Will Nigeria ever get it right in terms of credible, free and fair elections? This is one of the most complicated integral parts of Nigeria’s corrupt system perpetuated with impunity by the political elite that has defied solution over decades. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently opened this sour electoral wound and robbed salt on it.
Obasanjo’s scathing remark at Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu has been raising dust from a cross section of Nigeria. He accused INEC and its leadership of corruption and aiding electoral malfeasance in Nigeria, particularly in 2023.
Delivering a speech at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, the former president while delivering his speech titled ‘Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria,’ described the 2023 general elections as a “travesty”. According to him, “More than N700 billion in cash bribes were paid by citizens to public officials in 2023. Most bribes are paid in the street or a public official’s office”.
In his characteristically unmistakable frankness, Obasanjo called for removal of the current leadership of INEC for a reliable leadership that can conduct credible and transparent elections in Nigeria: “As a matter of urgency, we must ensure that the INEC chairperson and his or her team are carefully vetted,” Obasanjo stated.
He went further to prescribe that, “The vetting process should result in impartial, non-partisan individuals with outstanding reputations. Nigeria must secure the appointment of new credible leadership for INEC at the federal, state, local government, and municipal—city, town, and village levels—with brief tenures—to avert unwanted political influence and corruption, thus restoring citizens’ trust in the electoral system. It is vital that the INEC chairperson is beyond reproach and demonstrably independent and incorruptible”, he added.
Many groups and individuals rose up against the former president who was described as lacking any moral integrity to point at Nigeria’s electoral errors. The presidency was particularly frenetic in its response. Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President, Bayo Onanuga, said this much.
The former president, according to Onanuga’s statement, “presided over the worst election in Nigeria demands the sack of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission” adding that, “After wasting billions of naira on a failed third-term project in 2007, Chief Obasanjo hurriedly organised a sham electoral process that would go down in history as the most fraudulent election held in Nigeria since 1960. The beneficiary of the sham election, Umaru Yar’adua, admitted that the election was seriously flawed and, as Justice Muhammed Uwais’ panel recommended, worked towards electoral reforms.”
This is not what we need at the moment. In fact, we are miffed that those who are openly labeled as enemies of our democratic freedom engage in a quarrel and expect public applause as if the citizens have lost all sense of their rights, resigned to fate and damnation instead of rising up and demanding that their failed leaders are brought to accountability..
Our position is that, the issue here is beyond two political enemies pointing accusing fingers at each other. In fact, the two sides – Obasanjo Camp and Presidency Camp – are absolutely right in their mutually vicious attrition. How can a kettle call pot black? What is even more disturbing in all of these is the fact that, there is no sign that the present government is ready to correct this historical cycle of blemish in our elections, especially looking at the reports and outcomes of the recent staggered governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States. Is there any flicker of hope? No. Will there be any consequences? No. So, where do we go from here?