An electoral umpire’s authority comes not only from the legal framework that spells out its duties but also from the public belief and confidence in the ability of the man at the helm to make the right judgment, take the right decisions in critical moments. Election is one of such critical moments that calls forth the leadership quality, competence and trustworthiness of the man at the helm of affairs.
That’s why the job of the Chief electoral umpire is such a damn tough one that requires, among other personal attributes, an eye constant on the ball, uncommon courage, independence of mind, unflappable conviction, sincerity of purpose, and somebody who will, at all times, take responsibility as vested in him by the Constitution and the Electoral Act. It’s so because, responsibility abandoned today will certainly return as more acute crises tomorrow.
That’s why last Saturday’s sudden postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections as announced in the early hours of that fateful day, by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, will continue to attract criticisms of a peculiar nature, regardless of what happens on the rescheduled poll on Saturday, February 23. Prof. Yakubu had told a stunned nation and the international community that enormous “logistical problems” necessitated the postponement. He listed some of these logistical problems to include fire incidents in some INEC offices in the country, transportation delays to deliver election materials to some States, recent court judgments and bad weather.
None of these reasons was strong enough, according to Section 26(1) of the Electoral Act, to warrant postponement of election. Also, the Minister of State for Aviation, Heidi Seriki and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), have countered the bad weather alibi, saying the weather forecast last Saturday was perfect for election. And one begins to wonder why Yakubu has given the critics of his commission enough ammunition to cast a huge blanket of suspicion on his ability, competence, impartiality in the election, and at a wrong time. Was the leadership of INEC bewitched to make this serious error of judgment at this crucial time?
Watching Yakubu defend the commission’s position to shift the elections during a stakeholders’ meeting at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, was a man visibly ruffled and buckled under pressure. At some point, he looked expressionless, as if asking himself: ‘have I forgotten why I took this job ‘? Or didn’t he know the enormity of the task of conducting a national election?. Nothing makes a man to whom much had been given and who is believed to have the requisite leadership ability, only to be put on the spot at the critical moment and he appeared to look like a liar. Can this be the erudite professor we have garlanded in the past? I am shocked like everyone else.
Whatever Prof. Yakubu has said since last Saturday, or the commission has put forward to wiggle off the hook, it has not worked. Public confidence in Yakubu and the commission to conduct a free, fair, credible and transparent elections, has reached an all time low.
The failure of last Saturday has already had the gravest consequences on the nation, the embarrassment before the international community, cost to the economy and individual pains. These costs and pains cannot be mitigated even if Yakubu agrees to resign, a damage control option that President Buhari has dismissed. Although Yakubu has apologised for the grave harm his decision has caused the nation ,our democracy.
The sudden decision to postpone the elections was not far away from the apocalypse that many predicted earlier. Their worst fears have come to pass. I don’t think we yet have full disclosures on the real reasons that led to the poll shift. Maybe, in the fullness of time the actual reasons will suffice. But the buck stops at Yakubu as the Chief Electoral umpire, and he should on all accounts, take the blame. Those who cite the previous shift in 2011 and 2015 miss the whole picture. While INEC under Prof. Attahiru Jega had less than one year to prepare for the 2011 elections, Prof Yakubu had four clear years to prepare for the 2019 general elections.
The timetable for the elections was released two years ago. Perhaps no Chairman of the electoral body has received the kind of support, moral and financial, that the Yakubu-led INEC has received from the government and the National Assembly. It was not for nothing. We wanted a free, fair, credible and transparent elections where all votes must count and the integrity of the elections seen to be so. Sadly, that chance is fast eroding. And questions come like claps of thunder. Was Yabuku under any pressure to shift the poll? Was the postponement a clever ploy to manipulate the result as some people have alleged? Was the decision announced by the INEC Chairman, to borrow the words of the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the “hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob?”.
In other words, is someone, somewhere, calling the shots for Yakubu? Is he truly his own man in this election? Has he forgotten that, In the end, history will judge him harshly if he, by any omission or commission, compromise the elections, especially the presidential poll? As a first class graduate of history, Yakubu doesn’t need any lectures on how history judges people entrusted with enormous public assignments. He knows that the credibility of elections starts with the process. When the process is faulty, the outcome cannot be transparent.
I guess INEC is now walking on a delicate line four days to the new date. It will have itself to blame if it fails a second time. Question is being asked as to why the commission awarded the contract for the printing of Permanent Voters Card(PVCs) to a firm whose Managing Director/CEO is a Senatorial Candidate in Niger state on the ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC).The reason given by INEC that the company has been doing business with it since 2011 is not convincing at all. Was the contractor a candidate of any party then? Serious conflict of interest is involved here, and this will surely put INEC in a hole that it has dug for itself.
I am not sure INEC will acquit itself on Saturday. Trust is in short supply for INEC and its leadership. As I have many times in this column, trust is leveling with the people before an election about what the electoral agency is doing, the openness and sincerity of every cause of action. Trust is not having to guess what the umpire means. Trust is not, to paraphrase ex-American President, Gerald R .Ford, ‘being all things to all people, but being the same thing to all people’. On that scale, can we trust the present leadership of INEC? Its repeated assurances of the past to conduct transparent elections can no longer be believed. The commission seems to have found itself in a bind, shading words so that each separate audience will hear what it wants it to hear. But few are convinced it is not overwhelmed by the task before it.
Perhaps the only way Yakubu can salvage his image and rebuild public confidence is to pay close attention to everything happening under his name as Nigeria’s Chief electoral umpire, because when success comes, the badge of honour first goes to the electoral body and the Chairman. If he’s in doubt, he should ask his immediate predecessor. However, Yakubu has a redemption time on Saturday because there’s often lessons from failure. Therefore, can INEC use the failure of last Saturday as a springboard to put the integrity of our democratic process back on track?
But, if the leadership of INEC chooses to be impervious to the lessons of last weekend, and do the bidding of any candidate or political party, it should be ready for the consequences of such an action. The mood in the country right now calls for zero tolerance for election manipulation. That’s the burden that awaits Prof. Yakubu. He has a choice to take or leave it.
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