Off-season elections: Our politicians must do better

On Saturday, November 11, 2023, voters in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, trooped out to cast their votes in the off-season governorship elections.

For Bayelsa and Imo, the incumbent governors, Douye Diri and Hope Uzodinma, respectively, sought re-election after having spent their first four years in office, while in Kogi it was a battle between candidates from the three main political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) – to succeed outgoing Governor Yahaya Bello at the Lord Lugard House in Lokoja.

Coming as the first under the new political dispensation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there were a lot of expectations from Nigerians regarding the preparations and conduct of the elections. The expectations were directed mostly at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) whose statutory responsibility as the electoral umpire was to ensure a level playing field for the candidates and political parties in the elections.

There were also concerns by Nigerians as to whether the reported cases of pre-election violence and insecurity in the respective states would affect the conduct of the elections. These concerns were directed at the security and law enforcement agencies, which were expected to be at their professional best during the elections.

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Reports about the conduct of the elections in the three states have left Nigerians with a feeling that once again the untoward actions that have often marred previous elections in the country rather than abate are still very much with us. There were widespread reports of voter intimidation, hijacking of electoral materials by agents of the candidates, attempts to disrupt the voting in some areas and allegations of pre-recorded votes on results sheets.

In all, while INEC cannot be totally absolved from some observable lapses identified in the electoral process in the three states, the political players must, however, accept responsibility for the irregularities and confusion that reigned during the elections. In their desperation to win at all costs the political players and their parties without exception employed tactics that were inimical to democratic best practices.

Alluding to these unwholesome practices observed at the elections, former military head of state and chairman of the National Peace Committee,  Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, which has been playing a major role in getting political players to observe the peace during elections, condemned what he called cases of violence, intimidation and vote-buying during the last elections.

In a statement he released on behalf of the committee last Thursday, November 16, 2023, he remarked, “We are not unaware of the glitches recorded during the elections. Sadly, we have noted that some of the old ways remain and ordinary people continue to collude with corrupt members of society to stall the process of our elections. Gen. Abdulsalami further stated that “a democratic culture will only grow if we participate in cleaning up the process of our elections because, in the end, we are the victims. The corruption of the process will lead to the emergence of corrupt leaders if we collude with merchants of corruption’’.

We totally agree with General Abdulsalami on this observation on the off-season elections and without any equivocation, we believe the blame for this rests squarely on our political actors. It is a sad commentary on the level of our political development that 24 years into our civilian democratic dispensation, these undemocratic acts still persist.

Aside from the colossal amount of money expended over the years to perfect our electoral processes, our political actors seem not to have imbibed the need to observe the tenets of democratic practice expected of them. The INEC, security agencies and other institutions can only go so far in playing their part in the democratic process, but the main responsibility lies with the political actors for whom much has been given and expected.

From the conduct of our political actors in the off-season elections, it is clear that not much lessons have been learnt from the negative politics of the past. Indeed as the elections in the three states took place in three different geo-political zones namely South-south, South-east and North-Central respectively, this indicates that it is a pattern that cuts across the entire country without redemption.  And this happened despite the peace accord that was signed by all major actors in the exercise.

For what it is worth, we call on our political actors to note that their continued subversion of the democratic ethos can only lead to political apathy in the political process and ultimate loss of faith in our democratic system which portends a danger to us all.  There is a need for all political actors to act according to the rules. There must be a rethinking of the entire process.  They must do away with the do-or-die attitude and approach every electoral process as an opportunity to serve the people and deepen democracy. We also call on the electorate to stop allowing politicians to abuse the process. All hands must be on deck to deepen our democracy.