If all things had gone the way we initially planned, on this day, we would have been reviewing how the 2015 general elections started off yesterday. Many would have been waiting anxiously to know how their candidates performed. Of course, there would also have been accusations and counter-accusations of electoral fraud and, possibly, violence. Those, after all, are the typical scenarios from elections, as far as our history goes.
Our reality today, however, is that the dates of the elections have been re-loaded by the single authority with the legal backing to fix (and move) dates for our elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But as we all know today, INEC may have announced the rescheduling of the elections, but the forces behind the shift were certainly not that of the commission. So, whodunit? It’s the security forces as represented by the National Security Adviser (NSA). After all these years of trying to stop the rampage of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, particularly in the North East, the military forces say they have suddenly found the secret to routing the criminals in six weeks. And those weeks have to fall within the period earlier fixed for our elections.
There is no need to stress the obvious; that we cannot go on with elections if the security of life and property cannot be guaranteed. And that much the security agencies say they cannot guarantee because they need all the concentration and focus they could muster on the joint operation they have entered into with other neighbouring countries to tackle the insurgents. It is curious, however, that having received more troops from other countries, we would therefore expect our security forces to now have more of their personnel available to provide security cover for the rest of the country during the election. But the military says these six weeks require serious focus and concentration.
And talking about the foreign troops coming into Nigeria to help, I remember the fears we had expressed to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, following the successes of the gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states. On both occasions, the country deployed a more-than-usual number of security and election officials to cover those states. We often teased then what would happen at our general elections and wondered if we would be calling on the United Nations (UN) or a regional body like the African Union (AU) to help deploy troops to us during the period. Somehow, this reality is beginning to dawn on us.
It is also clear that though this rescheduling of the elections was masterminded by the military, INEC itself has a lot to gain from it, given that it was also faltering with some of its preparations, including the availability of all the voter’s cards. While we may not blame INEC wholly for the failure of many to collect their permanent voters’ cards (PVCs), the agency must take the flak for the cards they were yet to produce or take delivery of as at the Saturday they announced the shift in dates. One also hopes that all other agencies (state and non-state) whose roles include mobilising citizens to participate in the electoral process will step up their work to sustain the tempo and also encourage many others not interested to get involved in the elections. It is a tall order though, given the fickle nature of our electorate. But try, we must.
The one point I want to stress is the need for the political class to roll back on the hate messages that had built up to a crescendo just before the elections were shifted. And by the political class, this covers not just the political parties but their supporters in every strand of society, including, very unfortunately, the clergy. The hate messages have gone viral and stand today as the greatest risk to our existence as a country. If and only if our security agencies were independent and neutral, I would expect them by now to be picking up the masterminds of the hate messages, including ethnic and religious bigots. Failure to do so would only lead to heating up the polity the more. While we are preparing for elections not war, we must be on our guard not to plunge the country into war after all.
On a happy note, however, many non-state agencies, especially civil society, are working to support the relevant international agencies which are documenting some of these hate messages that will become useful in a future prosecution of the persons for crimes against humanity. The culprits here include unexpected persons and institutions like religious leaders and journalists who willingly propagate hate messages. It also includes ordinary citizens who spread hate messages on the social media.
And for the security forces, they need to ensure they clean up their acts within these six weeks, as a future request for time would not only be rejected but would amount to a desecration of our Constitution.