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Nigeria: Planning and Prospects for the 2011 Elections Meeting Summary Nigeria: Planning and Prospects for the 2011 Elections Okechukwu Ibeanu Chief Technical Adviser, Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria Mark Stevens Adviser and Head of the Democracy Section, Commonwealth Secretariat Sola Tayo Associate Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House Chair: Dr Lola Banjoko Nigeria Leadership Initiative 8 October 2010 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. Meeting summary: Nigeria – Planning and Prospects for Elections in 2011 Professor Oke Ibeanu: One of the stories which recently captivated Nigerian society was a revelation by the former Governor of Cross River state, Donald Duke, where he laid out how state governors rig elections in Nigeria. INEC is a national body with 12 commissioners and a Chairman at federal level, and 37 state-level agencies each headed by a state-level electoral commissioner. It is said that the national body is irrelevant, and in fact the state-level agencies are key. The scenario in the past has been that the resident electoral commissioner arrives in the state, pays a courtesy visit to the state governor and makes an off-hand remark about the failings of his car. The electoral commissioner will then get a new car, house and spending money. In that way the state electoral commission becomes part of the state ruling party, and this means that elections are basically predetermined. Duke’s confessions just confirmed what Nigerians already know. What is at fault here is the underlying presumption of a sense of finality; that the falsification of elections in Nigeria is inevitable. This idea is based on three false assumptions: • That (without opening a sociological debate on agency and structure) there can be a group of INEC staff who can change the situation by their own will. To assume that INEC officials are necessarily corrupt is wrong. Recent studies seem to show that the right leadership will go a long way. At the moment, a major incentive to fraud is politicisation, and the understanding that INEC will just go along with what politicians want; • There is an assumption that conditions will not change. The lack of vehicles and so on is not necessarily permanent. With better resource management, the situation can be improved; • The final assumption is that not enough is known about election rigging in Nigeria. The matter has been well-studied, and with the right leadership - combined with technical, administrative and public motivation to make it possible – election rigging and fraud could be stopped in Nigeria. How can these three strands be addressed? • By increasing the level of accountability. Professor Attahiru Jega will go a long way to achieve this. He has a clear accountability www.chathamhouse.org.uk 2 Meeting summary: Nigeria – Planning and Prospects for Elections in 2011 track record, and his openness has given him such a high standard in the eyes of the Nigerian public that at his appointment President Goodluck Jonathan said he was about to appoint somebody that he knew nothing bad about – which is true. In private, the appointment of Jega was seen as a mistake by some voices who were scared of what he might achieve – so in a good way. • By looking at the conditions in each state. This is linked to the character of leadership. Since the new Commission was appointed in July, they have tried to change things, starting with the allocation of the overhead. Previously the National Commission would receive 60 percent of funding whilst the state agency would get 40 percent. This was immediately reversed in order to insulate state officials from political influence, but how it will be managed it in the future is yet to be seen. • State agencies are now required to clear meetings and publicise them, in order for national and state commissioners to agree on clear public statements. A more interesting story is what should be done about election fraud. In July INEC looked at the existing voter register, and it is mind-boggling. There are hundreds of underage registrants and so many unusual names – Mike Tysons and so on. Many records do not have biometric information, fingerprints or pictures. There are names that have been registered at police stations which are clearly inconsistent with the addresses that are given, and so INEC came to the conclusion that the existing register cannot support the kind of election which Nigerians expect in 2011. Rightly or wrongly INEC is compiling a new register. The recent amendment to the constitution meant that the election would have had to be between 30 December 2010 and 29 January 2011. With the new INEC commission only existing since July, and 70 million voters to be registered, it would have been very difficult to prepare for elections in only five or six months. It is a tight timeframe, but it is what the constitution provided for. Political parties were up in arms because the election act placed more responsibility on them – particularly concerning how candidates are appointed. The federal government told INEC that if it needed more time it www.chathamhouse.org.uk 3 Meeting summary: Nigeria – Planning and Prospects for Elections in 2011 would have to say so publicly, but INEC replied that it did not want to join the debate on tenure extension or changing the dates of the election. This was because, in the past, the majority of Nigerians thought Goodluck Jonathan was looking to extend his tenure and INEC officials did not want to be seen as his cronies. Eventually it became clear to all that it was unfeasible to hold elections at the end of the year, and the consensus helped INEC to demand more time. It is hoped that the relevant amendments will be made and the elections will be held in April, with voter registration taking place in early January. By the time of the elections, INEC hopes to have the following in place: • Official INEC video evidence of what happens in police stations. This will be expensive but INEC will save money by focusing on the more on problematic areas; • Barcoding on all ballot papers to help INEC check that papers have gone to the right places; • Colour coded ballot papers so that no two constituencies have the same colour; • Better security. INEC is hoping that the approach to securing elections can be changed. In the past, INEC would ask the police to provide security to the election venue. It is trying not to dictate to security services. Instead interstate community committees are to produce a work-plan for security. INEC hopes that all agencies will work together, and there is recognition that not all states have the same security challenges. At the end of the election INEC will have a template by which it can hold the interstate community committees responsible. Security remains a major issue because INEC has little to no control over who provides it. There is massive involvement of civil society in monitoring of elections. Next week INEC will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with civil society granting one hundred percent access. This MoU is concerned with internal party democracy, and the draft MoU was not sufficient because it focused on election observing. INEC wants civil society to be given additional responsibility by becoming involved in voter registration. www.chathamhouse.org.uk 4 Meeting summary: Nigeria – Planning and Prospects for Elections in 2011 In Nigeria there is an unfortunate sense that if you do not belong to PDP then there is no chance of winning an election. Some call Nigeria a one-party state although there are sixty political parties – which are all the same only on paper. The law says that if you apply for registration and INEC gives you no response within six months then you officially become a party. One example INEC saw was a party with 24 members which apparently had presence in 36 states – so you can imagine what some of these parties look like. This shows the level of weakness of most parties. Bigger parties often have problems with internal democracy. The election of 2010 put down more stringent rules on how to elect candidates with the agreement of congresses in all parts of the state. Section 87.7 says that no elected officials can vote in these congresses, thus reducing the influence of the state governor. Mark Stevens: Mark Stevens was in Nigeria for the 2007 elections. Every election has its own dynamic, and tells its own story. The scale of the election in Nigeria means that this applies even more so. There are some key concerns and challenges from the 2007 election, but there was a massive amount of effort and positive investment by civil society. The level of open acknowledgement subsequently of the real problems that existed with the election was impressive. The Electoral Reforms Committee did an excellent analysis of problems and create a good road map for the future.
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