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Nigeria: U.S. Election - IWU in Stormy Waters

13 November 2008

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Lagos — Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, recently incurred the wrath of Nigerians, when he compared the Nigerian electoral system with that of the United States of America. Davidson Iriekpen reports

The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, last week stirred the hornet's nest when he condemned the United States of America's style of election process, asking the US to draw lessons from Nigeria.

Iwu, who made his remarks during a visit to the presidential villa, said the Nigerian electoral system was better than that of the US. Asked to comment on the specific areas the US could learn from Nigeria, Iwu said Americans should learn to keep a national voters' register.

He also said the US should learn to hold presidential election in one day rather than scatter it over several days, as they do in the case of early voting. "They should learn to keep a voters' register and they should learn to hold elections in one day," Iwu said as he hurried off, declining to make further comments.

Why many were wondering what America has to learn about the Nigerian electoral system, the INEC boss said that he was misquoted. A statement issued on his behalf by the Director of Public Affairs, Segun Adeogun said the report was "a malicious fabrication and a tissue of lies."

He added: "We wish to state that at no time did the INEC chairman condemn the US electoral system. In his brief interaction with State House correspondents, he acknowledged that while Nigeria has a lot to learn from the US, Americans can also learn from Nigeria's experience especially in the area of keeping national voters' register and holding presidential election in one day. This does not in any way amount to condemnation."

Adeogun said: "Prof. Iwu has always held the US democratic process in high esteem. He cannot therefore at any point in time begin to infer, impute and surmise that the same democracy which he has been part of at various times in the past is riddled with drawbacks as was being insinuated in the media reports."

The statement added: "The INEC chairman has been an apostle of electoral integrity, internal democracy among political parties and fairness to all. Prof. Iwu did not condemn the US electoral process. Any report alluding to such is nothing but a figment of the author's imagination.

"In recent times, there has been a grand plot to malign, discredit and disparage Iwu's reputation, which he has built over the years both in Nigeria and in the United States. This has been orchestrated in the form of unrestrained and unrelenting media siege to his person and the INEC as an institution."

For these comments, it did not take long for Nigerians to descend on the Iwu. One of the opposition parities, the Action Congress (AC) descended on him heavily. It described him as a man who is either suffering from pangs of hallucination or tottering on the brink of instability. In a statement in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said the statement, which Iwu reportedly made during a visit to President Umaru Yar'Adua on the same day Americans were voting peacefully, was calibrated to make Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

AC said the angry reactions to Iwu's comments by the Nigerian community have shown the danger in making such a careless statement, saying going by the woes of 2007 elections, no country, not even United States to say the least, has anything to learn from Nigeria beyond election rigging, violence, voter disenfranchisement, ballot box snatching and vote stealing.

"Just imagine this, a man that organised what has now emerged as the worst election in the history of Nigeria and perhaps that of the world is now trying to teach the world's greatest democracy the rudiments of elections. No statement made by Iwu in the past has exposed his lack of seriousness and stability more than his comments on the US election and it is sad that this is the kind of man to whom we chose to entrust what should have been Nigeria's own landmark elections in 2007.

"The fact that he made the statement after a visit to President Yar'Adua is even more embarrassing and could be read to mean that what he said reflected the thinking of the President. It's unfortunate, but these are all we have bequeathed to the world after the 2007 elections and it will remain so until we repudiate the likes of Maurice Iwu and organise a free, fair and violence-free elections," the statement added.

Also, former Senate Chief Whip and leader of the Action Congress (AC) in Edo State, Senator Rowland Owie, urged President Umaru Yar'Adua and the National Assembly to urgently reconstitute the INEC led by Iwu in order to make the commission "truly an unbiased umpire."

Owie, while reacting to Iwu's statement, stated that "we are aware that people have said that this administration is slow but one thing that this President should do now and the National Assembly is to disband this present INEC led by Iwu so that the integrity of this country is not rubbished the more.

"It is a shame that Iwu who has failed to apologise to Nigerians on how he manipulated elections during the last general elections is coming up to say that America should come and learn from us. As a matter of fact, if Iwu was living in the Benin Empire before the British came, by now he should have committed suicide. What it means is that we have no hope again unless he leaves there.

"Iwu's commission is anti-Christ and anti-democratic and something serious must be done to save Nigeria from his hands. That is why we must continue to appeal to the President to save this country from embarrassment. At least, he watched the election in the United States; if he truly wants this nation to move forward, he should start from reforming INEC, after all he acknowledged that the last elections was fraudulent," Owie stated.

Since the April 2007 general elections, criticisms have been trailing the conduct of the election with allegations that massive rigging, thuggery, stuffing of ballot boxes, announcement of results before the conclusion of polls, omission of candidates' names and political logos from the ballot papers, among others, were the hallmarks of the controversial election.

The alleged failure of INEC was exposed by judgements of the election petitions tribunals across the country which established that the election was grossly marred by malpractices and irregularities. The tribunals sitting different states condemned the role played by the umpire from the state Houses of Assembly and gubernatorial elections, to House of Representatives and senatorial elections as well as the presidential election, describing them as fraudulent.

It was the perception of many before the election that candidates were indiscriminately excluded and voters' register was not displayed in accordance with the constitution. They also believed that electoral matters were not prepared on time, adequate ad-hoc personnel were not recruited and deployed all over the country, adding that Iwu was embroiled in needless court altercations.

International observers as well as domestic observers, including the European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM), Republican Institute, Justice, Development and Peace Commission (IDPC) in their different reports, also maintained that not only was the election fraught with irregularities, the electoral processes were also flawed.

According to the EU report, during elections at various states, polling started very late throughout the country, due to the late arrival of polling officials and materials which were often incomplete. EU also reported that in several areas, polling did not take place at all. Polling stations were generally under-staffed with officials under-trained. Procedures were often poorly followed and the secrecy of the ballot was not guaranteed in the majority of polling stations visited by EU observers.

Since the conclusion of the election, there have been calls for Iwu to resign his position as INEC chairman. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has been at the forefront of the calls. NBA said Iwu should resign if Nigerians would have confidence in the commission to conduct re-run elections ordered by the election petition tribunals across the country.

The then president of the association, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, predicated the call on various tribunal pronouncements which he said had vindicated NBA's position that the election was characterised with irregularities adding that the commission's chairman should leave office "so that INEC would have a fresh start" in the conduct of the by-election, ordered by the courts.

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