2nd March, 2015
By Olumuyiwa Wahab Jimoh
It was Karl Marx in the eleven thesis of the Feuerbach that says Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world in various ways, what is left is to change it. The strength of any democracy is a function of the sanctity of its elections which in turn is anchored on the integrity of its various processes, practices and philosophies including consistency in the pronouncements and body language of its gatekeepers and umpires. Its integrity is refined in the furnace of strict adherence to the relevant laws and statutes governing elections and electioneering.
Political parties and their candidates go into elections believing that there will be fair play and equity in the application of the rules governing the process. This guarantees them the hope of winning the elections if they are able to convince the electorate to vote for them and their candidates. With this assurance, there is a willingness on the part of all to subject themselves to the dictates of the process and its outcomes. This largely is one of the elements that controls and stabilises any polity built on the fine principles of democracy as it does to a very large extent equalise the context of the game.
However, they say that justice should not only be done but must be seen to have been done. The “seeing” is what gives the needed confidence to everybody that the rules will be observed to the hilt. It is what assures all that proclamations of the umpires will guide their actions and that their body language will be in sync with their intentions and necessary action. With this confidence all stakeholders maintain the needed equanimity for peaceful thus successful conduct of elections.
The obverse of this, projects a caricature of the entire process forcing parties to resort to short cuts and other measures to undermine the electoral process and subvert the will of the people as expressed via the ballot. It is the loss of integrity that encourages actors in the process to circumvent it with its attendant consequences. Since one of the qualities of integrity is the reliability test which is measured by the consistency of actions and words in relation to acceptable standards, it becomes important that those whose job it is to supervise the electoral process ought to be sticklers to standards who will remain one with the rules and standards not seeking in any way to manipulate it in favour of any of the competing parties.
And, that is why certain actions will be queried or viewed with suspicion by competing parties if they are not clearly seen to have been done for the general good. Perhaps the umpire may not have had mischievous intentions in taking its decision but the fact that it is not clearly perceived by all as the right thing to have done, then, it creates doubts in the minds of the people. This doubt feeds on itself and may snowball into unsavoury outcomes.
That is why we view the last postponement of the general elections by 6 weeks as lacking consistency with the integrity principles. We see it as shifting the goal post whenever the ball comes to our own side of the net especially when viewed from the standpoint of the fact that the agents of that shift – the PDP-led federal government and co. are one of the parties in that electoral contest. It means that they were dictating the character and nature of the game thus already prepared for the shift and this confers serious advantages to them, making the field no longer level for all the parties.
To our minds, this singular action has seriously called into question the impartiality of INEC in this election and constrains us to begin to question the determination of the electoral commission to conduct free and fair elections. One of the cardinal principles of every contest is that the rules and milestones are known or are agreed upon by all the parties before it begins. Rules are not made or changed in the middle of the game especially when the ball is about to enter the opponent’s net as INEC has done through that last postponement.
In line with the idea we have canvassed thus far, it becomes exigent that INEC is urged to ensure that its honour, reputation and image – if it has any, are maintained, ensuring that their body language as from henceforth conforms to the integrity principle. It must insist on the rules that it has made and which have been agreed to by all the parties in conformity with the relevant statutes governing elections in Nigeria. It must ensure that its public pronouncements are what becomes implemented eventually within the appropriate time frame. It ought not only to be impartial but it must be seen as being so by all parties.
The new 28 March and 11 April that it has chosen for itself as the dates for the forthcoming elections must therefore remain sacrosanct. Nothing should make the electoral body to shift these dates again.
Though we have been promised there will be no other postponement, we hold the opinion that another shift will not only be against the constitution of the federal republic but it will surely run against the grain of equity and natural justice spelling doom for the nation’s democracy and the nation state. It will make political actors to lose confidence and trust on the electoral umpire destroying any credibility the outcome of the election would have had. For the sake of Nigeria and Nigerians including INEC, we urge any man thinking of tinkering with this new timetable to have a rethink. We can be deceiving ourselves that what is happening in other societies will not happen here while we continue walking in the same errors of those societies and even beyond. We suspect that land mines have been laid for this to happen given the open–ended statements emanating from those that have complementary roles to play towards the success of the elections.
Some of us remain emotionally attached to one of the days because it holds serious significance to all of us who are the disciples of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who celebrates his birthday that very day of 28 March. We see that day as a good omen for our great party of which the Asiwaju was a major pillar in “mid-wifing” into existence. We view the choice made by INEC in favour of 28 March as not just a coincidence but a design by the almighty God to give him a life changing birthday gift.
Life changing because he has become an apostle of change in the lives of all Nigerians and that day will mark a new beginning for the people of Nigeria. A day that will mark the sweeping away and ushering in of a new leadership in Nigeria under APC after the last 16 years of darkness and misrule by the PDP will indeed be a watershed in our recent history. It will be a day when light shall begin to shine upon the people once again, giving them hope that God has finally answered their prayers and delivered them from the hands of the vile and wicked oppressors controlling the nation’s seat of power at the federal level.
We therefore see God’s divine hands even with our earlier doubts on the shift of election dates that He still rules in the affairs of men and is using this to signpost the beginning of a new direction for Nigeria. On the day great men are born history has always reckoned that great events occur and we know that come 28 March, 2015, the APC will emerge victorious in the Presidential election marking the beginning of the promised CHANGE.
Any attempt at tinkering with that day again will be an attempt against divine will and nobody has ever defeated God in any battle. This will not be different!
•Jimoh is a member of Lagos State House of Assembly representing Apapa Constituency 2