Public acclaim for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has without doubt soared in recent times following the perception that it is running a new deal with respect to the forthcoming general polls, and courtesy of the new Electoral Act 2022.
The few operations that have been carried out by the Commission under the Act, indicate that indeed a new dispensation is dawning on the Nigerian electoral terrain. Among the changes which have been launched are the reforms in the just concluded primary elections for aspirants contesting offices at the federal and state tiers of governance. Another area is the success in the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) and the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) acquisition processes – both of which have earned for the agency a significant mark-up in public rating.
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However, while the Commission may feel justified to bask in its early successes, it is also not too soon to call for caution as early assaults on its resolve and fidelity to the enabling law, are already at its door steps. One of such early tackles it has to contend with is the issue of ‘place holders’, a term that has just entered the Nigerian political lexicon from the academic terrain of theoretical mathematics. In its ordinary context, a place holder is any symbol or factor that is used to stand in place of a yet to be determined entity or quantity. Think of being taken to the emblematic algebraic question of finding a value of ‘X’, when the symbol stands for a yet to be determined entity, and can be removed as soon as the actual entity is available. In everyday usage, the place-holder is akin to an inert dummy, whose intrinsic value is not defined. Yet this is the term that has been elevated into prominence in the country’s political space, simply because some members of the leadership community are hell bent of foisting their proclivities on the rest of the country, pursuant to manipulating the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
At least, four instances of place-holder politics (before two were resolved) were rocking the country’s political space, and imposing on the INEC the need to take another look at the law which guides its activities. Of note firstly is the cases of Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who nominated Kabir Masari, as a likely place-holder for the position of running mate. In another instance, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) also nominated his presidential campaign manager, Doyin Okupe for the same position, pending when his political party resolves the issue within the prescribed time frame being July 15th 2022. All should have been okay but for the reservations by INEC to this place-holder-calculus, on the ground that the place-holders may not ordinarily be replaced casually, since the exercise of their emergence technically constitutes an afterthought. The situation has thereby set up in all likelihood, a scenario that may not vanish without some drama.
The other two instances which have been resolved after they actually caused a stir, were those of the President of the Senate Ahmed Lawan and former Senator as well as ex-Minster of Niger Delta Affairs Godswill Akpabio, tried to impose themselves as candidates for respective Senatorial seats for their constituencies, even when they did not contest the designated primary elections for such positions. As is public knowledge, the duo had contested the APC presidential primaries and lost, hence were absent for the Senatorial primary elections in their respective constituencies. In their absence Bashir Machina won the primary elections for the Yobe North ticket, while Udom Ekpoudom won that of Akwa Ibom North West.
Also of significant public concern was ignoble role which some elements in the APC leadership had played by submitting to INEC, the names of Lawan and Akpabio even as they did not contest their respective the primary polls. When questioned on the matter by journalists, the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu simply retorted with a devil-may-care dismissal of the question. In fact Adamu had progressed further to warn that the decision of the APC on the farcical matter was final. This is just as Akpabio, apparently out of a sense of guilt, has been pressurizing the winner Udom Ekpoudom to give up his hard earned victory voluntarily, on the ground that it was the decision of the APC.
It is therefore a huge relief to the Nigerian public that INEC had rectified the situation by dropping both Lawan and Akpabio as the candidates for their constituencies. By this development the agency has fulfilled at least two conditions. Firstly is has demonstrated capacity to act as an unbiased electoral umpire no matter whose ox is gored. Rather, it has shown that its obligation is to the wider body of Nigeria’s citizenry. Had INEC allowed the APC leadership have its way, such would established a dangerous precedent as a slap not only on the delegates who voted for Machina and Ekpoudom, but also on the integrity of all that the new Electoral Act stands for.
Secondly, INEC has correctly read the truth about the largely youthful Nigerian public, that they are not in the dark whereby they can be led by the nose by any stroke of impunity, without reacting. Rather they are largely even more enlightened than most of the older generation, suit-tight leaders who are occupying public offices, and take the rest of the society for granted. A major lesson from the foregoing is that the days ahead towards the polls, may feature more flashpoints whereby some of the old and discredited electoral maladies, which the new Electoral Act is intended to stall, will manifest at the instance of sponsors of the old order.
Indeed it is in this context that the game play of the APC Chairman Abdullahi Adamu with respect to this matter should be of concern to the rank and file of the entire party, as it sign posts the course of the party’s future with him at its helm. Is this not the same man who launched the ill-fated misstep of a consensus presidential candidate for the party, and whose effects are yet to wear off, several weeks after the misadventure? Sometimes, the enemies of a system are not located outside its precincts.
This must be the case of the APC, with Adamu at its helm.
