Splitting hairs over nothing

I am torn between being amused and being exasperated to see the senators tearing themselves into pieces over the order of the next general elections issued by INEC. This matter does not deserve the honour of the heat and and the passion it has generated among the distinguished members of the upper legislature. I do not think the sequence of elections has ever been blamed for the problems in our electoral system and the conduct of our national elections.

The sequence of elections was introduced into the system by the generals in 1979. And the vocal minority has never bothered to oppose it. In an election sequence drawn up by FEDECO and approved by them in the transition to civil rule programme of the Murtala/Obasanjo military administration, the general elections were conducted over a five-week period in 1979 in this sequence: senate, house of representatives, houses of assembly, governorship and the presidency. 

In 1983, that sequence was reversed to this: president, governorship, senate, house of representatives and state houses of assembly. No one told us why this became necessary. People speculated that the commission acted in the interest of the ruling party, NPN. The new sequence, they argued, would create a bandwagon effect such that the party, armed with its advantages of incumbency, would win the presidency and cause a massive dislocation among the other political parties to give it overwhelming advantage in the remaining elections.

The fear of the bandwagon effect has been with us ever since. But it is a myth. There is no empirical study I am aware of to show that it is anything but a myth wrapped in the usual fear of political losses. Still, it lingers.

In the Babangida transition programme, the general elections were conducted in what we in three tranches in this sequence: governorship and state assemblies, senate and house of representatives and president. A significant feature of that sequence was that the elections were staggered rather than sequential. The governorship and houses of assembly elections were conducted December 14, 1991; the senate and the house of representatives election was conducted on July 4, 1992 and the presidential election came up last on June 12, 1993. The wisdom in this was that the country was not just conducting elections but it was also learning the essential ropes in these delicate matters.

In the 1999 general elections conducted by the General Abdulsalami Abubakar administration in its transition to civil rule programme, the three electoral tranches of the Babangida administration were retained in the precise order in which the elections were conducted. But this time, it was sequential rather than widely staggered: governorship and state houses of assembly, national assembly and president.

Again, the new electoral umpire, INEC, retained the three tranches in 2003 as well as the sequence of the elections. In 2007, the commission collapsed the three tranches into two with this sequence: governorship and state houses of assembly and ending with president and national assembly. In 2011, INEC took us back to the three tranches and a new sequence of elections in which the presidential election was sandwiched between the national assembly at number one and the governorship and state houses of assembly elections at number three. We returned to the two tranches in 2015 with the presidential and national assembly elections bunched at number one and the governorship and state houses of assembly elections bunched at the bottom.

In the current sequence issued by INEC, the commission would want to retain the two tranches in this sequence: president and national assembly and then governorship and state houses of assembly elections. In its proposed amendment, the senate wants three tranches in this sequence: national assembly, governorship and state houses of assembly and then the presidency.

I have given these details to show that if the bandwagon effect were a fact and not a myth, every incumbent president would have influenced the electoral commission to put the presidential election first. But as you can see, only on two occasions had we had the presidential election come first: 1983 and 2015. 

I believe the intention of the senate in amending the electoral act to cast the sequence of our national elections on a permanent legal slab was entirely honourable. It makes eminent sense for us to have such a permanent legal order rather than rely on the commission to determine the sequence of elections in every national election circle every four years. 

As I see it, this is generating so much heat because it has turned into the politics of pitting senators who claim to love President Muhammadu Buhari more against senators who are alleged to love him less. Once a political argument takes this turn, it is obfuscated and becomes messy. The senators who want the amendment to over-ride the INEC decision suspect that those who want the INEC schedule to stay believe it would favour the president in the 2019 presidential election on the grounds that if the president wins, it would generate a winning streak and the bandwagon, a six-wheeler, would roll across town. 

There is a more fundamental issue bordering on the constitution. As some people see it, the issue really is this: which of the two agencies, the national assembly and INEC, has the powers to determine the sequence of elections? The constitution is not particularly helpful here. It gives no powers to the commission to determine the sequence of elections. The commission derives its powers all these years from its being the electoral umpire. I do not think the senators who favour the amendment are challenging the powers of the commission to determine the sequence of elections. It seems to me that what they want is a law that guides the conduct of our elections and processes leading to them. I have read a short statement by Femi Falana, SAN, in which he pointed out that only the commission has that authority and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly so ruled in the past. 

We should see the current controversy as part of the efforts to clean up our cluttered electoral system towards the ultimate objective of the commission being able to conduct free, fair and credible national elections. If a law, whatever might be the motive of its makers, would help the commission to do a much better job of its onerous assignment, it is wrong to take the knife to its throat at the abattoir of politics of heat sans substance.