JOURNAL OF JOURNAL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN A ELECTIONS FRICAN EL Special Issue Nigeria General Elections: From Reforms to Transformation E CTIONS Vol 15 Vol N o 2 O ct 2016 Volume 15 Number 2 Oct 2016 ii JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS Journal of African Elections Special Issue Nigeria General Elections: From Reforms to Transformation GUEST EDITOR Abubakar Momoh ARTICLES BY Abubakar Momoh Grace Ojekwe Ayodeji Anthony Aduloju Aremu Fatai Ayinde Aluko Opeyemi Idowu Emmanuel Alebiosu Osita Agbu Hakeem Onapajo Moses T. Aluigba Chris Ojukwu Oni Ebenezer Oluwole Volume 15 Number 2 Oct 2016 ii remember to change running heads VOLUME 14 NO 1 iii Published by EISA 14 Park Road, Richmond, Johannesburg, South Africa P O Box 740, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 11 381 6000 Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 e-mail: [email protected] ©EISA 2016 ISSN: 1609-4700 (Print) ISSN 2415-5837 (Online) v. 15 no. 2: 10.20940/jae/2016/v15i2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher Printed by: Corpnet, Johannesburg Cover photograph: Reproduced with the permission of the HAMILL GALLERY OF AFRICAN ART, BOSTON, MA, USA For electronic back copies of JAE visit www.eisa jae. org.za iv JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS EDITOR Denis Kadima, EISA, Johannesburg MANAGING EDITOR Sue Randall EDITORIAL BOARD Chair: Denis Kadima, EISA, South Africa Cherrel Africa, Department of Political Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Jørgen Elklit, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark Amanda Gouws, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa Roukaya Kasenally, Department of Social Studies, University of Mauritius, Mauritius Abdul Rahman Lamin, UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya Tom Lodge, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick, Ireland Khabele Matlosa, Political Affairs Department, African Union Commission Roger Southall, Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and Research Associate in Political Studies, University of Cape Town. The Journal of African Elections is an interdisciplinary biannual publication of research and writing in the human sciences, which seeks to promote a scholarly understanding of developments and change in Africa. Responsibility for opinions expressed and for the accuracy of facts published in papers, research notes, review articles and book reviews rests solely with the individual authors or reviewers. Contributions are referred to specialist readers for consideration, but the Editor is responsible for the final selection of the contents of the Journal. Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts for submission and books for review, should be sent to: The Managing Editor, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 11 381 6000 | Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 | e-mail: [email protected] Business correspondence, including orders and remittances, subscription queries, advertise- ments, back numbers and offprints, should be addressed to the publisher: The Publications Department, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: 27 (0) 11 381 6000 | Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 | e-mail: [email protected] Abstracts for previous issues are available at: https://eisa.org.za/index.php/journal-of-african-elections-contents-listing/ remember to change running heads VOLUME 14 NO 1 v CONTENTS Introduction Abubakar Momoh ........................................................................................................ 1 Political Advert Campaigns and Voting Behaviour: Akinwunmi Ambode’s 2015 Election Campaign in Lagos State Grace Ojekwe ............................................................................................................. 13 Youth Networks on Facebook and Twitter during the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria Ayodeji Anthony Aduloju .......................................................................................... 28 Nigeria’s 2015 Elections: Permanent Voter’s Cards, Smart Card Readers and Security Challenges Aremu Fatai Ayinde and Aluko Opeyemi Idowu ...................................................... 50 Smart Card Reader and the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria Emmanuel Alebiosu .................................................................................................. 69 Election Rigging and the Use of Technology: The Smart Card Reader as the Joker in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election Osita Agbu ................................................................................................................. 90 Politics and the Pulpit: The Rise and Decline of Religion in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Elections Hakeem Onapajo ...................................................................................................... 112 Democracy Deferred: The Effects of Electoral Malpractice on Nigeria’s Path to Democratic Consolidation Moses T. Aluigba ..................................................................................................... 136 Ethnicity and Political Transition Programmes in Nigeria, 1960-1999 Chris Ojukwu and Oni Ebenezer Oluwole .............................................................. 159 Hyperlinks .............................................................................................................. 177 VOLUME 15 NO 2 1 INTRODUCTION to THE SPECIAL ISSUE Abubakar Momoh Abubakar Momoh is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Lagos State University, Lagos email: [email protected] BACKGROUND The use of technology in general elections in Nigeria is not new. However, before the era of Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), its use was half-hearted and inconsistent. Jega was the INEC chair from June 2011 to July 2015. The haphazard use of technology prior to Jega’s tenure further deepened the electoral crises in Nigeria. For example, Nigerians had used temporary voters’ cards (TVCs) instead of permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) to vote at many general elections in the past, which became a recipe for monumental rigging of votes. The 2015 general elections were the first time that the leadership of the election management body showed determination to break with past tradition of use of TVCs and embraced the use of PVCs. The PVCs were to be verified by a smart card reader (SCR), and authenticated through a check on fingerprints and biometric data. This was to prevent impersonation of voters; it also provided an audit trail by keeping records of authenticated voters in the results from each polling unit (PU). The data were also used to analyse the demographics of voters (Nnam 2016, p.1). This technology was innovative and revolutionary in the annals of electoral history in Nigeria. The move sent cold shivers down the spines of fraudulent politicians who sought to fight INEC and its leadership through all means – including legal, media, political and military. The entire apparatus of political control, from Parliament to the Council of State, from Service Chiefs to the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), became panicky and almost paranoid. Some tried to stop the leadership of INEC from using SCRs, claiming it was illegal and unconstitutional to do so. The 2015 general elections also saw the use of social media and new modes of campaigns and political marketing, and new issues of soapbox sloganeering and campaigning. This special edition of the Journal of African Elections seeks to focus on these issues as well as the SCRs. 1 2 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS The conduct of elections in Nigeria has always been challenging. The general elections held between 1999 and 2011 were described as increasingly worse than earlier elections. The 2003 general elections were frankly scandalous, whilst the 2007 general elections were nothing but mere allocation of votes to contestants or candidates. Indeed, the 2007 election was described as ‘direct capture’ of votes through political banditry and recklessness. The dimension and magnitude of vote-rigging was unfathomable. With respect to the 2003 general elections, Oddih (2007) avers: The recorded cases are: multiple registration, hoarding of voters cards, under-age registration, destruction of voters cards, impersonation, forgery, block recruitment of agents, poor training of ad-hoc staff, employment of unqualified ad-hoc staff, non-payment of recruits as and when due, bribery to influence recruits, sponsoring of supporters to be among recruits, supply of poor quality material as electoral materials, poor management of logistic support, inflation of accredited numbers (sic), multiple voting, influencing voters, falsification of results, hijacking of materials, intimidation of voters/ officials, collusion by law enforcement agents, incitement during campaigns, inflammatory speeches, slandering of opponents, ethnic/ religious sentiments, kidnapping, withholding evidence, deliberate time-wasting in election tribunal etc. (Oddih 2007, p. 160-161) This scenario led the biggest beneficiary of the 2007 general elections, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to openly condemn the outcome. On his inauguration as President, he set up the Electoral Reforms Committee (ERC), chaired by Hon. Muhammadu Uwais (retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria).