A public affairs analyst and security consultant, Dr. Ody Okereke Ajike, has said that the outcome of the 2023 elections has shown that Nigeria has moved more towards candidate-centred politics instead of party-centred politics.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the legal practitioner noted that the failures seen during the past general elections were not only those of INEC, but were failures of the entirenational governance systems, including the national security agencies and the entire government. He spoke on other issues.
Many people have pooh-poohed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), over the conduct of the general elections, especially the presidential. What are your views?
INEC has serially been castigated by majority of Nigerians across all walks of life for not living up to substantial public expectations of an independent electoral commission. INEC promises of organising credible, free, fair and transparent general elections were not kept. I wonder if why this happened is a mystery or a puzzle in spite of all the promises made by the commission. Further, we need to understand that our democracy does not only rest on the commission, but rather it rests on all the co-equal arms of government. What happened to Nigerians was a failure of the entire national governance systems, including the national security agencies in organising a general election and that constitutes a breach of public trust. So, when the majority of citizens complain of the elections, they are actually complaining against the entire government of the day.
The major grouse was its promise of transmission of results real time from polling units, but which was never done. What’s your position on this?
INEC failed in that key area of real time transfer of results to the iREV platform as they equally promised. I had earlier mentioned about public trust and its attendant breach and I believe it was premeditated as many people have suggested. The claim by the commission that non-transference of election results were due to cyber attacks is untenable. I agree the cyber space is a domain of unpredictable attacks, which attribution is difficult to ascertain in most cases. However, with issues of this nature, INEC should have been prepared to secure and deploy efficient firewalls to deny access to unethical hackers to this critical national infrastructure. Lack of public trust has swollen to heights in Nigeria and what we see is a situation where the citizens’ do not believe or accept what the government tells them.
Don’t you think that the enthusiasm that Nigerians showed in coming out to vote would be dampened in future elections?
Yes, there will be increased voter apathy in Nigeria. These elections presented an opportunity to sustain increased voter participation and political socialisation in Nigeria. We had about 23 per cent voters’ participation and this is awful compared to the huge resources devoted for these elections and as it is done in Nigeria every four years. We recorded a huge turnout for voter registration but witnessed a diminishing number of voters. This could be issues of public distrust of government because there is an amazing mismatch between the expectations of the people and the shrinking supply by the government. Voter apathy will grow and if the judiciary does not step in to do justice transparently, a lot of Nigerians will exercise diminished faith in our electoral process going forward.
The atmosphere is still tense since the elections. How do we overcome this?
Election is a process that starts from canvassing for nomination by aspirants, to the nomination of candidates by political parties through electoral campaigns to elections and ends at the courts. In addressing the fallout of the 2023 elections, the courts must be fair to all and ensure justice for all. It is right to state that, judges who take oaths enter into a fiduciary relationship with citizens. Our courts must then interpret or implement the rules by seeking to give legal effects to both the letters of the constitution, which is the original public meaning and the spirit of the constitution, which is the original function or purpose of the provisions. When the original meaning is not sufficient to resolve any controversy, our courts must employ good faith constriction and avoid any form of opportunistic abuse of discretionary powers. Currently, only the courts can reshape and restore public trust as the last structure within the electoral process.
The election has further widened the division in Nigeria. Going forward, what suggestion are you going to make to the president-elect on how to cement the differences?
All around the world, there has been a growing influence of nationalism. So, I am not surprised though the causes of ethnic divisions in Nigeria are different from the causes of heightened nationalism in most parts of the globalised world. We must also understand that ethnic demarcations are very apparent in Nigeria. More so, in Nigeria, it is inadequate government, poor quality of education, weak technological penetration and weak industrial base that exacerbate ethnicity and religion. It is also pertinent to note that, heightened ethnicity as currently witnessed represents the destruction of political credibility by the Buhari’s government, coupled with dwindling national economic prosperity. People get excited and hooked to their ethnic groups for purposes of prestige, identity or as a desired channel for extracting socio-political and economic gains or a form of solidarity against perceived or apparent marginalisation. Another very important factor is to analyse the purpose of political power by certain ethnic groups in Nigeria. For some groups, political power is just for prestige, while for others, political power is for an expanded access to socio-political and economic prosperity, while for others it is a means of propagating ethnic salience or superiority. So we can all see that there is evidentially values gap which requires to be closed.
For the incoming administration, there is a lot to do for national integration. No country can prosper or be secure if the population is internally disintegrated. No economic gains can be achieved and political instability will be the bane of the country. The incoming administration must construct an overarching strategy that will integrate Nigerians through politically conscious and economic development programmes, committed investments in education, rapid industrialisation and technological advancement, structured and effective social safety nets, formation of a government of national unity, establishment of a credible political power rotation structure, establishment of a credible peace building infrastructure across all geo-political zones and an integrated policy for national development across all geopolitical zones. None of these is determinative on its own because they all have to be integrated to achieve a united and prosperous country.
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