Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, former Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development and Chairman, West Africa Civil Society Forum, was a member of the Electoral Reform Committee established in 2007 by former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to reform and sanitise the Nigerian electoral system. He speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on some of the recommendations put forward by the committee and why successive governments in the country have failed to implement them.
In 2007, you were part of a panel set up by the administration of former President Umaru Musa Yaradua in 2007. The committee was headed by former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muhammad Uwais and it came up with a comprehensive report to reform the Nigerian electoral system. It is 16 years since your panel submitted its report, can you share some of the notable recommendations you made in it?
Our key recommendations were first of all that the powers and focus of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be limited to only organising elections. We feel that the commission is overburdened as it does voters’ registration and carries out the establishment of polling units aside from many other responsibilities across the states of the federation, which were just too much. So, our first major recommendation was for the government to focus INEC’s responsibility on only elections and create new electoral and political bodies to take up other responsibilities. For example, INEC shouldn’t be burdened with producing voter cards, because the organisation that makes the National Identity Card for the citizens can do that.
Again, we said that INEC should have no responsibility for prosecuting electoral offences and that there should be an Electoral Offences Commission that will take charge of all prosecution for electoral offences. The whole idea is that if INEC is more focused, then, its capacity to deliver credible elections for the country will improve. The commission will even find it easier to organise elections once the other commissions are created. We also felt that there is very little or no punishment for electoral offences because politicians just organise all sorts of terrible and criminal things during elections. But at the end of all, they are not held accountable for their actions. So we said the Electoral Offences Tribunal should be empowered to not just prosecute erring offenders successfully but to also ban any politician for 10 years if found culpable in electoral crime, fraud, and violence.
We also feel that the burden of proof in terms of electoral outcomes in our current jurisprudence should not be placed on the political party that brings a petition, as it will be extremely difficult for a petitioner to prove his case in court because the evidence he needs is not with him or her, but with INEC, which will be out to protect its reputation. So we called for a review of that burden of proof in terms of prosecuting electoral petitions. These were some of the major issues we raised in our recommendations.
But do you think the overburdened nature of INEC as you said has been the major challenge confronting the commission, especially in the area of delivering credible elections free of violence and controversy?
Well, it is one of them. But we also raised the issue of the competence and neutrality of the members of INEC. We made a specific recommendation that the Nigerian president, who may be an interested party, should not be the one to appoint the chairman of the electoral commission, its national commissioners, and Resident Electoral Commissioners for the states. We recommended that first and foremost these positions should be advertised and people should apply if they feel they have the competence and meet the qualifications that must have been spelt out clearly. We also said that the members of the public should be allowed to write the board overseeing the selection process if they have concerns over anyone among the shortlisted applicants. We felt that the National Judicial Council should be able to organise the selection process and that at the end of the day, whoever emerges should simply be appointed with a Senate confirmation. So we felt that not only was INEC overburdened, but the condition whereby the president is responsible for the appointment of its management bodies could give rise to having people with partisan motives in the electoral commission.
But the Yar’Adua government reportedly rejected that particular section of the report and since then, successive governments have also failed to fully implement the entire report. Though the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan asked the then National Assembly to begin full implementation of the report, at the end of the day, there was no remarkable result. Why is it so?
As you said, the successive governments have not implemented any of our recommendations. I remember that when we submitted the report during Yar’Adua’s regime, it went to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and a White Paper committee was appointed for it. But in the end, the recommendations were never really implemented at all. I could remember that the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice at that time, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, was specifically opposed to our recommendations and argued at the FEC meeting that we (the Justice Uwais Committee) were appointed by the president but instead of protecting the president’s powers, we were emptying the presidency of a lot of its powers. I guess this was why he opposed it.
But despite this, I feel the recommendations we made were very good and required to rescue the Nigerian electoral system from its problematic state. So, I think they should be implemented as it is still not too late. As for why the successive governments after Yar’Adua haven’t implemented the report, I guess it is for the reasons Aondoakaa gave. They simply feel they want the president to continue to appoint the chairman and other key officials of the electoral commission.
As contained in the report, your committee also asked the Nigerian government to ratify the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance which, among other things, called for the establishment of a truly independent and impartial national electoral body for the management of elections on the African continent. Even though Nigeria was one of the leading signatories to the agreement, will you say this has reflected in the recent conduct of elections in the country, especially considering the litany of flaws recorded so far?
Well, elections have remained very problematic in the country so far and it is worrisome that the problems identified with our elections have persisted over time. There are many reasons for this, one of which is the questions that surround the independence of INEC. Another part has to do with the behavior of the political class in the country. For example, virtually all the political parties have refused to allow internal party democracy to thrive. They have also failed to organise their congresses and primaries in accordance with their own parties’ constitutions. More unfortunately, we still have a lot of thuggery and violence in our elections. You could remember what went on in Kogi State some few days before the election, which were all strong indications of the problematic state of our electoral system and process.
But amid the current failing state, how do you think we can make elections in Nigeria of international standard?
I think the first issue is to holistically look at the recommendations put forward by our committee and see how we can translate them into reality. The second issue I think is for the citizens to be much more assertive in terms of their own engagements in the political process. If, for example, the Nigerian people in their individual political parties insist that their parties must follow due process in terms of their operations and should not be beholding to political godfathers, I believe this will significantly change the way we practise our politics and election process in the country.
And then regarding the independence of INEC which is still very much on the front burner, you will notice that out of the RECs that were appointed recently, there were many of them that have engaged in party politics. We have seen them wear party symbols, even during the last election. But in spite of all these, they were still appointed as RECs, and the Senate, which was expected to screen their names out on the basis of the petitions submitted against them, later became complicit with the presidency in terms of appointing people who should not have been appointed into such sensitive electoral positions. In this context, I think if we don’t take measures to respect the principles of neutrality in terms of those organising our elections, then, we will continue to have problems.
With the way things are, do you think the Nigerian public can ever have confidence in both INEC and the judiciary?
Well, currently, the confidence of the people has been shakened over some of the things that happened at the last general election. The specific things INEC promised, such as the electronic transmission of results, did not happen. Many people became disappointed because before the election they had been made to believe that the commission would do it. I guess this amounts to the loss of faith in the electoral process and the commission.
More so, I think some of the decisions of the judiciary have been of great concern, as they have made us believe that the judiciary itself is increasingly becoming a partisan player in our electoral process and that it is judges now that decide winners of an election rather than the Nigerian voters. This simply has to change if we are to have more confidence in our elections. Thank you.
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