The Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts (ASSPT) says 2023 general elections shows that Nigeria needs more that an independent or well funded INEC to guarantee credible elections.
The Director of the School, Prof. Sam Amadi, stated this in Abuja on Saturday at the 2nd Memorial Election Management and Governance Series, organised by the school in honour of late Human Rights Crusader, Ariyo Dare-Atoye.
Amadi said that experiences in the just concluded elections showed that Nigeria needed strong democratic institutions to guarantee credible elections and to avoid drifting into autocratic nation.
He said that the elections raised certain concern about the democratic status of the country.
He said that the fundamental features of every democracy provided for competitive elections defined by right of people to vote; fair institutions that provided equality for everybody and right to choose and respect for the will of the people.
He said unfortunately, there were alleged instances in the 2023 general elections where INEC failed to obey its own guidelines; political parties and the incumbents governors using security personnel to distort elections or suppressed voters.
“The battle is not around making INEC stronger by giving it more budget, but focusing on how do we ensure that the state institutions are neutral?
“The battle this time is to make sure the police is neutral and depoliticised.
“Making sure the courts and military are neutral and depoliticised. Ensuring balance of force that can guarantee fair and credible elections.
“As long as these institutions are not neutral. As long as they are politicised, as long as they are within the control of politicians and incumbents, you can’t have free and fair election,” Amadi said.
He said the fact that Nigeria conducted election in every four years in general elections, does not make it a democratic nation.
Amadi expressed concerns that Nigerians’ trust in election was falling very low.
“Imagine 200 million people, 94 million registered voters, 84 or so collected their PVCs and INEC says only about 23 million voted. The figure for governorship elections might be less than that.
“Now, with all these outcomes, what do you think (rate of turn out) in next election will be? so we are worried,” Amadi said.
A Legal Practitioner and member of the panelists at the event, Victor Opatola, said for election to be credible and for democracy to work effectively, Nigeria’s democratic institutions must be strong and firm.
Opatola enumerated some essential factors that made democracy work in a pluralised society such as Nigeria.
Some of the factors according to Opatola included elites consensus, that is people coming together to decide what they wanted.
“On his part, a Professor of Communications, University of Abuja, Prof. Abiodun Adeniyi, said the last general elections had shown to Nigeria there were still a lot of lessons it needed to learn in its democratic journey.
Adeniyi said Nigerians needed to understand that democracy is a journey, not a destination.
“We still have a lot to learn. Considering that we didn’t do well in this last cycle, does not mean that we failed, but that our past is marginal.
“At this level, after 24 years, we need not be talking about marginal past, we need to be excelling, moving above average threshold. That is what we need to do.
“How do we do it? By being painstaking, by calling on all the stakeholders to once more raise the bar, up their ante and probably do better in the next elections,” Adeniyi said.(NAN
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