Nigeria: A beclouded transition
Nigerian elections have always been surrounded by intrigue, corruption and violence. Nnimmo Bassey says that as the country prepares for the first elections where one civilian government hands over to another, it appears little has changed.
April 2007 looms near as the month in which Nigerians expect to go to the polls to elect a new set of political officers. Even as the days get closer, the entire exercise is shrouded in uncertainty and Nigerians have been left guessing who the candidates of the various parties would be.
Candidates whose names had been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have to contend with the fact that clandestine clearing procedures are being conducted by any number of agencies and panels. It is a curious situation that with less than two months to go before the elections, the Nigerian people do not know their electoral choices.
One of the presidential candidates of one of the political parties is still battling to be cleared by INEC. That candidate is Atiku Abubakar, currently vice president of Nigeria. Mr Abubakar’s attempt to run on the platform of Action Congress after decamping from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been strenuously fought by the PDP and the presidency. The presidency has so far unsuccessfully tried to declare the seat of the vice president vacant on account of his changing parties, and for being disloyal to the president. In a judgement on the matter at the Appeal Court, the judges ruled among other things that the loyalty of the vice president is primarily to the nation and not the president.
Judiciary interventions have helped to curb the rabid rush for the impeachment of governors by state legislators. The courts have been heroic in their handling of thorny political matters in the build up to the elections. In fact, the judiciary appears to be the real hope for salvaging the forthcoming elections, even before they are held.
The rift between the president and his vice climaxed as they attacked each other in full public glare, in a manner that would shame writers of soap operas. They threw mud at each other over which one of them corruptly handled funds from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). While the vice president accused the president of having diverted funds for less than official purposes, the presidency accused the vice president of making unauthorised bank deposits with resources of the PTDF. So far even the investigations of the Senate have not managed to settle the dust.
The conflict between the two top citizens of the country has largely overshadowed the real issues that ought to be addressed by politicians on campaign trails at this moment. With so far unproven corruption charges flying both ways, the episode has taught election watchers that the Nigerian electoral processes are a long way from being on track. As at the time of writing this piece the Atiku Abubakar’s name had not found its way onto the ballot, even though the electoral body asked for and received his photographs, ostensibly for that purpose.
The 2007 elections may well be one in which candidates spent more time struggling to have their names on the ballot papers than on the soap box enunciating their manifestos and programmes. Only recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released a list of persons it considers to be corrupt and who should not be allowed to seek elective office in the country. While some analysts insisted that EFCC had no statutory powers to screen candidates, the presidency went ahead to set up a committee who reviewed the EFCC list. Out of their activities, it released a somewhat moderated list of persons who will not bee able to run for office at the forth coming elections.
The names on the ballot are not the only names to worry about. The names on the voters register may prove to be another headache. For example Nigerians were apathetic during the voters’ registration exercise. There were a number of reasons for this. People did not have a clear sense of where the registration centres were. Where the spots were known, there was a dearth of registration equipment. It was not until the last few days of the exercise, declared work free days for public officers, that people thronged to the registration centres. Registration of voters has historically offered corrupt politicians the opportunity to engage in multiple registrations, inclusion of fictitious names and the accumulation of voters’ cards with which they perfected their ignoble acts. The recent registration exercise had at least one incident in which registration equipment was allegedly found in the house of a chieftain of the ruling party. While some of the chieftain’s staff were reportedly arrested, the chieftain has not been brought to account.
One may call this selective justice, but that would pale in comparison with the spate of selections that seem to have overthrown elections among the political parties. The parties had to hold primaries aimed at nominating candidates for the forthcoming elections. It turned out that in many instances, the primaries were exercises in futility. How could that be? This happened in two ways. In some cases, the primaries were simply occasions for selection rather than election of candidates. The winners were predetermined by political godfathers even before the primaries were held. The primaries were thus a rubber stamping process. The parties wasted more precious energies in the primaries after candidates who had been announced as winners at the primaries had their names erased and substituted by others, either at the party headquarters or with any other person with sufficient clout to twist the arms of members of such parties.
It was rather intriguing when all the governors, for instance, who wanted to run for the office of the president suddenly, stepped down for Mr Yaradua, governor of Katsina State. Governors of Akwa Ibom State, Rivers, Cross River and a number of other states stepped down for Yaradua at the convention field. Observers wonder why they had spent so many millions in preparation and campaigns if they were not seriously seeking to contest the election.
Throughout this process, persons who never wanted to be on the ballot found themselves there. And it does appear that some of them are depending on the parties that threw up their names to also conduct campaigns and win them the elections as well.
In this perilous situation we cannot avoid mentioning the volatile Niger Delta, where it is difficult to predict whether people will be able to vote freely. The Niger Delta remains an example of a festering ulcer that the nation has failed to heal over the years, and which may infect the entire body politic, if left for much longer without the needed political treatment. Armed resistance is not new in the Niger Delta. It was first utilised in an organised manner by the Isaac Adaka Boro’s led Niger Delta Volunteer Service (NDVS) in 1966. In that struggle, they NDVS declared an independent state of Niger Delta Republic that lasted only 12 days before it was crushed by the Nigerian state. Today the armed groups are not declaring secession but are insisting on political negotiation and that the social-economic and environment debasement visited on the region be addressed.
One would have expected that the question of the Niger Delta would dominate the campaign trail. This has not been the case. In fact only a few of the parties are making any serious attempt to address it. In a situation where candidates are busy struggling to place their names on the ballot and where others are struggling to keep their names off the corruption list, very little energy is expended on issue-based campaigning. It could also be said that campaigning on issues is also difficult because many of the parties are effectively only different in name.
The Niger Delta issue, has however, resonated in a way watchers never expected. On 30 January 2007 while commissioning his campaign headquarters in Abuja, the vice president announced to the world that the government was spending the sum of US$2 billion in arms acquisition in order to crush the insurgents in the Niger Delta. He was quickly accused of playing politics. There was oblique denial of any arms build-up in the region. But not long afterwards the president stated while campaigning for the PDP’s presidential candidate that there were many militia camps in the Niger Delta, to which no government could turn a blind eye.
Investigation by some journalists revealed that a huge investment in arms has indeed been made by the government with the Niger Delta in mind. The sum mentioned is 100 billion Naira, about US$800,000. This sum was allegedly provided by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) through an extra-budgetary arrangement.
Recently the president was quoted as saying that the election would be a do or die affair, or a matter of life or death for his party, and for the nation. This declaration sent shivers down the spine of a nation reeling in violence and insecurity. There have been no retractions. It is thus an open question if the spirit of sportsmanship will be anywhere near the election field when the whistle is blown - or when the gun is fired, for that matter.
The build up to the 2007 election has seen more high profile assassinations and murders than have been seen in other elections in the country. This has raised considerable concern among election watchers as to what level of violence will be unleashed during the actual voting, whether the ballot will count this time around, or whether political thugs will rake up fictional votes. According to Priscilla Achakpa, executive cirector of the Women Environmental Programme (WEP), a Nigerian NGO, 'the whole world is watching Nigeria and it is likely that the politicians will exercise some caution and not act with impunity. We cannot say categorically that the peoples’ votes will not count. What we can say with full confidence is that the electorate is much more enlightened today than they were in 1999 and in 2003'.
This election is not just another election in Nigeria. It is an election with deep historical significance. It will mark the first time a civilian government has handed over power to another civilian government. With dark clouds over the transition route, many are asking: will votes count? Will the electorate stand up to defend their votes? Only time will tell.
* Nnimmo Bassey is the director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria) Visit
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