Samson Itodo, the founder and Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, spoke with PREMIUM TIMES’ Bakare Majeed about off-season elections and the democratic process in Nigeria. This interview was held a day after the 21 September Edo governorship election.
PT: Off-cycle elections often help assess INEC’s preparedness for general elections. Since the last general elections, we have had about four such elections; how would you rate them?
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Mr Itodo: I think that it depends on which period of time you are looking at. If you are looking at the period between the general elections to date, the quality of our elections has actually declined. From the general elections to the last, you know, elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo, we have declined the level of trust in the electoral process – the electoral process has nosedived. But there are three things (to consider) as you think about whether progression or regression, as the case may be.
One, we have this ugly trend of this rollback of old tactics of manipulating elections resurfacing in our electoral process. For instance, in the November 2023 governorship elections (Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo), we saw pre-filled results sheets. Now, pre-filled results sheets are an old election rigging tactic in the past. Because with the smart card reader, the BVAS, and with citizens’ vigilance, those were things of the past. But now, we have pre-filled results sheets that resurfaced in the November elections. And so it is not surprising that we also saw those thugs who were arrested by the police prior to the election with pre-filled results sheets – form EC. And that’s the danger of setting a bad precedent. And that’s why when we exposed the pre-filled results sheets in Kogi—and we have been hammering on this issue, it was because we know the dangers of a bad precedent. Because once you set a precedent and it is not condemned, people are going to adopt it, and that’s what you have seen. So, if we are not careful as we move towards successive elections, results are going to be written before accreditation and voting start.
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The second one, in terms of the quality of the elections, you know, is just the level of vote buying in our elections. In the Edo election, N10,000 per voter is really high. And that really tells you that politicians are not interested in campaigning. They are not interested in winning elections. They are interested in buying elections and that’s why people can take pride that they used their resources and their money to bankroll elections because of their capacity to use money to buy voters. And that raises questions about the legitimacy of the outcome and the process.
The other relates to the independence of INEC. INEC is one of the institutions positioned to protect our democracy. But in the last couple of years, at least in the last 10 years, the greatest misfortune that has befallen our electoral process is this appointment of people who don’t have the competence, people who have clear partisan leanings, into the electoral commission. And it’s just this insidious way that they are capturing these institutions right before us. Because how do you explain a situation where an individual who is known to the public: there are videos, these are not Photoshop images, they are videos of individuals who are campaigning for political parties. Today they sit as resident electoral commissioners. How do you expect people to have faith and trust in the electoral commission? There’s no way they’re going to do that. But our politicians are taking the people for granted. They are damaging our institutions, and they forget the implication that it has for our political stability and for our own progress. And so these are some of the issues. And then when you also look at the role that the judiciary is also playing, it’s also sad and unfortunate.
PT: The whole go-to-court mantra?
Mr Itodo: Why should people go to court when they do not have faith that they’re going to obtain justice? There are several judgements that have come from our courts that have made us confused about our electoral jurisprudence. How can the court rule that INEC guidelines are not part of the legal framework and that INEC cannot introduce reforms through the guidelines? It has to be enshrined in the law. When the constitution gives INEC the power to make guidelines, the Electoral Act gives INEC to make guidelines, why are we relegating the legality of the guidelines? And then also in Jegede versus INEC, where the courts ruled that when INEC violates its own guidelines, it is not the basis of questioning an election. And that is why INEC officials can violate their guidelines, because they know violating those guidelines does not give rise to a course of action in court. How do you explain situations where there’s over-voting in an election, it is established, it is there, we have evidence, it’s there in the public that there’s over-voting, there are no cancellations, but the court still proceeds to declare someone winner when there are clear cases of over-voting.
So, these are some of the issues that, when you look, you discover that we are actually on a sharp decline with respect to our electoral process. While INEC has improved on its professional competency, the higher and the more it improves on its professional competencies, the greater and more forceful the political interference.
PT: So, what should be done?
Mr Itodo: The way to address the problem is politicians need to change their attitude. We’ve got to force them to change; we’ve got to persuade them. You can force them to change when there is a consequence for some of their behaviour. A classic example is how a politician can deploy mercenaries to buy votes, and then they are not arrested and are not prosecuted. How can a governor who was alleged to have stolen public funds and a warrant of arrest was issued and still cannot be held to account because there are conflicting orders from the court? These are some of the issues.
You need your institutions to function. And that way, you can regulate political behaviour. If politicians know that there are consequences for their actions, they will change their ways. But they won’t change their ways because they keep bribing the judiciary; they keep infiltrating the judiciary with their family members to weaken the institution. So when you look across the board, every institution that in a democratic setting is called an agency of protection, all the institutions of accountability have all been captured. They have been captured because of the impunity of our political class and also the fact that they see their survival as determined by how they control political power. Until we decouple and change that, then we are not going to change.
So the attitude needs to change. They need to be statesmen, and I won’t say stateswomen, because the political space is dominated by men. They have to be statesmen who think about their country first. But when we don’t have people who think about their country, we are so unfortunate with the kind of political class that we have. All they care about is their interest. They don’t care about the interests of the vast majority of our people. And that’s the sad part about our own process.
We need electoral reforms, we need the laws to be tightened, we need some laws that need to change, and the National Assembly needs to do that. And you need statesmen, patriotic people in the National Assembly who can make laws that will sanitise our process. But not those ones who look at how a law will confer electoral victory or how it protects them. When you have legislators who are driven by nothing but just their own selfish interests, and how a law helps them settle a score with their political opponents, and not how a law safeguards the integrity of the process. Because when you have the common good as a driving philosophy for legislation, we all benefit.
But currently, the balance of power tilts against the people. And I think that citizens’ consciousness is what we need. We think about the Edo election, 2.2 million people with their PVCs, less than 500,000 people show up to cast their vote in a cosmopolitan state of this nature. It’s really sad that people are not showing up to cast their vote. And the more people stay out of politics, that’s why you get bad leaders. Because if people show up in large numbers as they have done in recent elections, we have seen the outcome. Because when they are vigilant, they get the leaders that they deserve. But when they stay away, they also get the leaders they deserve. Because staying away means you’re opening up the floodgates for terrible, unaccountable leaders. These are things that need to change. So we need to get citizens more active, more politically savvy, to engage the political process, mindful of the fact that democracy is a journey, it’s not a one-off event.
PT: Don’t you feel the people also have some blame here? For instance, it is the same citizens that demand money to vote on election day. What can we do to ensure citizens take the lead in all these reforms?
Mr Itodo: I think citizens need to understand that no society makes progress without active citizenship. If you think that we’re just going to get benevolent and good leaders who will make decisions to advance our interests, it doesn’t work that way. First, citizens need to ask questions; democracy is about asking questions.
If you are in your community and there is no access to education, no infrastructure, there is someone representing you in your local government, in your state. Every Nigerian is represented by at least five or six people. You belong to a ward that has a councillor. You have a local government chairman. You have a state House of Assembly. You have two people in the National Assembly. You have a governor. You have a president. That’s seven. The closest to you is your councillor. You need to know your councillor. That’s in places where elections hold. But at least now, with the Supreme Court ruling, the governors are conducting elections. Know your councillor. Put them to task. They are your employees. Whether you vote for them or you didn’t vote for them, as long as they hold power in trust, they are your employees. Ask them questions. Ask them what they are doing to fix roads or to provide water. What are they doing with the taxes that they are collecting? What are they doing around the basic infrastructure that local governments have? What are they doing about paying salaries for teachers? What are they doing about markets? Because local government officials collect revenue. What are they doing with that money? So you need to know. So that’s one way citizens can do that.
Civil society organisations also have a role in advancing political education. People need to be educated about the different dimensions of political power, the institutions, their responsibilities, and how to engage.
PT: Are civil society not too detached? There is a lot of centralisation of resources in terms of civil society organisations being at the national level.
Mr Itodo: No, but there are community organisations. There are community organisations at the state level. These community organisations can also engage in political education. Our religious institutions also have a role to play in mobilising citizens to perform their duties and also holding leaders to account. You also have political parties and that’s one way citizens can join political parties and engage in debates around policies where they hold and where they don’t, but also running for office. These are ways that you can be active. But I think that by detaching completely from politics, you do yourself a great disservice as a people.
One other thing is you have recall. If you have an elected leader who is not performing, the constitution gives you the power to recall that particular official. And recently, INEC published the guidelines for recall. And so take the guidelines, look at the procedure, and we have seen how attempts have been made to recall.
PT: Because of the process, people consider recall almost impossible……
Mr Itodo: It’s not almost impossible. Yes, the threshold is very high because one, you need to collect signatures of registered voters. INEC needs to verify and set a date, and then people show up to vote yes or no for removing that particular leader. If you want a leader removed, it’s about mobilisation. If it’s a consensus of the people, then mobilise people. That’s what civic activism is. Organise people. Democracy will not give you food on your table. It will not give you security. It will not give you healthcare if you don’t demand it. If you don’t ask for it, if you don’t engage, it’s not going to come to you. You have to work for it. That’s why democracy is hard work. And everybody has a role to play. Don’t depend on NGOs. Don’t depend on other institutions. As a citizen, you have a right. That’s why you can pick your pen or use your laptop to type letters to your leaders. If they don’t respond, keep bombarding them and putting pressure. That’s how you make democracy work. That’s how you make democracy deliver. But to sit back and say you’re not going to do anything will not improve your condition.
PT: I want to return to citizens’ involvement briefly. Don’t you think the militarisation of the process and restriction of movement on election day contribute to voter apathy? In some cases, voters stand outside under the sun and sometimes rain. Why can’t we use buildings like inside schools?
Mr Itodo: All these contribute a great deal to the apathy and it starts with governance. Elections happen within a context. INEC does not build schools. INEC does not build roads. If governance does not deliver quality schools, if it doesn’t deliver roads, there’s no way INEC is going to create an ideal world for elections to hold. This is why governments have a role to play in ensuring the infrastructure is conducive for education-related activities or national events like elections. And so when you look at those schools, if you look at the infrastructure, they’re actually dilapidated. And so it is better to have people queue outside because there are health issues, there are also security issues to be considered when you think about this. In some countries, elections are done in enclosed spaces. People queue up outside and they come in to cast their vote. But ours is an open-secret ballot system. An open-secret ballot system has to be in the open for everyone. You do what? You thumbprint secretly, and then you come and vote openly. Because in a room, when you’re voting openly or casting your ballot openly, the people outside will not see you, and where you have distrust for the process, it could be a recipe for violence because people want to see what is actually happening. That’s why they are often set up outside.
I think the other point you raised…
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PT: The militarisation of the process and the link between it and voters’ apathy.
Mr Itodo: Fix your politics. Fix your leadership. Fix your citizenship problem. And we would not have militarisation. If politicians continue to come to politics as a do-or-die affair, when you have politicians who have no regard for the will of the people, they will do everything to secure power. And that’s what drives violence. But also, people don’t want to die because of elections. That’s not what election is about. It’s actually an opportunity to celebrate democracy because people are showing up to exercise the power that they have through the ballot. So it’s meant to be a celebration of democracy. And not one where it’s so militarised, so guided, and so violent. And it’s only so because you have a political class that wants power at all costs. And they are prepared to do anything just to secure power because their survival depends on it.
PT: Your organisation has talked about transitioning towards a system of verification of elections that interrogates the process and examines the outcome. Can you explain this better?
Mr Itodo: YIAGA Africa believes strongly that election is a process. That it is inappropriate, it is counterproductive to limit elections to just the results. The process and the results are important. And if you have a compromised process, the outcome will be compromised as well. So a compromised process can produce a compromised outcome. And so, there is a great need to focus on the process. And so we focus on the process. And in our view, if the process is credible, then the outcome will be credible. If the process is not transparent and is compromised, the outcome will be compromised. So what we do is to focus heavily on the process. And it’s a whole pre-election environment. Whether there’s a level playing field for it. It’s whether INEC has been given the funding it requires to conduct elections. It’s whether the operational independence of the commission is guaranteed. It’s whether polling units open as at when due, so that logistical issues are not used to suppress voters. It’s whether the machines, the technology deployed for elections function. Those things matter because if all of those issues are not considered, if they are not addressed, then there’s no way the outcome can be credible.
You can’t say the outcome is a reflection of people’s will if the will, if the process for aggregating that will is compromised.
