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Dr Sam Amadi, the former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has described the country’s administrative failure as the biggest threat to free and fair elections.
He stated this in Abuja while speaking at the launch of the National Action Plan on Electoral Reform by the Political Committee of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC, and the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought.
Reacting to the widespread endorsement of President Bola Tinubu’s second term, Amadi call for the reform of INEC and the judiciary ahead of the 2027 general elections.
According to him: “The proposed National Strategic Action is different from previous efforts in electoral reform in Nigeria; [it] is also directed at the judiciary. Both Executive and Judiciary arise from the recognition that the real threats to electoral integrity and justice come from the electoral management body and the judiciary.
“The proposed joint project has become urgent because of the widespread and growing skepticism about the prospect of free and fair elections amongst both electorates and politicians. This skepticism is reflected in the spate of decampment to the ruling APC by governors and legislators of opposition parties because of fear of being rigged out of office.”
Continuing, he said: “The 2023 and by-election experiences show that without reforming the institutional setting and procedures of the electoral management body and thereby guaranteeing its independence and impartiality, we can’t have a guarantee of credible and trustworthy elections.
“The 2023 elections were electronically transmitted in real-time as required by INEC guidelines. But the presidential results were not because polling officers could not access the right password to upload the results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).”
This administrative failure, according to him, “gutted the entire safeguard of the 2023 presidential election.”
Said he: “The outcome was that several results in key battleground states were mutilated, and false results were entered and collected.
“At the tribunal, INEC could not provide evidence of any technical glitch that prevented the upload of results as required by its guidelines. Unfortunately, the tribunal and courts wrongly ruled that INEC could easily walk away from the requirements of its election management guidelines issued pursuant to the provisions of the Constitution.”
He concluded on this note: “The challenge for free and fair elections in Nigeria is how to enable an electoral jurisprudence that penalises electoral malpractices in such a manner that restores the right of electorates to choose leaders.”
On his part, the acting chairman of the Political Committee of NLC, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, noted that Nigerians have lost confidence in the electoral system.
“Democracy is dying. People don’t come out to vote again. In 2015, we had 69 million registered voters, but 44% voted. Which was almost half of the voters; 2015 is just ten years ago. In 2019, we had 82 million registered, but 35% voted. In 2023, we had 93 registered voters, and only 27% voted. So if we are not careful, the next election will be 15% if we are following the trend,” he stated.
“Even when registered voters are increasing, the number of voters is decreasing, and the percentage is going down fast by almost 10% every election year. People are not voting because they have lost confidence in the electoral system. So we’re not going to call this a democracy when the people are not voting.”
