28032019 - NATIONAL ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP:All clear for Lawan; fresh crisis brews over Gbaja

Nigeria’s endless cycle of
undemocratic elections
ernment: the consent of the people,
as expressed by votes in
free, fair, transparent and
peaceful elections. If someone
secures power by electoral
fraud, the fundamental
doctrine of consent of the
governed is breached, and the
emergent government
lacks the legitimacy and
moral right to govern.
But election-rigging
is also damaging.
It impairs democratic,
political and economic development.
Economists and
other social scientists have argued
that electoral
fraud erodes political and policy
accountability and, ultimately,
leads to bad public
policies. Surely, if a politician
becomes governor
by handing over the most
cash to electoral officers or
voters, or by causing the
most violence, he would, as we
have seen in Nigeria, turn his
state into a personal fief and
amass fortunes, rather
than govern in the interests of
the people. He is not beholden
to the electorate! And, of
course, he can secure re-election,
regardless of performance,
by using his incumbency power
and state resources to buy
votes, co-opt the security agencies
and influence electoral officers.
No serious electoral
democracy should be
so dependent on
judicial interventions,
yet, the judicialisation
of Nigerian
elections is inevitable
because of many
flaws
So, electoral fraud is legally
and morally repugnant, and
politically, economically and
socially malignant. Which is
why civilised nations
have zero-tolerance
for election malpractices.
But, not in this country.
Here, in Nigeria, with politics
so broken and rotten, rigging
is integral to elections,
and hardly any politician can
Vanguard, THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019—31
LAST year, Ibrahim Man
tu, a former Deputy Senate
President, told Channel
TV how he helped rig elections.
Apparently incredulous,
the interviewer, Esther Ogun-
Yusuf, repeated what she heard.
“Can I just clarify one thing”,
she said, “Did I hear you say
you helped to rig elections before
now?” Mantu replied: “Yes,
I did, I am now confessing the
truth”, adding he was now a
“born-again politician”. The
rigging, he explained,
didn’t always involve
tampering with ballot
boxes, but “giving money to
INEC boys to help if they can
see any chance that they can
favour you and providing
money to security agencies”.
In case anyone found his
confession shocking, Mantu
said that “all our elections
in the past” had involved rigging,
adding for good measure:
“I’ve been in this game
for about 20 years.” Heaven
rejoices over a repentant sinner,
but there is a special place
in hell for the unrepentant reprobate.
Sadly, Nigeria is infested
with too many election
riggers, past and present, who,
l i k e M a n -
tu, should publicly confess
their heinous crime. Did I
say”heinous crime”? Yes, because
ballot fraud is iniquitous;
it’s illegal, immoral and
deleterious! Of course, rigging
is illegal because it violates
all conceivable constitutional
and electoral rules and
norms. And it’s immoral, because
it undermines the key requirement
for legitimate govcast
the first stone at Mantu!
Nigeria, of course, has a long
history of election-rigging. In
the1960s, violence and ballotbox
stuffing were the
norm. Under the military, elections
were steered in favour of
preferred candidates, as in 1979
and 1999. Take the 1999 general
elections. In his book, Vindication
of a General, Ishaya
Bamaiyi, former chief of army
staff, said that General Abdulsalami
Abubakar, then head of
state, entered
a
pact with Generals Ibrahim
Babangida, T Y Danjuma and
Aliyu Gusau to hand over
to General Olusegun Obasanjo.
Put simply, if Bamaiyi was
right, the 1999 presidential
poll was a sham because
it was fixed! Of course, the two
elections conducted by
Obasanjo himself, in 2003 and
2007, were massively rigged. I
mean, in 2003, Obasanjo got
99.9% of the votes cast in his
home state, Ogun; it was so outlandish
the courts later annulled
the entire results.
The 2007 presidential election
was described by international
observers as “a charade”;
even Obasanjo’s hand-picked
beneficiary of the election,
Umaru Yar’Adua, admitted
it “had shortcomings”.
In 1999, all the 36 governorship
elections were conducted
in one day, but in this year’s
elections only 29 were held simultaneously.
Why? Well, because
the courts later annulled
the elections of nine of the state
governors for various electoral
malpractices, leading subsequently
to staggered elections.
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Two weeks ago, an election tribunal
nullified the election of
Gboyega Oyetola as governor
of Osun State, declaring illegal
the so-called inconclusive election
that denied Ademola
Adeleke,
the
frontrunner,victory. How many
of the 29 state governors elected
in this year’s elections
would survive the election petitions
kicking off across the
country? Or, indeed, what
would the court say about the
re-election of President Buhari,
which Atiku Abubakar, his main
rival, described as a “sham”,
and is challenging in court?
But no serious electoral democracy
should be so dependent
on judicial interventions.
Yet, the judicialisation of Nigerian
elections is inevitable because
of many flaws. For instance,
why are elections still
militarised in Nigeria when the
courts have declared the militarisation
of elections illegal?
Why must elections be declared
inconclusive because of rejected
votes when this would incentivise
disruptions to force
unnecessary reruns? What
about vote-buying? In the UK
“treating” is an offence, defined
as “directly or indirectly
providing any food, drink, entertainment
or provision to corruptly
influence any voter to
vote or refrain from voting”.
Why is Nigeria’s law on voter
inducement so lax?
The cycle of sham elections
will certainly continue until Nigeria’s
electoral laws are fit for
the purpose, and the politicians
and state agencies are accountable
for their actions.
9th Assembly and the speakership contest
By Imran Muhammad Halilu
AS Nigerians get set to usher in
the Ninth National Assembly,
especially in the House of
Representatives, in June this year, the
quest for who emerges as Speaker has
rightly dominated discourse in the
polity.
Majority of Nigerians would want to
see a speaker who would ensure a
harmonious working relationship
between the Legislative and the
Executive arms to achieve the ideals of
the APC-led government in the next four
years, beginning from May 29.
The All Progressives Congress, APC,
with the support of the Presidency, is set
to zone the various leadership positions
in the National Assembly. But truth be
told, that zoning should be done based
on certain considerations. In spite of this,
the quest should not be extended too far
as there are several candidates who
easily fit the bill.
First, the party should consider zoning
the positions, especially that of speaker,
to a region where it has lawmakers-elect
with popular support. The second
consideration should be to zone the
position to a region that has never
produced the number four citizen, which
obviously is the North Central.
One of the candidates of note is Ahmed
Idris Wase, who has represented Wase
Federal Constituency of Plateau State in
the Green Chamber since 2007. He not
only possesses leadership qualities,
including leading the House, but also
has the prowess and finesse to handle
every situation that may present itself as
speaker.
After obtaining a National Diploma in
Civil Engineering from the Plateau State
Polytechnic in 1986, the 55-year-old
legislator later obtained the Higher
National Diploma in Civil Engineering
from Kaduna Polytechnic in 1995. In
2005, he was appointed the Executive
Secretary of the Plateau State Muslim
Pilgrims Welfare Board, a position he
held up to 2006 before his election to the
Green Chamber by his constituents
under the defunct Action Congress of
Nigeria, ACN, in 2007. A committed
member of the APC after the merger that
gave birth to the party, he understands
the dynamics of good governance and
positive social change. He later bagged
an Executive Certificate in Strategic
Governance in 2016 from the Harvard
Kennedy School of Government in the
United States.
Wase has demonstrated to his
constituents that good governance and
quality representation are possible,
hence his many programmes that have
had positive impact on the people. His
key areas of interest have been in
education, health, youth empowerment,
infrastructural development and quality
representation of the interest of his state
at the national stage.
Nicknamed Maje by his associates, he
was appointed chairman of the House
Committee on Federal Character in the
seventh assembly, and retained the
position in the current assembly until his
elevation to the position of deputy house
leader late last year.
As chairman of the Federal Character
Committee, he fought to bridge the
disparity and imbalances in various
states and regions in terms of
The party should consider
zoning the positions,
especially that of speaker, to a
region where it has
lawmakers-elect with popular
support
employment and infrastructural
distribution to bring them in line with the
constitutional requirement of federal
character. He thus distinguished himself
as a man keen on justice, equity and
fairness; as a result, he became known
as a go-getter for employment
opportunities for members and staff of
the National Assembly.
His Committee became the most active
committee in the seventh and eighth
assemblies, recording an unprecedented
number of interactive meetings with
MDAs exceeding 150 sessions per
assembly. On his contributions on the
floor of the House during debates on
major bills and motions, Wase exuded
diligence and experience in his
contributions which were always laced
with wisdom from a man that has it in
abundance.
In the last 12 years that he has served
as a lawmaker, no scandal has cropped
up around him. He served as member of
several committees during the sixth and
seventh assemblies, including
committees on emergency and disaster
(2007-2011); public service and federal
character (2007-2011); environment
(2007-2011); area councils (2011-2015);
capital market (2011-2015); public
accounts (2011-2015); poverty
alleviation (2011-2015); housing and
habitat (2011-2015).
Between 2015 and 2018, Wase has
served as member of the governing board
of the National Institute for Legislative
and Democratic Studies, NILDS. He was
a member of the Federal Government
delegation to the 89th Session of the
United Nations General Assembly in
New York and had been appointed
regional representative for West Africa to
serve on the executive committee of the
Commonwealth parliamentary
Association International, CPA.
Given his profile, it is sufficient to state
that Wase is one of those that should be
considered for the speakership of the
House.
•Halilu, a political commentator, wrote from
Abuja