FEATURE ARTICLE

Michael NnebeSunday, February 15, 2015
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NIGERIA ELECTIONS …WHO IS AFRAID OF JEGA

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n the last couple of months, the INEC chairman, Prof. Atahiru Jega, has been under the gun. Many in the PDP and other Southern stakeholders have repeatedly accused him of working to deliver Buhari and the APC, and that he has skewed everything to favor the North. If you scrutinize the statistics, you may readily agree with these charges. Since the elections were postponed, it seems the table has turned, and now it is the APC, Obasanjo, and other Northern stakeholders who are accusing Jega of either giving in to pressure from the presidency, the PDP, or working for them outright. Once again, a careful analysis of ongoing events may lend some credibility to those charges as well. In spite of all these apparentness, the truth is that INEC under Jega has finally become truly independent, and that is a frightening thought to those in the presidency as well as the opposition. Nigerians are used to manipulating or rather buying outright the loyalty of those in charge of conducting our national elections. Even on state levels where we have state electoral bodies, can you imagine a state electoral officer not delivering all or most of the ruling party's candidates in a state run local government elections. It is just not possible.

As I clearly stated in an earlier article, one of Jonathan's greatest achievements is in appointing Jega, and giving him the total freedom he needs to conduct elections without undue influence or pressure from the presidency. I am sure there are those in the presidency who now consider this a blunder by Jonathan. But it is a win for Nigeria, a very big win. Jega's independence is so vivid that until this postponement happened no one has ever accused him of working for the presidency. It is quite a new thing in Nigeria, or indeed most of Africa, for people to look at an electoral umpire with suspicion of working against the ruling party. They are usually accused of collusion with the ruling party. But if Jega is truly independent, why would anyone be afraid of him. Good question. Many things have happened in the last year to make people question his independence. When Jega planned to create additional thirty thousand polling units with more than seventy percent of the new units to be located in the North, people asked questions. I was among the very first to write an article blasting Jega over his plans, especially when it was revealed that he was creating more polling units in war ravaged Northeast than in the entire South, or that he was allocating more to Abuja than in the entire Southeast. Our efforts, and that of others, forced him to back off that plan.

More recently, we found out that Jega and his men have orchestrated a lopsided distribution of PVCs across the country with most states in the North scoring well over 70% distribution while the average Southern state hover between 34 and 50%. Some of those states like Borno and Yobe in the heart of the Boko Haram war with many displaced citizens have over 80% of their PVC distributed, while politically aware states like Oyo and Lagos remain at between 34 and 39%. No state in the Southeast has achieved beyond 50% even though states like Enugu were among the first states to start this exercise, more than two months before Borno and Yobe. Apparently, INEC handed over most PVCs to Imams, Emirs, Local Government Chairmen, in many Northern states for distribution. On the other hand, people in many Southern states like Lagos went back repeatedly to their local INEC distribution centers, and were unable to pick up their PVC. Ironically, the state in the entire South with the highest distribution rate was Rivers, an APC state. All these, whether by coincidence or by design, raised suspicion of Jega. It did not help matters that 12 out of 13 INEC departmental heads are all Northerners. All these have collectively made the PDP and many Southern stakeholders highly suspicious of Jega and his men.

It is no wonder that the APC was getting ready for a landslide on February 14, at least in their own minds. Equally, there was no doubt that the PDP had panicked at the possibility of actually losing the presidential election. In the end, Jega was summoned before our National Security Council meeting where he stuck to his guns of conducting the presidential election on February 14. The Council gave him the go ahead, but Mr. Jega never counted on the applications of various chips in the bags of the presidency. In the end, the Security Agencies told Jega emphatically that he is on his own, if he goes on to conduct the elections on the 14th, and unfortunately Jega got scared and fell for it. Akuko! Imagine this, they could not defeat Boko Haram in more than five years, and now they will have it wrapped up in six weeks. If anything, Boko Haram is now expanding to new areas like Gombe state where they struck and killed many just yesterday. It now finally seemed that Jega has been played, and today, it is the APC and Obasanjo that are terrified and rightly so. Indications are that the PDP has moved into plan B, and will now go on to win this presidential election come March 28 by all means necessary. All of a sudden Jega has become the loneliest man in Nigeria, suspected by the PDP and others, and now hated by the APC and others for giving in to pressure.

The truth is that Jega could have stood his ground against the advice of the security operatives, especially the military, just as he did while in front of the National Council of State. In the end, he buckled under intense pressure. But he buckled on his own, without being forced by the presidency. Since all this happened, there has been rumors of Jega's forced terminal leave to begin on March 1, and Prof. Mimiko already appointed to replace him. This has since been denied by both Jega and the presidency. Our electoral laws are very clear, and while the presidency can send Sanusi to an early terminal leave, a premature removal of Jega would be much more problematic, for it will remove any legitimacy if the president wins reelection under a new appointee, and consequently unmitigated violence across the North. I do not think that Jonathan is that desperate, and I honestly suspect that Jonathan will readily hand over power should he lose in this forthcoming election contrary to all speculations. But win or lose, the creation of any level of INEC independence is a big win for Nigeria democracy, and the more both parties have reasons to remain afraid of Jega, the better for Nigeria, provided that Jega did not pull any wool over all our eyes in the guise of his seemingly independence.

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