By AMINU JAHUN
Because the approval of his appointment by the Nationwide Council of State as INEC Chairman, and subsequent endorsement by the Senate, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan has been a recipient of torrential congratulatory messages, prayers and unsolicited recommendation, some in good religion and others outrightly opportunistic.
However many pundits would moderately be part of the prayerful and unsolicited advisers, moderately than the refrain of congratulators, as a result of congratulations might wait after he exits the job with unscathed repute.
Prof Amupitan needs to be pitied moderately than envied, underscoring the need of prayers for the Good Lord to information him proper in his project, and items of recommendation that would navigate him out of the lion’s den- that’s what the nationwide electoral project has change into as a result of following: In a political setting the place incumbent contestants wouldn’t restrain themselves to pretty win elections, the losers wouldn’t settle for their defeat with out transferring the aggression arising from their loss to the electoral umpire, particularly if it’s a infamous snatcher of electoral victory.
To most Nigerians, if INEC is really impartial, then the nation is equally impartial. As Nigeria might hardly assert its “independence” in essential affairs(home or worldwide) with out the approval of highly effective nations or supranational our bodies; INEC can also be much less identified to have firmly and responsibly projected its “independence”.
Like slavish electoral devices, many Chief Electoral Officers can hardly distinguish loyalty to principals and to the nation, manufacturing electoral heists to please political masters, moderately than to responsibly discharge constitutional burdens. At instances going the additional mile to declare election outcomes earlier than the conclusion of collations.
As a fallout of the above, only a few INEC bosses exited their jobs with out eroding their hard-earned repute. Moreover Ephraim Akpata whose tenure was quick, and Professor Mahmud Jega, the trio of Drs Abel Guobadia and Maurice Iwu and Professor Mahmood Yakubu- regardless of judicial confirmations of their elections- are believed to have been partial within the elections they supervised in 2003, 2007 and 2023, leaving darkish imprints on their post-INEC project repute.
Subsequently, after the lack of public confidence in INEC, Prof Amupitan, would require greater than 24/7 hours in a day to set the organisation on a suitable trajectory to Nigerians. He must struggle to redeem INEC’s picture and restore public confidence within the electoral company, and Nigeria’s democratic mission.
In that case far the worst election was the Maurice Iwu 2007 supervised ballot whose winner was declared earlier than the conclusion of collations, who publicly condemned the conduct of the elections, and one of the best ballot was the 2015 Jega supervised election, whose incumbent loser vouched its equity by congratulating the winner, one might assemble the Iwu and Jega election administration fashions.
The Jega mannequin is premised on the next: 1.Steady engagements/ consultations with nationwide and international electoral stakeholders; 2.Proactive technologically pushed electoral reforms; 3.Holistic implementation of the Electoral Act within the elections; 4.Zero tolerance for subjective human intervention within the electoral processes.
And the Iwu election mannequin is underpinned by: 1.Callous indifference to essential electoral stakeholders; 2 Wanton breach of essential provisions of the Electoral Act; 3.Subjective human intervention within the electoral processes; 4.Deliberate creation of electoral chaos for the tribunals to settle. The Iwu mannequin produced the electoral mess of 2003, 2007 and to an extent the 2023 infamy(skipping actual time transmission of outcomes, and leaving the chaos for the tribunals to kind out ), while the Jega mannequin midwifed the clear 2015 election. Whereas Dr Iwu used the Electoral Act as a Malicious program to undermine democracy, Prof Jega holistically deployed it to entrench democracy.
The brand new INEC boss, Prof Amupitan, might be confronted with a dilemma: the selection of an election mannequin, signposting the democratic legacy he needs to go away behind. To a jurist, authorized scholar and SAN, who might need been horrified by the conduct of the 2007 election because the late President Yar’Adua was, the selection of mannequin wouldn’t be an issue.
To deepen Nigeria’s democracy Prof Amupitan needs to be at an arm’s size with the Iwu mannequin as a result of it corrosively debases democracy by trampling peoples electoral preferences.
Based mostly on the conduct of the 2015 election, the second freest after the annulled June 12 election, its Chief Returning Officer, Prof Jega has change into an electoral movie star, the toast of native, regional and international electoral stakeholders, leaving a long-lasting imprimatur on democratic deepening within the nation and past.
The Chief Electoral Officers who considerably, and to a restricted extent, used the Iwu mannequin to conduct elections are impliedly anti-democratic. Nonetheless, 2027 would past affordable doubt show that Prof Amupitan wouldn’t belong to the.membership of electoral impropriety.
Nigerians hope that narratives of hope, honest and clear elections, and democratic consolidation will displace the standard unpalatable narratives from INEC. Their torrential prayers and congratulatory messages, underscore the boldness reposed in him, that he would solely supervise the electoral contests in keeping with the principles within the Electoral Act and nothing else.
*Jahun, a commentator on public affairs, wrote from Dutse, Jigawa State.
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