apathy Nigerians exhibit towards the political system and the electoral process. This is a major challenge to the whole process of democratic consolidation in the county.
Reigning in the Monster
7. Many Nigerians hailed the PVC introduction and its effectiveness in elections. Nigerians who had initially lost confidence in the electoral process regained confidence again with PVC as it drastically reduced the problem of rigging, ballot snatching and thumb printing during elections, however the activities that characterized the recent governorship election in Ekiti and Osun States and the Senatorial and House of Representatives by elections in Kogi, Bauchi, Katsina and Kwara States have once again raised questions on the enforcement of the provisions of the law, monetization of the electoral process , the use of the agents of state to harass political opponents and the essence and place of PVC in ensuring that votes count and the choice of voters as regards preferred candidate is upheld.
8. According to 2011 Electoral Act as amended Section 124 subsection (a) states that paying money to any other person for bribery at any election attracts conviction to a maximum fine of N500, 000 or 12 months imprisonment or both.
9. Subsection (b) says that receiving any money or gift, for voting or to refrain from voting at any election attracts a maximum fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for 12 months or both. It was expected that with these laws coupled with the power of the PVCs, financial inducement or vote buying in election will be a thing of the past, but it is increasingly become obvious that this may be a pipe dream except the National Assembly would rise beyond primordial interest to save our flagrant and flattering democracy
10. Providing good governance through the conduct of credible elections has remained an albatross in Nigeria. Less than credible and transparent elections, bad politics and poor economic management characterized by collapsing institutions, disoriented political elites and an abused, violated, disillusioned and disenfranchised populace, has led to governance that has failed to deliver the much promised and political dividends as can be seen with the brief overview of elections in Nigeria from 1999- 2014
The 1999 Elections
11. Over the course of three months (December 1998–February 1999), Nigeria had four rounds of elections. These were the local government council elections of 5 December 1998, state House of Assembly and gubernatorial elections of 9 January 1999, National Assembly elections of 20 February1999, and the presidential election of 27 February 1999.
12. These elections were contested by the three registered political parties: the PDP; the All People’s Party (APP) – later All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP); and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). At the end of the presidential election, Olusegun Obasanjo of PDP was declared the winner and the duly elected President of Nigeria.
13. The elections according to the reports of local and international observers including the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), the Carter Center, National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), and the European Union, were marred widespread irregularities, including a ‘miraculous’ 100 percent turnout of voters in Rivers State during the presidential election, which led to the opposition parties to raise basic questions regarding INEC’s independence, impartiality, and accountability of INEC.
14. The susceptibility of INEC to political manipulation was due to its lack of institutional and financial autonomy. All its principal officers, including its chairman, national electoral commissioners, and resident electoral commissioners, were, as constitutionally mandated, the political appointees of the President.
15. Consequently, INEC had to rely on the executive arm, particularly the presidency, for its actions and inactions. The loyalty and accountability of INEC, therefore, was first and foremost to the executive to whom it had to go cap in hand begging for audience and funding.
The 2003 Elections
16. The Second elections in 2003 elections was not any less chaotic .The registration of more political parties and a review of the voters’ register were alarm signals amid palpable fears and tension across the country .
17. Whereas in 1999 elections proceeded from the lower to the higher levels – local, state, national assembly and presidential – the 2001 Bill specified that the presidential election would come first. The ensuing struggle over the legal framework of the election thus gave the impression that the playing field might not be level.
18. INEC’s level of preparation and administration of the elections was generally seen as below average. For instance, the review of voters’ register exercise it conducted was fraught with irregularities, particularly non-registration of eligible voters and withholding and sale of voters’ cards.
19. The actual conduct of the elections left more to be desired. Some of the basic problems included the unnecessary militarization of the elections through the massive deployment of security forces. The 2003 elections, according to reports of local and international observers, were fraught with contradictions, including vote buying, ballot stuffing, rigging, and violence.
20. These shortcomings were largely a result of inadequate preparation by INEC, resulting in logistical problems and inefficient officials. Pre-election activities, such as voters’ registration and education, were rushed through. In particular, the display of the voters’ register for verification was not carried out effectively, as a result of which voters’ registration exercises created room for electoral fraud.
The 2007 Elections
21. The 2007 general elections were the third in the series that maps Nigeria’s democratization since 1999. Prior to the elections, the political atmosphere was again very tense., rather than focusing on adequate preparations for the elections, INEC widely engaged in unnecessary distractions, most notably litigation against opposition candidates in its attempts to screen and disqualify candidates.
22. Its insistence on preventing Atiku Abubakar – then Vice-President and presidential candidate of a leading opposition party, the Action Congress (AC) – from contesting, although the electoral law made it clear that INEC does not have such powers, snowballed the tension.
23. Despite INEC’s jaunty expressions about its state of preparedness and ability to conduct free, fair, and credible elections, events before and during the elections proved otherwise. The political atmosphere was permeated with jaundiced views of INEC’s capability, independence and impartiality.
24. Across the country, there was unprecedented rigging, ballot stuffing, falsification of results, intimidation of voters, and direct assault on the people. In some extreme instances, voting did not take place.
25. There were instances where INEC decided to disqualify candidates on the eve of the elections, contrary to court orders. Substitutions of candidates who won party primaries was another major issue in the 2007 election, From the conduct of the elections alone, 1,250 election petitions arose.
26. The presidential election had eight, the gubernatorial 105, the Senate 150, the House of Representatives 331, and the state Houses of Assembly 656 subsequently results of the elections were bitterly disputed and protested in an unprecedented manner.
The 2011 Elections
27. Given the unenviable history of electoral misconduct, spanning over the last 50 years and relative to the 2003 and 2007 elections, the 2011 election was more transparent as it generally reflected the votes openly cast, counted and recorded in the various polling booths.
28. Most of the complaints centered around what transpired at the collation centers, where the voters appeared to have been shut out from “defending” their votes as much as they did at the polling booths.
29. There is an urgent and inherent need to make the collation centers reflect the transparency perceive at the polling booths. It is INEC’s duty to find out how to make this happen in an unquestionably open way. Money factor in the electoral campaigns looms disturbingly large with no apparent solution in sight. All legal limitations seem to have been observed in breach, especially in the 2011 elections.
2015 Elections
30. Apart from cleaning up exercise on the moribund voters register, INEC introduced biometric- Permanent Voters Card and card reader device to check election frauds, apart from giving approval to unusually high number of election observation groups up to eighty eight to monitor the elections; the groups included African Union, Commonwealth of Nations, ECOWAS and the European Union
31. Reports showed that several polling units across the country opened later than scheduled, the delay was occasioned by the late arrival of election officials and materials; this caused a lot of anxiety among voters as well as an overlap of procedures in many polling units.
32. There was notable challenge as regards effectiveness of the card reader machines, following which INEC directed election officers to manually accredit voters using the voter register and called for extension of voting process till 29 March.
33. The late deployment of personnel and materials exacerbated the card reader imbroglio. Violent conflicts were reported across the country, some of which may not be election-related, may continue to instill fear among the electorate in the conflict zones notably the North-East, North-Central and the South- South zones. Instances of irregularity recorded in some states can impact upon the integrity of the electoral process.
34. The CUPP has elucidated this to give the required impetus on its position on the 2019 general elections and why it considers it most critical to the sustenance of the corporate identity and social cohesion of Nigeria
35. Against this backdrop, it is has become imperative that in order to save our democracy from imminent collapse all stakeholders, particularly INEC, political parties, security agencies and the National Assembly should as a matter of urgency define the rules and protocols of engagement for the 2019 general elections .
THE CUPP POSITION
In view of the above and in pursuit of our inalienable rights and privileges as political organisations recognized by the law, we have unanimously and unequivocally demanded the under listed
- INEC should clearly define the role of the PVC/Card reader and the manual register and their applications to the general elections
- That INEC should avail all the political parties the exact locations of the 120,000 polling units and the exact number of the ballot boxes to be used in each unit
- Make available the comprehensive list of voters ( per polling unit) latest by the third week of January
- Identify the security agencies and clearly spell out the role of such agencies and the distance each of them would be from the voters and the polling units
- Customize all the result sheets so that it would be specific to polling units
- Provide immediate access to a portal where all the collated and announced results from the polling units can be accessed by political parties
- Elimination of the incident report form or declaration of the results from incident report forms as inconclusive until such forms are authenticated as belonging to the owner of the PVC.
- Establish a central real time electronic result collation Centre where all cascaded results from the polling units can be accessed by political parties on a real time basis
We the members of CUPP further demand for the under listed legally binding assurances
- That INEC should hold “ no holds barred” weekly from the 15th of December 2018 with all political parties, candidates, press corps, local and international election monitors and organizations, the diplomatic community and other interest groups on the state of its preparedness for the 2019 general elections
- We demand and encourage the international electoral commission and democratic organizations such as the National Democratic Institute , USA, The International Republican Institute(IRI) USA, The Chatham House UK and all democratic nations sub-regionally, regionally and globally to impress on INEC to deliver and be seen to deliver free, fair and credible in the 2019 general elections.