Democracy is widely accepted to have originated from Athens in the 5th century BC. The Webster New Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1995) defines democracy as a government in which supreme power is invested in the people and exercised by them directly, or indirectly through representation.
The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides an environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights.
For several years, the UN General Assembly and the former Commission on Human Rights endeavoured to draw international human rights instruments to promote a common understanding of the principles and values of democracy.
As a result, in 2000, the Commission recommended a series of legislative, institutional and practical measures to consolidate democracy. Additionally, in 2002, the Commission declared the following as essential elements of democracy: Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; Freedom of association; Freedom of expression and opinion; Access to power and its exercise in accordance with the rule of law; periodic free and fair elections organised along the lines of universal suffrage, and secret ballot as the expression of the will of the people; A pluralistic system of political parties and organizations; The separation of powers; The independence of the judiciary; Transparency and accountability in public administration; and Free, independent and pluralistic media.
Of all the essential elements of democracy as identified by the United Nations, the one of concern here is the sanctity of periodic free and fair elections by universal suffrage through secret ballot as the surest expression of the will of the people.
In Nigeria, we all know that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is saddled with the responsibility of organising, undertaking and supervising all elections to the offices of the President and Vice-President, Governor and Deputy Governors of States, and to the various assemblies of the federation.
Before the 2023 general election, Nigerians pushed for the amendment of the Electoral Act to address some of the shortcomings that had made it difficult to conduct free and fair elections in Nigeria since 1999. After much pressure by the civil society organisations, other stakeholders and the National Assembly the 2022 Electoral Bill was eventually signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari after prevaricating for several weeks.
One of the highpoints of the 2022 Electoral Act is electronic voting and transmission of election results. Section 47(2) of the new Electoral Act provides a legal basis for electronic accreditation of voters. The provision allows voters to be electronically accredited using Smart Card Readers or any other technical equipment determined by INEC. Section 50 (2) of the Act allows INEC to determine the means of transmitting election results. In other words, INEC has the sole authority to decide whether election results are transmitted electronically or manually. Another one is the issue of over voting.
Section 51(2) of the new Electoral Act provides that the total number of accredited voters will become a deciding factor in the legality of an election. The provision permits the returning officer to cancel results where total votes cast exceed the number of accredited voters.
Before the election the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu and INEC commissioner Festus Okoye were everywhere promising that they are going to implement electronic identification of voters and uploading of results from polling units in real time, saying Nigerians and the rest of the world could view the results at the same time.
It was that kind of assurance that spurred more Nigerians, especially the youths to register to vote and galvanized perhaps the biggest youths’ electoral participation in Nigeria since 1999.
You can therefore imagine the shock of Nigerians when the first set of elections took place on February 25 for the Presidential and National Assembly elections and they discovered that the country is still possessed by the old demon. Despite introducing the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) to ensure the credibility of the polls, uploading the results using the BVAS did not work as expected, raising concerns that the elections, especially the presidential election was compromised. The reason for that kind of assumption by the losing presidential candidates of the opposition parties, Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not farfetched. On election day INEC claimed that it had technical glitches that made it difficult to upload results quickly from polling units to IReV. However, despite the glitches the over 176,000 BVAS that was deployed across the over 176,000 polling units in the country was able to upload Senate and House of Representatives results to the IReV, but none of the over 760,000 BVAS was able to upload any presidential election result to the IReV. The inability of the BVAS to upload the presidential election results is one of the reasons that the opposition have gone to court to challenge the process that produced the president-elect. It is now left for the court to look into their grievances and see whether it has merit. But one thing is for sure, actions and inactions of INEC in this election circle are threatening our democracy that Nigerians fought so hard to have after many years of military dictatorship.
The impact of the INEC mismanagement of the February 25 elections manifested in very low voter turnout at the 18th March elections! Aside the low voter turnout, INEC also did not insist on instant upload of polling unit results to the IReV.
There are reports that INEC officials vehemently refused to upload polling unit results to IReV while giving all manner of reasons for their inability or refusal. Adding insult to injury is the alleged reports of INEC officials collaborating with security agents to sabotage the will of the people. This was done more brazenly on March 18 elections when some state governors allegedly collaborated with security agents and INEC officials to subvert the people’s will with impunity.
No democracy can survive for long with this type of injustice that the political elites are perpetrating against the citizenry. This democracy came at a big cost including the death of Chief MKO Abiola, his wife and so many other Nigerians.
Our democracy must be protected at all cost by well meaning Nigerians as the alternative to democracy is either dictatorship or anarchy!
Democracy enables the creation and sustenance of freedoms, rights, progress and the entrenchment of human dignity. As such, every Nigerian must respect it. In a country with a very young population, it is dangerous to alienate the young as the thieves of mandate are doing, as the consequences may be too dire to contemplate!
MAY NIGERIA REBOUND
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