First Published in June, 2007
© The Electoral Institute
Independent National Electoral Commission
Abuja
Tel:
E-Mail:
Vol. 3 No. 1 July 2009
Printed in Abuja, Nigeria by:
ISSN: 2006-8417
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior permission of the Publishers.
Editorial Advisory Board
Professor Maurice M. IwuChairman, INEC
Barrister Victor ChukwuaniNational Commissioner, INEC
Barrister Philip Umeadi, JnrNational Commissioner, INEC
Mr. S. A. SoyebiNational Commissioner, INEC
Editorial Consultants
(1)Professor H. A. AsobieUniversity of Nigeria, Nsukka
(2) Professor J. A. A. AyoadeUniversity of Ibadan, Ibadan
Editors
Ms. Eyum OdeAg. HOD Research & Documentation
Mr. Tunde OjedokunChief Research Officer
Mr. Shehu WahabChief Research Officer
Mr. Chukwuemeka NwachukwuChief Research Officer
Mr. Chijindu ChutaChief Research Officer
Mrs. Salamatu Faruk-YahayaSenior Research Officer
Managing Editor
Dr. Frank O. Ozoh
Coordinator of The Electoral Institute
About the Journal
The broad objectives for the establishment of ‘The Nigerian Electoral Journal’ are as follows: -
- To publish the results of research studies and scholarly papers on electoral matters.
- Involving election managers in thinking and developing ideas towards creating a proper mindset for election management.
- Beginning a culture of professionalizing election management through a journal on the subject.
- Providing a means of educating INEC Management staff on the critical subject of election management.
- Building an invaluable bank and literature in election management knowledge for the education of the general public
Guidelines and Notes to Contributors
1. Articles should be original and well researched may cover any of the following Areas:
Information and Communications Technology in Election Management;
Electronic Voting System (EVS) in Election Management;
Gender Issues in Politics;
Political Parties and National Development;
Election Personnel Development;
Global Trends in Election Management;
Voter and Civic Education;
Elections, Democracy, Leadership and Capacity Development;
Delimitation of Election Boundaries;
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Election Management;
The Role of Civil Society in Election Management; and
Democracy and Economic Development
2. American Psychological Association (APA) Documentation Style to be used.
3. Book reviews are Acceptable.
4. Four (4) Copies (three hard and one soft) of each article are to be submitted.
5. All articles should reach the Managing Editor at the following address:
The Coordinator,
The Electoral Institute,
Independent National Electoral Commission
Plot 436 Zambezi Crescent,
Maitama District A5,
P.M.B 0184, Garki Abuja, Nigeria.
E-Mail:
Table of Contents
Articles
The Electoral Process and the Imperatives of Electoral Reform in Nigeria
- Maurice M. Iwu ……….………………………………………………………………………………….1
Internal Democracy, Transparency in Party Administration and the
Implications for Effective Monitoring of Party Finances
-Victor A.O Adetula……………………………………………………………………………………….12
Monitoring of the Administration and Finances of Political Parties
in Nigeria – Legal and Institutional Limitations
-Samuel Egwu………………………………………………………………………………………………33
An Overview of Alternate Dispute Resolution Processes
- Paul Obo Idornigie …………………………………………………………………………………….42
Applying the ADRs to Political Party Disputes
-Andrew 1. Chukwuemerie ………………………………………………………………………….58
Strategising for 2011 General Elections in Nigeria: Emergent Vertical Issues
- Frank O. Ozoh …………………………………………………………………………………………..75
Sources of Local Government Revenue and Strategies for Its
Generation in the Nigerian Electoral Democracy
-I. Aja-Nwachuku …………………………………………………………………………………………87
Book Review………………………………………………………………………………….106
THE ELECTORAL PROCESS AND THE IMPERATIVES OF ELECTORAL REFORM IN NIGERIA*
By
Maurice M. Iwu, Ph.D**
1. Introduction
The challenge of administering the electoral process and its composite structures in an evolving democratic system as Nigeria entails dealing with complexities many of which are unforeseen. Our country is far more diverse, complex and fragmented than most people realize.
Over time, Chief Electoral Commissioners of the country and other senior officers of the Electoral Commission have come to terms with this challenge as part of their duty to the nation. Over time however, it has become obvious too that there can be no limit to the complexity and plots of politics in Nigeria. Managing the electoral process in Nigeria is therefore, not only all about administering elections and matters directly pertaining to the process. It entails far more than that.
It is quite obvious that the developmental challenge before Nigeria is gross and multiple. It has been so for a long time. Increasingly, however, the challenges of Nigeria’s national existence are steadily being compounded by the failure or refusal of the leadership elite to squarely address certain elementary issues as every purposeful country does.
The need for an unambiguous and candid definition of the very essence of being of the Nigerian state, as well as a clear outline of the moral and operational principles of conduct within our society has become rather urgent. To a reasonable extent, it can be understood why the predominant concern – real or contrived - of public discourse in recent times is focused on elections and electoral matters. In truth however, much more about the social dynamics and processes within the Nigerian state require profound evaluation and reform. We shall return to that.
2. Conspiratorial Preoccupation by a Few
Once again, I make bold to state in a public discourse that there is a limit to the distance our dear country, or indeed any other country can go under such a prevailing situation as we live today, marked essentially by denial of reality and a conspiratorial preoccupation with finger pointing, mob action and unending parochial plots prompted in the main by nothing else but calculations of the interest of a few within the fold of the political elite.
*Being lecture presented at the Senior Executive Course 31 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos in February, 2009.
**Professor Maurice Iwu is the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
It is more grievous for a society when the primary source of strength and motivation for the minority that wields enormous influence in the affairs of the society is anchored not on any nationalistic zeal or brilliance, but on the fact that they have deep pocket and so have the capacity to buy up almost everything, including not a few otherwise thinking men in the society.
Yes, the history of the modern state, especially with the evolution of democratic governance is replete with conspiracies and effort by the elite to corner and seize control of the reins of the state power, even as there is always pretension that the majority rules. Gore Vidal, the seminal American writer captured the problem succinctly when he noted that “in theory the only moral foundation of government is the consent of the people”, but the key question that trails that common notion remains “which people? (Gore: 2003)
The elite or better still the elite with means have never hidden their ambition to control the actual power and influence in the society. This reality for instance is at the root of the system of Electoral College in the United States of America, a system which allows the majority to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice, but leaves the actual power of choosing the winner of a presidential race to a minority.
As Vidal quotes a Supreme Court Justice as coldly pointing out during the testy dispute over the result of the presidential election in USA in 2000, “the Constitution (of United States of America) does not provide anyAmerican citizen the right to vote for president”. (ibid. p. 137)That weighty duty in that bastion of democracy is reserved for a few - the Electoral College. But the law, the Constitution of the United States of America provides for that and the influence is wielded with decorum.
For a young state as ours, “the sad development is that Nigerian politics has receded from the arena of public trust to the worship of private denizens and enthronement of private mores and ethics”. (Madubuike: 2007)
3. Need for Reforms
The need for reform in the Nigerian society is much more comprehensive than is being discussed today. There is for one, a very urgent need for reform of the mentality of the political and leadership elite.
Reforms in their most meaningful character are not isolated but compound packages. The electoral process itself is also increasingly exposed to a much greater array of ‘outside’ forces. These outside forces, including economic policies, widening of the national social distance and the growing importance of international structures and agreements that impact on the electoral process are more complex, multi-sourced and multi-dimensional than ever before.
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3(a) The Nexus in Political and Economic Processes
The inextricable link between economics and politics within the modern human society is well known. This nexus leaves us with a glaring reality for instance, that sooner than later what is currently discussed as an economic phenomenon – the global economic problem otherwise known as the economic meltdown – may lead to meltdowns in such other closely related realms as politics and even social life if care is not taken. Even with the present scope of the global economic problem therefore, the nightmare is not so much of what is already at hand but with what may yet lie ahead.
As it turns out, very few societies, if any, have solid economic foundation without a matching stable political foundation and system and vice versa. Understood from this sobering perspective, the enormity of the challenge before Nigeria in the current global economic difficulties and its internal efforts to strengthen its democratic base becomes clearer. Here lies the root of the imperative for Nigeria to address in a very deliberate and definitive sense, basic issues at the foundation of its political and economic processes.
The actual issue of the moment as some continues to cast it is not reform of the electoral process in isolation. Important as that may be, there is an urgent need for a comprehensive reform that will at once encompass the intertwined spheres of politics and economics. The reform that beckons to Nigeria is that which will address among others, the access to money by individuals and the limit to which that can be used in the realm of politics; exposure of the majority within the society to exploitation, abuse and denial of their basic rights by those who cornered their common wealth in the first place; citizenship rights and opportunity available to every citizen to aspire and attain position of prominence whether in politics, the professions or public service, based primarily on talent and ability and not on the size of the pocket; obedience to the rule of law by all citizens and all groups and how best to enforce the pre-eminence of the laws of the land.
Reform must be anchored on government’s ability to anticipate the national needs rather than in response to crises that arise when those needs are unmet or as a knee-jerk reaction to contrived emergencies by opposition groups. As the OECD clearly noted in its policy review on ‘Governments of the Future’: The Challenge of Government is to move away from opportunistic reform towards more strategic reform. Strategic reform involves developing a clear vision, building a constituency, planning tactics to achieve outcomes and communicating the vision and anticipated outcomes to stakeholders and the public at large.(OECD: 2000)
3(b)Electoral Reform and the Seven Point Agenda
The appreciation of the imperative for a compound re-assessment of the state of the Nigerian nation is obviously the very basis of the simultaneous launching out by the Federal Government with the respective policy thrusts of the Seven Point Agenda and the electoral reform initiative.
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In outlining the basic areas of (1) Power and Energy (2) Food Security and Agriculture (3) Wealth Creation and Employment (4) Mass Transportation (5) Land Reform (6) Security and the Niger Delta and (7) Qualitative and functional education as its primary focus under a seven point agenda, the Government of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua aligns itself to a focused pursuit of good governance, the direct expression of which manifests in the provision of the basic necessities of life to the citizenry.
Although the vision or aspiration to develop Nigeria into one of the first 20 economies of the world by 2020 is linked to the seven Point Agenda, in that the achievement of the latter can and will definitely boost the spirit of enterprise by the Nigerian fettered by backward infrastructure and daily struggle to overcome poverty. The two policy pursuits are not of equal importance in the scale of good governance and need of the Nigerian citizen.
“...Good Governance asPre-requsite for the realization of Vision 20-2020and theseven point Agenda” rightly establishes once more the inextricable link between politics and economics. In other words, to get the economic bearing of the nation right and to attain the lofty economic goals of the country in the future, the political bearing just have to be right too. Conversely, to get the politics right - electoral reforms and all that- the dynamics within the economy including the basic discipline in the allocation of resources and use of even private fund must be reined in. That is the way it is in every other society that has succeeded in establishing order and the rule of the law.
The bane of Nigeria’s political and economic development has not been so much of lack of idea - even in the market place - of what needs to be done as a failure of will and commitment to do the right things. As it has been in the economy, so it has been in politics.
The very fact for instance, that the issues which make up the Seven point Agenda are still basic problems in our society and therefore are of primary concern for the government of the day speak of the prolonged failure of the Nigerian state to overcome basic impediments to its development. In truth, as Dan Agbese pointed out in a different context in a different era, “The promise to take on these problems had a familiar ring but it reflected how truly slowly the country had travelled even in its undue haste in the years of military rule”(Agbese: 2000)
The poignant quote above rings true to various efforts today in the realms of politics and economics, even as it does not in any way vitiate the need and the commitment to lift the processes of our national life to a higher pedestal. The essence of a reform after all, is to ensure consistent enhancement of structures and elements of a chosen sphere of human activities. This is the point that seems to be badly missed by those who seem to understand the present initiative for reform in the electoral process as an event and not a process.
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4. Politics and Electoral Democracy: the Paradox of Aspiration and Reality
The trajectory of Nigeria’s politics and electoral democracy has not been any different from the track and character of Nigeria’s national life in it’s nearly half a century existence as a sovereign state. On one hand there is a lofty ambition and aspiration to have the best. On the other hand strangely, there is always a proclivity for tendencies that can only yield the opposite of the declared aspiration for lofty ends. The outcome of this contradiction has been a consistent gap between where the country and its people will like to be and where they truly are. And when the reality comes home as it invariably does, the unfortunate and unhelpful recourse seems to be to look for a scape goat and to sink deeper into denial of the truth instead of confronting the challenges.
Even at this, there has been some remarkable progress in both the realm of political development and economic performance in Nigeria especially in the last decade. The challenge is how to manage the progress and also how best to checkmate the ploy of the self-serving elite clique that has no qualms about derailing the progress of the society if they cannot control the trajectory of development.
5.The 2007 Elections and the Environment
It is now ten years since Nigeria resumed the path of electoral democracy. This is the longest the country has been on the road of democracy. That in itself is progress. Progress is being on a positive path where one had not attained hitherto.
On this pedestal, the truth about democracy and the electoral process in the country which is solidly standing before the world, but which some people are struggling to deny is that the 2007 elections were a landmark for the country.
Those who insist on celebrating the lapses in the 2007 elections have not been sincere to themselves and they have not been charitable to the nation. The germane questions to ask before searching for lapses to hold up about the elections are; what have been the foundation and the texture of the country’s democratic system or the background to the elections that would support anyone expecting a flawless process? Two, what were the very roles of the respective individuals in the establishment of a conducive setting for the flawless elections they now proclaim a taste for?