Prior to the appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the public image of the Commission had nosedived just as majority of Nigerians viewed the Agency as one of the most fatally corrupt public institutions next to the Nigerian Police Force.

The nomination by President Goodluck Jonathan of Jega and his confirmation only few years back, was greeted with unrestrained optimism from critical segments of the Nigerian society who felt then that the erstwhile national president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would impact positively on the electoral commission.

Recall that Attahiru Jega led the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities during the infamous administration of General Ibrahim Babangida and the union was on record to have waged relentless industrial war against the military government.

About two years since Jega was appointed to the position of INEC chairman, several elections have been conducted whose outcome ended up being jettisoned by the competent election petition tribunals.

It is on record that Prof Jega rolled out series of programs aimed at bringing about sanity in the conduct of elections, even as his leadership warned long after, that the era of electoral crimes and impunity were over, but no significant electoral regime change has happened under Jega’s watch so far.

Instead, politicians have devised better strategies of manipulating the outcome of elections in active partnership with some rogue officials of the electoral panel. Till date, no ‘bigman’ in INEC has been prosecuted for the monumental frauds that led to the nullification of several election results.

After the 2011 elections which was relatively adjudged freer than previously held elections, INEC promised to bring to trial all those arrested and indicted officials accused of committing one infraction or the other just as the electoral panel stated that it has compiled a record of electoral offenders.

As I write, it is not on record that any electoral offender is behind bars for offences committed before, during and immediately after the conduct of the 2011 election. Again, and sadly enough, no official of INEC has been prosecuted for the electoral atrocities that characterized aspects of the 2011 general elections.

Aside apparent failure to introduce any workable reforms within the rank and file of the officials of INEC, Professor Jega not long ago committed a major blunder when out of the blues he announced the deregistration of over two dozen political parties for partly failing to win any seat in all the elections conducted since 2011 general elections.

A situation whereby the ruling party at the center and the various federating units use their political might to convert public fund to campaign for re-election in the 2011 election without INEC wielding the big stick in line with extant statutory electoral provisions, the same agency cannot at the same time be seen flogging out of existence those marginal and ‘powerless’ political parties who have no political area of conquest from which to deep their hands to enrich their campaign fund with filthy lucre .

When INEC announced the deregistration of some of the parties, some of us denounced the action but Professor Jega maintained his unpopular and undemocratic stand as if to say ‘I am-holier -than-thou’.

Jega instead, insisted that the act of infamy of deregistering weak, political parties was in line with powers conferred on INEC by the Nigerian law. Interestingly, the ruling party which has used its intimidating financial muscles to muzzle out other lesser political parties, praised the electoral commission to high heavens and the officials of INEC grinned from both sides of their mouths.  INEC since this infamous deregistration has ironically registered other political parties. Why stand logic on its head Professor Jega?

In a dictatorial tone, the then commission’s Secretary, Alhaji Abdulahi Kaugama said the action was in exercise of was powers conferred on INEC pursuant to the I999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act 2010.

A total of 28 parties were affected.

Those political parties affected by this apparent unpopular decision of INEC headed to the court of law to seek redress in compliance with section 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended).

INEC, the Attorney-General of the Federation, the National Assembly and the Inspector-General of Police were listed as defendants in the suit in which the plaintiffs asked the court to make a declaration that the electoral body lacked the power to  deregister  the FDP  except in accordance with the provisions of the constitution.

INEC should leave the smaller political parties alone; resist attempt to stifle growth of democracy but instead should introduce policies to restore credibility to this badly dented commission so as to meet the overwhelming wishes of Nigerians to see reforms and positive changes introduced by the once feared trade unionist-Professor Attahiru Jega and his management team. The judge held that while the National Assembly has the power to make laws, it has no power to “smuggle in” a provision that a political party which fails to win seats in state and National Assembly elections should be deregistered.

INEC had better not waste public fund to embark on another miserably meaningless voyage of discovery in a futile attempt to get the appellate court to rule that it was just for a creation of the constitution like INEC to flagrantly abuse the Constitutionally protected fundamental right to association based on the now discredited section of the electoral Act which was smuggled in by the anti-democratic forces in the National Assembly.

 

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