FORMER INEC REC, I am still surprised by the extent of deviation from laws and guidelines in the 2023 elections– Mike Igini

”Says ‘there
must be a consequence for wrong conduct, violation of our laws”

“Judiciary
must stand mighty in defence of democracy, rule of law”

 Mike Igini,
a lawyer and two-term Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, has served in Cross
River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States. First appointed in June 2010, by President
Goodluck Jonathan, he was reappointed in 2017 by President Muhammadu Buhari.

 

For a man described by many as a
fearless operator in the electoral space, he was the face of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the lead-up to the 2023 general
elections, promising Nigerians that all would be well.

Now that the elections have gone the
way they went, with the controversial issue of no upload of results in
real-time from Polling Units, Igini reflects on what went wrong and how things
can be corrected. Excerpts:

 

Many Nigerians are eager for your assessment
of the 2023 general elections given the passion with which you urged Nigerians
to participate in the election and that it would be the best, free and fair.

 

I can
understand the feelings of extreme disappointment, pain and frustrations of
fellow countrymen and women particularly youths, over what was promised and the
painful experience they went through during the elections and their unmet
expectations.

 

We are in
these agonizing moments of pain together. l have been down emotionally and
still in shock over the level of deviation from established laws, issued
guidelines and procedures that we all signed into and that I leveraged,
honestly and faithfully to call on Nigerians to participate fully to determine
their leaders. I will never be part of any plot or design to deceive Nigerians,
may such a day never come in my lifetime. My passion for free, fair and
credible elections in Nigeria did not begin in 2023. Those who have diligently
followed my advocacy for election integrity will remember my zealous exertions
and subsequent detention in Enugu before and after the annulment of the June 12
elections in 1993, many also will recall my participation in CODER for
electoral reforms after the fiasco that was described as the 2007 general
election.

 

Those who
are keen on elections will also recall how I took the same passion to my
supervisory roles in the regulation of the electoral process as a Resident
Electoral Commissioner in Cross River, intervention missions in Anambra, Imo
state Guber elections in both 2011 and 2015, Edo, and later Akwa-Ibom states.
Frankly, l don’t think I did anything wrong by the weekly voters’ and civic
education that I gave to Nigerians without being paid a dime at a time that l
had offers for a consultancy that I politely declined because l wanted to be
objective in seeing to the implementation of the process that I was part of
putting in place before my tenure ended last year.

 

Nigerians acknowledged your
unblemished integrity and appreciate your commitment but wonder why you trusted
INEC so much and sold it to them because they trusted your judgment

 

That is part
of the cross I’m carrying today that has weighed me down. As a matter of fact,
I am still in shock over what we all saw. We saw video clips of thugs stationed
at polling units that prevented citizens from voting, the commission’s poll
officials announcing to voters that they would not upload election result from
polling units and that whoever would not want to vote on that condition, could
go away. They took a cue from what happened in the first round of elections
wherein out of the three different elections conducted the same day, only
presidential results could not be uploaded from the polling units. This was
what overshadowed every other success of the BVAS, given that the presidential
election is the most coveted office that Nigerians and the whole world were
interested in its outcome and the reason many Nigerians abroad bought expensive
flight tickets to travel back home to vote, yet many of them couldn’t vote on that
day. I would have said no sacrifice is too much to make for your country but is
it the kind of sacrifice that we want from citizens in form of disappointment,
pain and frustration?

 

But the question remains, what was
the basis for your confidence of the system you promoted to Nigerians?

 

If we had a
new law and innovations that have been used successfully in several elections,
why will I not have confidence in the system? It’s not just a matter of my
confidence in the process but a long-standing collective desire of Nigerians
for credible periodic elections for the sustenance of democracy. We all
collectively pushed vigorously for the passage of the 2022 electoral bill that
was signed by the president on 25th February last year, the 2022 Act gave all
of us a renewed hope of a credible election in 2023. It secured the use of the
BVAS and other innovations that have been piloted before its passage, the
system had been used to conduct one hundred and five elections (105) including
five Governorship elections of Edo, Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun successfully
by uploading directly declared results from polling units straight to the
Server and public results viewing portal called IREV to avoid
alteration/manipulation at Ward, LGA and other levels of collation centre.

 

This is the
mischief that the entire innovation was designed to cure and the reason I
promoted it but the human beings that should implement the system failed
Nigerians at the hour of its implementation and not the BVAS technology that
failed.

 

That
important distinction or clarification must be made and noted even when people
are unhappy and disappointed. We all saw the video clip of an INEC poll
official, a young lady who unlawfully told voters that results will not be
uploaded from the polling units and whoever was not satisfied with that illegal
instruction should go away, whereas sections 60, 64 of the Act, as well as
clause 38 of the Regulations & Guidelines, are clear on the matter. So, I
call for an understanding of my position before the election that my commitment
and passion for election integrity far precedes the 2022 Electoral Act and the
2023 General Election.

 

What was
however different in 2023 was that I saw from what I know of our electoral
history and the reforms which informed the drafting and enactment of the 2022 Electoral
Act that much effort was put into that Law to create a significant milestone in
our electoral process but the human agency involved in the electoral process in
Nigeria effectively played their roles to the disappointment of all. So far,
the law and innovations have now made the audit trail relatively easy and have
proved to be significantly effective in making it difficult to destroy digital
evidence whenever there are deviations from the procedure, making such
deviations obvious and indelible as evidence trails.

 

These are
matters that the various tribunal set up will examine to put a closure to the
outcome of the 2023 General elections.

 

Nigerians
witnessed instances where voters were suppressed, collations disrupted and
sometimes blatantly truncated, whereas, despite these deviations, results were
announced with many disputed. How can these reflect a significantly effective
system?

 

These
deviations you described are the issues that aggrieved parties have taken to
the tribunal that will influence their decision one way or the other and I will
not want to dwell on them. But suffice to say that when people are not allowed
to even vote at all, that is not a BVAS problem but that of the political
actors and of security officials that could not or refused to protect citizens.
We saw the young girl whose video went viral, she was harassed by thugs and
prevented from voting and she was cursing different individuals as she walked
out of the polling unit weeping and tears rolling down her eyes that she was
not allowed to vote because she didn’t disclose the party and candidate she
wanted to vote for that day. It was a sad day for all who went through similar
terrible experiences orchestrated by extra-constitutional actors that curtailed
citizen’s freedom of choice on Election Day. It is to make all stakeholders in
the electoral process accountable with evidence trail that the BVAS and the
IREV were introduced to automate part of the process so that we do not rely
wholly on the subjectivity of humans who are vulnerable to all sorts of
inducements from politicians. Unfortunately, the problem we are facing now is
large of human frailties and not technology. After all, it is BVAS that has
ended those bogus “Moon-slide” and “Landslide” votes of the past, that made it
possible for an Okada rider and a fish farmer to win National Assembly
elections, and made it uncertain for the Senate to become a reserved post
gubernatorial club, so that it is no longer an automatic retirement chamber for
outgoing governors unlike in the past. But we cannot be seen to celebrate all
these positive outcomes given some of the terrible and very brutal experiences
of Nigerians some of whom were killed during the election.

 

The law expected the election
managers, security agents and eventually the judicial officers to be
consequence managers for deviants who refuse to comply with the expectations of
the law. What were the expectations for these consequence managers if they
become part of the problem, like refusing to conduct elections in designated
polling units, failing to upload election results as captured in the designated
result forms on the INEC IREV portal as the law demanded, and failing to
collate results at wards?

 

The law
prescribes consequences for all of these, but as I pointed out it requires the
human agency to comply with good laws. As I noted repeatedly during my weekly
public enlightenment before the election, good laws and innovations are not
self-executory, they have to be implemented by human beings and that is why it’s
often said that the devil is in the implementation.

 

The Law does
not envisage a collapse of consequences or a full bloom of impunity, that is
why Saint Augustine declared several decades ago that a Nation is nothing but a
band of rogues without the Law, when laws are meaningless why should we bother
to embark on nation building? It will be a futile effort.

 

This is why
we have to rely on the final layer of consequence Managers step up to the plate
assuming that credible evidence of deviations is established, it will be an
invitation to anarchy not to ensure that there are consequences for clear
breaches of the Electoral Law. The rule of law is a graceful ornament to a
well-governed society and indeed the Corinthian capital of polished society. No
country or nation can make progress beyond the value orientation of those who
lead.

 

The highest
principles of ethical standards must be observed for sanity to reign in any
society. Society makes progress based on rewards and severe sanctions for
wrongdoing by those who seek to lead. Those who crave the honour of public
office with all its appurtenances must not break the law of the land. This is
where the judiciary has to stand up and mighty in defence of democracy and the
rule of law.

 

Many Nigerians including lawyers and
retired justices of the Supreme Court have all expressed a lack of confidence
in the judiciary to do justice. Is the Nigerian state not a hopeless one at the
moment?

 

Well, the
situation in my constituency is worrisome and disturbing particularly when both
serving and retired judicial officers and even members of the public express a
lack of confidence in the judicial system. That is the most dangerous level of
discredit that, members of the bar and particularly the bench must not allow
the system to degenerate to, otherwise we are in big trouble. As a lawyer, I
feel diminished and ashamed that politicians, the majority of whom are not
lawyers, semi-educated money-bag politicians could be allowed to bring our
noble profession to this level of opprobrium, resentment and distrust from
members of the public who no longer respect us because of the unethical conduct
of some members of the bar, particularly the bench. I repeat some members
because we have shining members of both the bar and the bench who are exemplary
and worthy of emulation. But the very bad ones have ruined our collective

 

reputation.
These politicians brag and boast about what they do with members of my
constituency to get whatever they want and that is why they are quick at
telling opponents to go to court after compromising collation and returning
officers. Is it not surprising that politicians who go all out to undermine
electoral laws and rig elections are the ones that will tell people to go to
court? As noted very correctly by the learned Silk Agbakoba, the recent
decision of the Supreme Court like others in favour of individuals that didn’t
participate in party primaries has further affected public confidence and this
is very unfortunate because of the timing of the decision so close to the 2023
election.

 

What is your recommendation or advice
to your constituency which you always referred to as the Judiciary?

 

The
judiciary must stand tall and mighty in defence of democracy and the rule of
law. We have to go about solving this problem the way the United Kingdom itself
introduced Nigeria to election rigging and ended electoral rigging and fraud
such that for a period of almost one hundred (100) years precisely 99 years,
there was no post-election petition adjudication in England till 2010
concerning Liberal Democrats. Historically, the UK was one of the notorious
countries noted for vote buying and election rigging because of the concern
that such practice of use of money could be used by politicians also to capture
the judiciary in England by buying judges if the courts were to adjudicate on
electoral disputes, allegations of electoral malpractices by way of election
petitions were initially determined by parliament and not the courts to
insulate the judiciary from potential corruption.

 

However,
parliament with majority party members expectedly could not deliver electoral
justice to opposition petitioners for years. Consequently, it was decided that
the courts in England should assume jurisdiction over post-election petitions
and that was how the court became involved. But mindful of the fact that the
ills of corruption that prevented justice from being served to petitioners in
parliament could be transferred to the courts, parliament had to pass the 1872
secret ballot Act, Electoral corruption and illegal practice Act of 1872 as
well as the 1883 ballot Act with a range of consequences such as expulsion from
parliament, a ban for seven years from politics or for life from politics.

 

These were
the laws that judges and the courts used strictly in England to do substantive
justice to election petitions to discourage potential election rigger
politicians in the UK and never hid under the technicality that encourages
election riggers in Nigeria who are quick to tell people to go to court.
Because the courts in England were never a haven for election riggers, given
that they, politicians linked to election rigging could be banned for life from
participation in politics, and with various legislation to strengthen the
electoral process free of manipulation and corruption in the UK then as we
tried to achieve with the 2022 Act and the BVAS/IREV technology, politicians
had to abide by the process because of fear of severe consequences from the
courts. That is why for almost 100 years, there was no post-election petition
adjudication in England. The fear of judges by politicians and their judgments
on matters of electoral fraud, manipulation and deviation from established
electoral laws in England brought sanity to the electoral process in England
and ended election rigging. Politicians in England and America are afraid of
the courts and judges but here in Nigerians, politicians brag about judges as
their friends and will get whatever they want from the judiciary. Why can’t we
emulate what judges and judiciary did to give meaning and purpose to the ballot
as the best means of the expression of the will of the people in a democracy?
The judiciary is now the last hope of putting an end to the culture of impunity
and election rigging in Nigeria

 

For the average citizens who were
prevented from exercising their civic responsibilities or whose votes were
upturned by influential deviants, what remedy can they rely on?

 

It is
premature to paint a picture of futility when the post-election dispute
resolution process is ongoing. We should allow the judiciary to perform its
statutory duty in the determination of these matters and let us be restrained.
There must be consequences for wrong conduct and violation of the laws of the
land. Impunity sustains deviation from Electoral Integrity, thus, if we do not
address the gaps in the management of consequences for deviation from electoral
integrity, we risk an increase in all the predictable consequences of such
impunity including protest politics, which we now have on the streets, decline
in governance legitimacy, violence, civil unrests and consequently a lack of
development. All these are avoidable.

 

Will ensure consequences for deviants
from the electoral Law alone address the scale of the problems associated with
those who defy the electoral laws with impunity?

 

It will
help, but it will not address the root causes, because elections are a means to
the end of good governance and development, not an end in itself. To assume
that just managing the consequences of deviation from election integrity alone
will solve the problem is to avoid the real issues.

 

The real
issues also lie with our governance structures and what follows the election of
representatives. We have to go back to the very motivation for electing people
to represent us in running our affairs because we cannot all leave what we do
daily to sit around a decision-making table to run these affairs collectively
daily, which was what citizens did before families became clans and clans
became villages and villages became cities and cities became a metropolis. We
need to go back to how the traditions and regimes for our governance are organized
in such a manner that we all have self-interested value to obtain in ensuring
that those who are selected to represent us cannot game the selection process
or are demotivated to do so.

 

Apart from
Managing electoral deviations by the Court’s sentencing or banning election
riggers and their sponsors, the more important task is the restructuring of our
governance structures in such a way that we have more collective and
collaborative zeal to vote objectively or “select” representatives in a manner
that is not necessarily adversarial and competitive but rather collaborative
and productive.

 

This is why
we must return to the core subject of how we federate, why we federate and how
best to organize ourselves for collaboration rather than competition. If we do
not address that core issues, our efforts to curb impunity during the selection
of representatives will remain a contest where clever demagogues play the
voters against their collective interest by gaming the selection system. So we
must first address objectively why we select and how best to select
representatives to meet that goal. In addressing this core question we will
then define what the representatives are, are they agents, delegates, our
proxies for our well-being and interests or are they rulers over our collective
interests?

 

So you are implying that the
electoral failures have root causes in the failure to address the restructuring
of Nigeria to true federal governance?

 

Yes in the
sense that elite political actions and power struggles are conflated amongst
Nigerians because of the realities of the distorted Federal system, and the
unethical way elites play on these weaknesses using the over-centralization of
power, wherein the federating units rely on the federal centre for much of their
development needs, it makes the competition for central power co-terminal with
regional survival, hence there are regional competitions rather than
collaboration for central power. These centrifugal forces are heightened for
electoral purposes and can be deliberately calibrated where it can provide
desired outcomes. Let me state it more clearly with bread and butter issues.
Until the recent constitutional de-concentration and decentralization of the
jurisdictions for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity for
example, everyone knows that no matter how efficient state governments may be,
they cannot effectively address electricity problems without the federal
government, the same goes for Ports, rail, mining and even supply of fuels and these
are the core drivers of economic activity, economic activity drives GDP which
is the central metric of growth if we leave aside the social indicators.

 

These
distortions are crowned by the fact that because all the powers have been
centralized, most federating units do not need to make too many economic
efforts because the Federal Government holds the reins to ride or die. So
everyone that can figure out the imperatives knows that owing to these
distortions of the federalist governance model, the real jackpot is at the
centre where a winner takes all presidential model is at play.

 

So for the electoral laws to be
effective you are implying that we have to address restructuring or
federalization

 

The
electoral laws are suitable and sufficient, we have to address why despite the
electoral laws many election personnel, security personnel and election
gatekeepers still acted with impunity to flout the law and are confident that
they can walk away with no consequences. It is not because the law is weak or
absent, the experiences of the 2023 General Elections have shown that we must
also pay attention to the Latin credo by the famous Roman poet Juvenal that
states; “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies” or “who will watch the watchmen”.

 

Put in
another form our political elite have to come to a consensus that a cycle of
elections in the form of a bloodsport where all the weaknesses of the frail
pillars that hold the nation together as one are shaken to their foundations is
unsustainable. Under a nation with settled standards of election integrity, the
electoral Law will be an excellent legal bastion for superintending elections,
but Electoral integrity requires regimes and institutions that will not be
sacrificed for expediencies, but our federal practices feed on expediencies.

 

Just look
back at our democratic history from the First Republic until date, whereas
political actors fueled non-compliance with electoral laws under the first
republic, the levels of non-compliance have heightened with the
over-centralization of power under the presidential systems that have failed to
de-concentrate.

 

But why is
that important, it is important because in every system there will always be
political actors who will not want to comply with the laws if they figure that
their chances of winning fairly are slim, however, the only safeguard against
such political actors relies on a national and regional system that supports
consensus in our acceptance of common standards for selecting representatives
knowing that the common standards cater to everyone and will not preserve
unjust asymmetries in the provision of welfare, political and social rights as
well as the wellbeing to all citizens and all groups irrespective of the outcome
of the process of selecting representatives. Conversely, when we do not have
such common expectations, the process and outcome of elections are seen as a
national competition of the interests of federating units rather than the
collaboration of interests, such political ambience is a fertile ground for the
menus of electoral manipulation to thrive.

 

So given the experience of the 2023
General Election, are you suggesting that the Electoral Act was not a
sufficient safeguard for credible elections for that reason we need to first
and foremost address the system in which the political actors compete for
power?

 

In a sense
looking at our observed electoral phenomenology yes, to the extent that most
observers are agreed that whatever the electoral outcomes of the elections of
the 25th of February and the 18th of March, the international standards of
electoral integrity were significantly questioned, but we must still maintain a
responsible and respectable restraint on this position concerning the fact that
post-election dispute resolutions are ongoing and much still needs to be
examined which may influence what emerges and what the conclusions of the
conduct of the election entail.

 

So the
concerns we express now and the remedial suggestions we proffer are in relation
to the electoral process and its sustainability. And on that, I am in accord
with the consociation school of thought which opines that in diverse and
multicultural federations like Nigeria, even suitable electoral laws can be
undermined by the social and political context if there is no consensus among
political actors to settle for a more ordered society. When we are ready and
willing to do that, then we can all commonly agree on how we define the knights
and knaves of our electoral process and thereby set a common standard for
watching the watchmen who will be expected to substantially comply with our
electoral Laws.

 

We must take
this holistic view because we have to admit that Elections have become a
political and social hazard to our nation rather than a celebration of
democracy and development. When you identify a hazard the process of managing
hazards and risk requires that you objectively examine the immediate and root
causes so that you can develop effective control measures. Noncompliance with
electoral laws is an immediate cause of the political hazard, the root cause
lies in the system and political context that sustains such political behaviour
repeatedly around elections. If we do not address the root causes we will only
gloss over the electoral weaknesses. The conspiracy of elites in all
institutions responsible for the conduct of a successful election remains the
greatest threat to our democracy.

 

By Johnbosco
Agbakwuru

Vanguard