In modern democratic states, every election is supposed to be an improvement on the last. In Nigeria, down Subsaharan Africa, President Muhammadu Buhari has shown that he is committed to sustaining the tempo in the last six years. This explains the recent efforts to amend the Electoral Act, which not a few Nigerians say is commendable. Sadly, it turned out to be a brazen attempt to scuttle or arm twist the nations’ electoral process.
But what the suspected culprits in all this legislative process fail to understand is that government is a continuum. This means that where one government stops is the starting point for the other. After the 2010 Electoral Amendment Bill was signed into law, it significantly improved the quality of the 2015 and 2019 general elections. In keeping with that tempo, President Buhari assumed office in 2015 after winning the presidential election. Since then, he has consistently demonstrated his commitment to free and fair elections.
In November 2017, Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra state was reelected in a free and fair election adjudged to be one of the best in the history of Nigeria. To the credit of President
Buhari, the recently concluded November 6, 2021 election in Anambra state produced the former Central Bank boss, Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo as winner. This is despite the fact that the above instances produced candidates of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), a far minority party.
Also, Bauchi state governor, Bala Mohammed, was a beneficiary of the level playing ground Buhari created in the country’s electoral system
Despite running under the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he defeated the incumbent governor, Mohammed Andullahi Abubakar, who is a member of the president’s party, to emerge governor in a free and fair election.
Our collective amnesia should not be to the extent of forgetting the September 2020 governorship election in Edo State. Again, like Obiano and Soludo, Godwin Obaseki was reelected, beating the president’s party by far margin. These are excellent examples of how a statesman and leader can contribute to nourishing the democratic process. In exercise of its constitutional powers, the National Assembly veered off track by introducing volatile provisions into the bill, which makes it a landmine or naked wire, capable of causing chaos and democratic instability.
Contrary to the lame arguments being advanced by proponents of the rejected amended Electoral bill, President Buhari’s decision is a welcome development, especially to those who consider it as a subtle way of averting political anarchy. It is an open invitation to anarchy, or better still, an attempt to hand the enemies of Nigeria’s democracy the opportunity to execute their heinous machinations.
In rejecting the bill, Buhari said the mandatory use of direct primaries for all political parties in the country will be too expensive to execute. According to him, conducting direct primary elections will put a financial burden on Nigeria’s slim resources, even as it will be tasking since such mode of election means a large turnout of voters, a move he said would stretch the security agencies.
The president also expressed fears that the proposed mandatory use of direct primaries will amount to the violation of citizens’ rights and will lead to marginalisation for smaller political parties. He said the proposed use of mandatory direct primary elections will also lead to more litigation by party members. In the final analysis, President Buhari told the lawmakers that political parties should be allowed to decide the best way to pick their candidates for elections, noting that his stance was based on a careful review and consultations.
This is a clear display of rear statesmanship, which has continued to attract applause from even the opponents of the administration. Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, who has never seen anything good about President Buhari’s government, buried his differences to commend the action. Borrowing a leaf from model democracies like the United States’ presidential system where Nigeria copied from, it is the exclusive preserve of the two leading political parties to determine how their flag bearers in any election should emerge and not the other way round. The political parties’ National Conventions are held to ratify the party’s flag bearer, after processes are completed from state levels.
Besides, most political activists, analysts and ‘wolves in sheep clothing’ are quick to cite examples from other civilisations to validate their stand. The point they are missing is that different countries and civilisations have their peculiarities and are at different stages or levels of development. It would be an utter error to, for instance, use the indices or yardsticks of the United States, Britain, Italy, Algeria to analyse the Nigerian political trajectory. It will surely not add up because these societies or countries are different in many aspects.
However, there are universal standards to measure political progress in modern democracies. And that is one of the high points of President Buhari’s six-year-old presidency. He is not unmindful of the fact that universal standard practice in the electioneering process must be strictly adhered to.
It is important we understand and allow our political antecedents to guide political choices so we don’t reverse the democratic gains of the last 22 years. My trips to Sudan and Algeria and Egypt to study the electoral systems of those countries were an eye-opener. From what I learnt, even the most gullible mind would give kudos to Buhari. The architectural electoral design mapped out by the Nigerian president is such that has, to a greater extent, helped in avoiding the kind of political tension witnessed in countries like Sudan, Algeria, Libiya and Egypt.
The grouse of the National Assembly is understandable. They are said to be on a revenge mission against the governors. But let truth be told; the direct mode of primaries as approved by the National Assembly negates the principle and letters of the APC Constitution. That indicates that primaries should be conducted either directly or indirectly and until such provisions are amended, asking parties to conduct primaries through direct means amounts to abuse of the constitution of the party.
The threat by the National Assembly to override Buhari’s veto amounts to an unnecessary throw of tantrums as the opportunities for the National Assembly to amend the bill and return to the president for assent is not closed. Since politics is about interest and compromise, what is expected of the National Assembly and political stakeholders is to reach a middle ground where direct primary is expunged from the bill and returned to the president for his assent.
Ibrahim is the director, communications and strategic planning, Presidential Support Committee (PSC)
