Kayode Komolafe
19 November 2008
analysis
Lagos — It is a fitting coincidence that as the Electoral Reform Committee is believed to be rounding up its work, the calls for the punishment of electoral criminals are reaching a crescendo.
The recent verdicts from election tribunals and the Appeal Court have all combined to show how central the work of the committee headed by Justice Muhammadu Uwais is to the political reforms promised by President Umaru Yar'Adua at his inauguration last year.
There is, therefore, a great deal of expectation that the committee would help in charting the path for a political future in which people's votes will count. Given the fraud that defined the 2007 election, the mood in the polity is expectant that the Uwais committee will come up with a report that would truly diagnose the problem and recommend prescriptions that would curb electoral malfeasance. If the Yar'Adua administration can muster the courage and capacity to accept the workable recommendations of the panel and can go ahead to implement them, it would have made a difference to the deepening of the democratic culture in the polity. If you add to it an accomplished review of the constitution, Yar'Adua, who admitted that the electoral process in 2007 was "flawed", will eventually be applauded as a political reformer. By the way, if this happens, it would be a huge irony that a man whose victory is a product of a highly disputed election is the one who initiated the process of cleaning the Augean stables in the electoral system. In many respects, that would be a tonic for the system that is at the risk of decay.
The most pernicious form of corruption is the one perpetrated in the process of acquiring power. There has been so much focus on the corruption involved in the management of resources at the disposal of those in power. Those who superintend over public treasuries are able to do so because of the power they have and which they claim derive from the mandate given to them by the people. It is more fundamental to tackle the monumental corruption of the process of getting into power. For a president or a governor to be in position to loot the treasury, he needs to get to power in the first place. Like other forms of corruption, mere preaching will not solve the problem. The structural basis of electoral fraud should be addressed in the recommendations of the Uwais committee. At present, the electoral rules are heavily skewed in favour of the cheats. There is the need to redraw the rules so that those who are cheated will not be at a crippling disadvantage in the process of seeking justice. Setting the rules in favour of justice and equity will, therefore, be the first structural step to take in confronting the demon of electoral corruption.
The last week verdict of the Appeal Court sitting in Benin, which confirmed the electoral tribunal declaration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the governor of Edo State, has brought into a sharp focus the urgency of the work of the Uwais committee. The fact that Oshiomhole had to wait for 18 months while the usurper exercised powers, as the chief executive officer of Edo State, is a demonstration of the absurdity of the present system. It is expected that the proposed electoral reform will reform this anomaly. The rules should be restructured in such a way that all electoral disputes are disposed off ever before the genuine winner takes the oath of office. It is not a good system that permits the person who steals electoral mandate to go on exercising power while the real winner is busy with the rigour of litigation.
Worse still, after expending so much time, energy and material resources to seek justice, those who perpetrated the fraud are walking free. This lawless state of affairs prompted, the people's lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, to suggest criminal prosecution of electoral offenders. In reaction to Oshiomhole's victory, Fawehinimi said:" A lesson must be taught by the judgement. Professor Oserheimen Osunbor and those who helped him to perpetrate the electoral fraud must be arraigned before a criminal court to be tried for the offences they have committed". In fact, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has also proposed that, as a follow-up to the work of the tribunals, "the setting up of commissions for criminal prosecution to delve into the actual conspiracies that produced such electoral chicaneries". In a statement entitled " From Sodom to Adam", Soyinka said: " The guilty would be compelled, for a start, to pay the entire cost of the Tribunal proceedings, including legal and other costs incurred by the vindicated appellants. All known assets of the guilty will be seized, the costs of both tribunals and Commissions deducted from the sales of such assets " The spirit of these suggestions is simply that electoral fraud should be made structurally difficult if not impossible for those who specialise in "fixing" elections. The essence of the clamour for electoral reform is that people's votes should count and be counted.
The Uwais committee would, therefore, be doing the polity a lot of good it could recommend a structural basis for penalising those found guilty of electoral crimes. The nut to be cracked by the committee is how a sitting government would muster the political will to implement the provisions of the law on how electoral criminals should be punished. The matter before tribunals should not just be limited to determining the winner of the election, the tribunal should also recommend criminal trial of those who make the people's votes not to count or prevent the votes from being counted.
As part of the structural reforms of the electoral process, the Uwais committee is also expected to tackle the institutional deficiencies of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The symptoms of these deficienciess were manifest in the infamous performance of the commission under its unrepentant chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, during the 2007 elections. Nothing so far has suggested that the Iwu's INEC is capable of any introspection on the last year's electoral fiasco. The unguarded pronouncements of Iwu have shown that INEC in its present composition is simply irredeemable. Such a sensitive national institution deserves a responsible leadership who is politically literate enough about the challenges of democratic development, which the nation faces.
Beyond that, however, the revelations made so far before the various tribunals across the country have proved that INEC and the state electoral commissions ought to be more independent and competent so as to discharge its constitutional responsibility. For instance, the financial autonomy of the commission ought to be ensured so that they would not be at the mercy of those in power at the federal and state levels. The reform being proposed should make INEC more responsive and accountable to the electorate.
The electoral commission should be scrupulously non-partisan. The experience with INEC under Iwu has not shown such enough neutrality. For instance, while presenting Yar'Adua with his certificate of victory shortly after last year's presidential election, Iwu displayed a gross insensitivity that was unbecoming of an umpire. He lampooned those he accused of thinking that winning the election was their 'birth rights". In a magisterial tone, he blamed some parties for not being visible enough. According to him, some had no posters and never campaigned anywhere. In his bid to rationalise the inadequacies of the system, he ended up talking down on everybody. The man and his organisation are just incapable of self-criticism. Yar'Adua who is the leading beneficiary of the process was even more sober to admit that there were imperfections in the exercise. Hence, the setting up of the Uwais committee.
It is already 18 months to the tenure of Yar'Adua, in another 18 months the nation would be warming up to another round of elections. It is expected that the work so far done by the Uwais committee would help in conducting freer and fairer elections.
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