It is difficult to believe that in 30 days, Nigeria would have successfully conducted an election, declare a winner and watch Muhammadu Buhari vacate Aso Rock for his successor. That has been the plan, but the devil is in the details.
Just last week, the Enugu office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was set on fire. It would not be the first; and from every indication would not be the last. Nigerians have lost reasonable count of the number of INEC offices that have been turned into a barbecue cauldron. INEC is burning from every structure at a time it needs surefire protection of its edifices to conduct a free, fair and credible election.
Instead, we have seen the antics of unknown combustion aliens using INEC facilities as tinder for their incendiary experiments. Apparently these arsonists are successfully daring the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s pet transition project. The politicians, that ought to be worried that the only legal bridge meant to link them to our commonwealth and common debt is being burnt, are throwing shades at each other.
A country on the verge of an electoral transition needs serenity and peace to make a success of that endeavour. A transition election is not a joke. Its success is the ticket to the country’s membership into the paradise of democracy. So far, what are visible are diversionary roadblocks to a smooth transition. Nigeria’s superhighway into the continued induction into the democratic club appears laced with booby traps, wedges and land mines.
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Either by commission or omission, Buhari himself planted several evitable land mines on the transition autobahn. One is the currency redesign or, as some say – recolouration. With his brother-in-law at the head of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Corporation, NSPMC and a governor of the nation’s Central Bank of Nigeria, Buhari endorsed a proposal to recolour the naira without discussing it with his own finance minister. He says its because the law allows him to do so.
As anyone that has followed the effects of Buhari’s track record as petroleum minister now sees at fuel stations, Buhari is probably not a genius at managing the economy. The currency exchange project, like most government projects was dead ab initio. Candidate Buhari chided his predecessors for sustaining a fuel subsidy scam with a promise to build one refinery for each of his first four years in office. The sputum of that promise dried before he could lift a finger at fulfillment and fuel stations have dried up like old mother’s breast milk. One month into elections, there is no petrol to move the nation.
Buhari had more confidence in a CBN governor who toyed with a presidential ambition over a finance minister who distributed COVID palliatives by bluetooth.
Another roadblock to a clear transition is the proposed headcount. A nation that locks down businesses, closes its borders just to elect its leaders has no business conducting a headcount in the same year. Counting heads and counting votes in the same year is booby-trap for a nation of numerical analphabetism.
In spite of these heavy roadblocks, Buhari’s propaganda minister, Lai Mohammed, came out of hibernation to declare that elections would hold coute que coute. This after a top official of the electoral body expressed doubt that the polls would hold.
Thus far and counting, nearly the two thirds of states needed for a clear winner to be declared have had their electoral offices torched by arsonists. Indeed, some states and formations have been hit more than once. All this without the usual commander-in-chief’s tepid order for somnambulistic agencies to wake up to their statutory responsibilities. The police have queued behind the regime’s position affirming its capability to providing security cover for the polls. That capability did not stop Enugu office from burning last week nor did it prevent the previous 50 attacks.
Added to the shock is the revelation that the Inspector-General of Police would not retire as he clocks 60 because Buhari has exercised his prerogative of extension of incompetence. All an appointee of Buhari needed to remain in office is crass incompetence. This is open in all sectors from education where there are record strikes to labour, from aviation to healthcare, technology to telecommunications, the more notoriously incompetent a Buhari appointee becomes, the more he backs them.
From antecedent lawsuits that have characterised relatively conducted elections, it is obvious that this transition, if it goes on under the prevailing circumstances would create a congestion in courts worse than the 2021 Suez blockage. While this might be boon for lawyers, it could be fuel for mainstream and fringe secessionists bent on turning Nigeria into the old Soviet Union with attendant Ukrainization of destiny.
If arsonists and insurgents could target INEC facilities at will without repercussion; if no lynchpin has been arrested so far and none has been prosecuted, what stops small-scale pyromaniacs from finding the prospect very attractive? Our elders say that the eye that is primed to serve till old age does not begin its journey of youth with watery discharge.
Even in normal situations, INEC has been known to find Nigeria a logistic nightmare. Electoral materials moved ahead and under security cover get delayed and sometimes compromised. Officials find it difficult to reach polling points as scheduled. Thugs usually seize the opportunity to snatch ballot boxes where they could not disrupt the process.
With armed gunmen circulating the clips of their successful day and nocturnal raids on INEC offices and distribution centres INEC is ready – not!
Nothing has shifted INEC’s legal obligation to the transition programme as an electoral umpire except that it is incapable of affirming its capability to make what is legal expedient. It has shown no capacity to reassure its main and ad hoc staff of their security. It has not done anything to reassure any eager voter outside cities with the semblance of tight security that they would be provided the needed cover for venturing out to exercise their voting rights.
Over 50 attacks in 15 states is a crying shame on any nation, not a sign of a state’s readiness or capacity to hold a free, fair and credible election. Willingness is not capacity. Nigerians need the assurance of INEC and government’s capacity to make good on its obligation and commitment to a credible transition.
It is shameful that our internal security agencies have not been able to plot the graphs of these attacks to scuttle them and unveil the identities of the saboteurs’ hell bent on truncating the transition project.
The incapacity of security agencies to effectively police the nation goes even beyond the professional incompetence of their commanding officers. Nigeria’s security is leaking from every orifice. No nation has the capacity to fight several wars at the same time with measured success. Raving insurgents have stretched our foot soldiers and their arcane weapons and strategies thin to the level where they have become mere dummies for their pot shots. Outgunned and outfoxed, they are incapable of securing themselves or this nation in the face of insurrections.
This election should be the most important on the transition agenda. Anything remotely encumbering its success should be targeted for precision removal with immediate effect and automatic alacrity.
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