Lagos — The security prognosis for 2011 general elections is not good. Opportunities to make amends and fine-tune things have been missed. The Ekiti re-run election should have been used as a test-run in preparations for the 2011 elections.

Instead of providing comprehensive security for the polling, what the public saw to their chagrin, one more time, was a police focused only on creating an enabling environment for an apparently unstable electoral commissioner, whose credibility unraveled from a high if 100% to a low of zero percent, almost overnight before their very eyes, to announce a highly contentions result. The successful December 2008/Jan. 2009 presidential elections in Ghana, both the first round and the run-off in Tain, which brought Attah Mills of the opposition to power, was hailed as a landmark for Africa and an island of stability and peaceful elections in the midst of much disorderliness and conflict in surrounding states. What is not so loudly acknowledged is that the success of that election was underwritten by the professionalism of the Ghana police who prepared comprehensively for the polls. Prior to the polling the Ghana police issued clear instructions through the media as to the conduct of the elections: what constitutes an offence during voting and the penalties for breaking the law; instructions which it proceeded to strictly enforce.

Unfortunately Nigeria's men of power failed utterly to get the message. When Nigeria's minister of defence was apprised of the success of the Ghana elections he riposted that Ghana's population was about as much as one of Nigeria's states, or words to that effect, reflecting the cynicism and mediocrity in the nation's corridors of power. By the minister's calculations America, whose population is more than twice that of Nigeria should be having elections that much chaotic and unreliable. When the nation's chief electoral umpire, Maurice Iwu was informed in a public forum that President Obama ignored Nigeria because of her pariah status and visited Ghana instead, the professor riposted that there was no reason to give special regard to the visit of the American leader and that several world leaders, including that of China had visited Nigeria.

The professor failed utterly to comprehend that it would be impolitik not to consider the relative strength of nations in bilateral or multilateral politics. For instance America's economy is more than three time as big as that of China - so on that basis alone a visit by an American leader should be more than three times as important as that by a Chinese leader. America accounts for 21% of global GDP while China contributes only 6.4%. While China's per capita income is $6, 000, that of America is $39,000. Anyone with a modicum of common sense will not need to think hard to know that the relative weights of nations in their developmental indices can be ignored only at ones peril when dealing with them. The recent award of the Nobel peace prize to President Obama surprised the world but there can be little doubt that the award was, more than anything else, an acknowledgement of his potential as a global force for peace and security rather for actual achievement.

The chairman of Nigeria's ruling partly famously quipped that the party will be in power for the next 60 years. In other words the party probably has a secret weapon that will ensure its political longevity in the absence of any viable democratic institutions such as a professional civil service, an independent judiciary, an integrated and inclusive economy, a proper constitution, a proactive, competent national legislature, an educated polity with a competitive manpower base, a dynamic, skilled work force, a professional military establishment, an accountable and responsible political elite, in short strong, democratic institutions. While the polity exhibits all the signs of a sick or failed system, that urgently needs attention a minister of a very troubled ministry found it a good time to throw an international birthday bash that cost in excess of N100 million. And the head of a major federal parastatal and prominent ruling party trustee found it expedient to use his time and other public resources to throw his own 70-something birthday bash. Office holders in the current dispensation are behaving like the proverbial ostrich that buries it head in the sand when confronted with danger or the house owner who prefers to chase rats while his abode is on fire. While the polity is experiencing unprecedented instability and needs the unmitigated attention of all well-meaning citizens the ruling elite prefers to engage in distractions, diversions and perfunctory preoccupations. The flatulence emanating from political office holders in the current government betrays an elite eons away from the transcendental figures that the nation direly needs at this time.

Since inception in 2007, no one in government has deemed it fit to bring about the enactment of laws that will correct salient errors and pitfalls encountered in past elections, notably those of 2003 and 2007. That betrays a mindset of denial about the urgency and the enormity of the task that needs to be done before the next general elections. Such a mindset smacks of unbelievable naivety. Those in power today, quite pitifully, think that the power of incumbency which they currently enjoy can effectively override the dire need for constitutional and institutional reforms. Having apparently survived the last ten years or so, largely under chief Obasanjo's deviousness and inane chicaneries, which was unraveling even before he left office, the promoters of the status quo are persuaded that they can hold on to power for the next 60 years or more, never mind that all that they have so far achieved is to turn the country into a highly conflicted polity, rated as a world class pariah nation, in the same league as or worse than Myanmar and North Korea.

Since 1999 there has been no constructive use of the power of incumbency. Rather it has been used in the breach of democratic norms, from dealing with corruption in high places, to the conduct of elections, to transparency issues. The ruling party has shown itself to be the largest spoils system in the world, not the largest party in Africa as is trumpetted in self promotion. This is confirmed by the mindless diversion of public funds during the Obasanjo administration, through fake, unexecuted or failed contracts, for which full payments were made. The fact that key players in that administration have been retained or are otherwise active in the incumbent administration is proof enough that that culture continues.

The Anambra gubernatorial elections, coming up, in February 2010, is another opportunity for the police to get its acts together, in preparation for the 'big do' in 2011. But the likelihood of any of that incoming about in the light of the insidious, political roistering and lethal political gangsterism going on there in anticipation of the elections, is remote. One would have thought that the task of policing elections is a simple one: prevent any breaches of the peace and promptly arrest and prosecute any law breakers; pretty much the same as routine police work. Such a job would not be difficult if those involved abstain from taking sides and getting involved in the politics of elections or otherwise allowing themselves to be suborned by politicians. Whether the police admits it or not a major reason elections have always been indecent affairs in Nigeria is because the police have consistently failed to do their jobs professionally during elections by leaving politicians to their politics while the police concentrates on the business of policing. Nigerians are not differently constituted from people in other lands. If those minded to break the law know that they will surely be caught during elections and that the penalties will be high and exacting, Nigerians, including the general public and in particular politicians, will conform and behave themselves.

When General Obasanjo was running the government as a civilian president, Aso Rock led the way in suborning the police generally and in particular during elections, to ensure their partisanship in their security operations. Such situations often gave police officers the ready-made excuse, often given rather gleefully, that they were 'obeying orders from above' whenever their behaviour was questioned. The situation underlines a salient but unfortunate fact that the leadership of the police and for that matter other federal institutions also, have not yet emancipated to the point where, like in better democracies, they can confidently stand up to any public officer no matter how highly placed, and refuse to compromise their institutions professionally, regardless of the magnitude of the pressure on them to do so.

In other words Nigeria's public institutions, in particular the police, are yet to attain the level of professionalism that will enable them to take independent action, based on what the constitution dictates. They have seemed to delight in doing whatever the person in power wants them to do, including carrying out instructions from reprobate political office holders. It is an instructive irony that General Obasanjo who did his best to undermine transparency and professionalism in public affairs as president is today the beneficiary of professionalism and transparency from the Spanish government: His son, Muyiwa, by his deceased wife, Stella, is reported to have been awarded some 120,000 euro or N24.7 million compensation for the wrongful death of his mother in the hands of a quacky Spanish plastic surgeon. She had gone to the doctor to alter her looks, a frivolous endavour, most probably at public expense. One hopes that the Obsanjos of this world, in particular Nigerian leaders, past, present and in the future, political and institutional, especially the incumbent Attorney General of the federation, would have learnt an important lesson from the Spanish system's handling of the case.

Since practically nothing has been done on the part of the Federal Government to get ready for the next elections, particularly in terms of forestalling the constitutional and legal inadequacies that bedeviled past elections, it has to be presumed that the ruling party intends to re-enact the 2003-and 2007-style charade or something worse, in 2011. Apparently the ruling elite have indicated, if their words and deeds are anything to go by, their pre-occupation with surviving in office beyond 2011. Their strategy for realizing this objective is to create a situation, by omission or commission, that will permit maximum rigging of the elections. In other words the 2011 elections will pose, one more time, a serious challenge to the national and international sense of decency. It will also be a security debacle. Yet unidentified persons are already importing weapons. The Ekiti re-run elections has already given a foretaste of what is to be expected. That means once again that in 2011 Nigerians will be re-learning the lessons of having a rogue government running their affairs.

The word 'rogue' is not used lightly, nor is it intended as a hyperbole. Some people may find it a bit extreme but what do you call a government that has consistently evaded political responsibility right from inception and seems to have surrendered policy making for public interest to a small band of both faceless and overt insiders, who have held the government and the people hostage to their whims and caprices. Since 1999 there has been no improvement in political practice. The reason for this state of things is that those in authority do not want things to improve.

They profit from the status quo. It is that simple. Obasanjo's style of governance made it possible for public officers, including governors, ministers, LG council chairman, legislators, etc, to think nothing of raising personal militia to fight elections or to fight opposition. Under that government the country achieved unprecedented levels of lawlessness and insecurity. What has the nation gained from that culture? One is that the nation's legislative chambers are now occupied by political delinquents who lack the slightest ideas of their strategic responsibilities to the people they are supposed to represent. In functional democracies legislators make ground breaking laws for good governance but in Nigeria legislators break new ground only in appropriating more emoluments for themselves and in seeking to exclude themselves from the prosecutorial process that other citizens are required to comply with when accused of wrong doing.

What a typical Nigerian senator considers ground breaking is to table a farcical bill to regulate how women may dress, taking the matter all the way to the United Nations in New York, to the eternal embarrassment of not only her 'distinguished' self but the nation also. A common refrain in official circles around the country is that there is a 'cordial relationship' between the executive and the legislature: code for the ineptitude of the latter in respect of its ability to perform its oversight functions and proactively pursue the interest of their constituencies. It is also a euphemism for a tacit agreement between the two arms to share the spoils of office to the exclusion of all other stake holders. Another name for a situation that is so often described as a 'cordial relationship' between the executive and legislature is a rubberstamp assembly. It is not a relationship based on mutual respect. It is one based on mutual vested interest, a conspiracy against the people in whose name the government exists.

15. In the 2011 elections the world will be watching to see the role the police and other security agencies will play in it. The role of the Presidency and the police in the Ekiti-re-run elections was disappointing. The great hope is that in the coming elections in 2011 President Yar'dua's true character will prevail and that security agencies will be given a free hand to do their jobs professionally and will be firmly guided away from it, if and when they choose to do otherwise.

16. At the point in which the nation now finds itself in its political development, the security agencies (i.e, the police and the military) have a choice to make. They can hasten the country's freefall into anarchy by partaking in the corruption that has overtaken the polity, by looking the other way while it lasts or they can choose to be professional and patriotic by ensuring that they are not compromised in the critical months and years ahead. It is within the power of the security forces to deliver the nation out of its present pariah condition. This can be done at institutional level. That is to say without necessarily taking over the government politically. Extant and proximate experience shows rather clearly that the nation cannot rely on the political class to bring about any progressive change. That leaves the security institutions, the only ones with any measure of discipline, at least potentially, as the only hope for a better future for the country. This is by no means a new idea.

In places such as Indonesia and Turkey, to mention only a few progressively developing democracies, the military, while staying in the background, has acted as the guarantors of stability and as a bulwark against extremism. It has to be admitted that in Nigeria past military and police leadership have not lived up to expectation, to say the least, in this regard. Military leaders who seized power seemed to focus on the spoils of office when they are not engaged in what can best be described collectively as distractions. They did not think much of institution building although they all seemed to be aware that they will someday be handing over to a democratic government. The police for their part of course simply placed themselves at the disposal of whosoever is/was in power; not that they had any choice in the circumstances though. Current leadership of these institutions seems to have only one option in the present situation in which there is a nominal democracy, a democracy without solid institutions: change the trend in the national interest. The police and the armed forces must reject any attempt to compromise them for partisan political ends or any temptations for personal enrichment. The police and the military must be conscious of the need to uphold the integrity of their respective services in all circumstances, from the management of crime, to the management of sundry internal security challenges to the management of elections.

17. There is reason to believe that the armed forces, particularly the Army remains professionally strong and constitutionally accountable. Cases such as Odi in 1999 and Zaki Ibiam/Markurdi in 2001, it is hoped, are now a thing of the past and should at any rate become the exception rather than the rule. The Americans are accepted to posses one of the most sophisticated military in the world. But in Iraq they treated the world to the Abu Ghraib abuses. The integrity of their defence and security apparatus and even that of their justice system was also called to question over their treatment of terrorist suspects in their custody at the Guatanamo detention facility. Such incidences will occur at the best of times and at the worst of times too, especially when forces are under intense pressure. What is most important is that in a well led, well trained and well equipped military such deviations are redressed promptly and openly, those responsible brought to book and that corrections are made in the statute books and in the procedures for the future conduct of operations to ensure there will be no repeat of such derelictions.

18. In the aforementioned African Pride saga and in the navy helicopter crash also, the Navy and the police failed to stand up to a reprobate, dissolute chief of state. Those were good examples of what professionalism was not meant to be. For Nigeria to move forward from where it is today this tendency must change. The survival and the viability of the nation's institutions depends on their ability to defend and uphold such institutions' norms, ethics and traditions at all times, no matter the odds. The idea that a public office holder in particular the president, owns the police, the military or any institution for that matter and can therefore do what he/she likes with them, including serving vested or partisan interests, must be positively discouraged. Despite the condemnation of Hurricane Sanusi in some quarters he could not have been so effective in dealing with errant banks if he did not have the moral high ground.

The fate of the guilty banks is an example of what can happen to an institution, including those in the security community, when it compromises its professional integrity or public interest. In one South American country some years ago the federal government disbanded the corrupt police department of a prefecture, sending in the army to hold brief until a new police establishment was built from scratch. In the early sixties Julius Nyerere's government in Tanzania disbanded the country's army following an aborted mutiny. Elements of the Nigerian Army were sent over there to build a new army from scratch. While the possibility of such a disbandment may seem remote in Nigeria it is not impossible. Nigeria today faces a real possibility of imploding as a consequence principally of political corruption.

That will make the country a United Nations peace-keeping/peace enforcement liability, an outcome that is worse than disbanding the police or the military. The armed forces and police must resist any attempt to get them involved in partisan politics. On no account must the armed forces or the police allow themselves to be used as a tool by any political party, ruling or not. Unless this is so the future of the country is in grave danger. The security agencies, particularly the armed forces, have a duty to defend the nation against tyranny, whether the threat is from outside or from inside. The partisan role the police played in the Ekiti re-run was difficult to miss and even more difficult to forget, even for a casual observer.

19. State institutions which reduce themselves to or allow themselves to be used as tools of powerful individuals or a powerful elite, to pursue vested interests rather than public interests, degrade themselves. Senior officers of state institutions, particularly those in the security community (i.e. the IGP, chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy and the Air Force) ought to know that they could not have gotten to their posts in a vacuum. They are products of their respective institutions. They rode on the back of their institutions. When they leave it is only fit and proper that they leave a solid institution behind. That is the universal definition of continuity and no democracy can survive without continuity in its institutions. It will make no sense at all to destroy the institution just to please some transitory political personage, particularly if he/she is of doubtful integrity.

It is all right to work with a political authority personified by someone who knows what he is doing, what is required of him and who respects the constitution and the statutes. But when a political office holder chooses to deviate from these principles he should be told in no uncertain terms that he has lost the loyalty of the concerned institution or at least he should be made aware of the implications of such a disposition. In situations like that it would be in the public interest for the concerned chief of such institution to offer to do so or to actually resign if that becomes necessary, than to submit to political blackmail. In the African Pride incident and the ill fated naval airlift of ballot boxes incident the Navy submitted to political blackmail and paid dearly for it. It is only just now trying to recover from the experience. The police of course is a serial offender in such matters. That is why in general Nigerians do not trust the police and the relationship between the police and the public is fraught. To be fair though the police is far more exposed to such abuse than other forces because it is constitutionally primarily in charge of internal security. The problem however is that over recent decades the police has not even tried to resist or otherwise deal with such abuse. Instead they have willingly submitted, sometimes too willingly, to it. The most recent egregious instance of this was apparent during the period when Tafa Balogun headed the force.

Lt Col Peter Egbe- Ulu (rtd) Lagos.