by Dan Onwukwe
The present situation in Anambra where key losers are calling for a total cancellation of the entire exercise and are threatening to boycott the supplementary election,mirrors what is always wrong with democracy in Africa.
Ahead of saturday’s supplemenatary elections in Anambra state, It may look odd to say that nothing is a better teacher than failure.
It is not a badge of shame to have failed,stumbled,or better still,as we say it in this country,to “wobble and fumble”.
But such wobbling and fumbling do make sense if they lead to getting it right the next time.And it involves drawing useful lessons from the past to use for the future.As far as elections are concerned,every poll has something that stands it out from the ones before it.
There’s no doubt that the governorship election in Anambra on Nov.16,dampened the enthusiasm of many people.One of the outcomes is that failure is bad,and could have a spiraling,downcast effects on the entire citizenry.Undoubtedly, that election has somewhat rubbished the public image of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
To say that the electoral body lived up to expection in the conduct of the Anambra election,is to live in denial.Well, Prof.Attahiru Jega has apologised that one of its staff “messed things up”.It is an acceptance of full responsibility of some grave errors which ought not to have happened in the first place.
But,the failure of INEC cannot be viewed in insolation of the failure of the political class in Anambra,who one must say are ever learning,but not coming to the knowledge of what’s required of them to ensure a free,fair and credible election.
This is not the ideal time to play the blame game.We did that all through last week.What’s important now is to ask the vital question:Has INEC learnt the necessary lessons ahead of the supplementary elections?
One must say this: No chairman of the electoral body in Nigeria in recent memory has been given the “holiness of a second chance”,a redemption of sorts to make amends as Jega.Prof.Maurice didn’t have the blessedness of a second chance to make amends. He was demonized and President Jonathan was arm-twisted to listen to a well-organised detractors that resulted in Iwu’s unceremonious exit.But,history will vindicate him even if historians on’t (because historians are always in a hurry).
Nevertheless,to the credit of Jega, he is a good teacher at failure.For instance,during the woeful failure of the National Assemby poll of 2011,INEC swiftly learned from its logistics failure and went ahead a week later to organise a widely credible poll and other remaining elections that were adjudged free and fair in 2011.
That typifies the good lesson from failure. While failure should not be celebrated,when it comes early ahead of other elections,perhaps more crucial ones in 2015,it could prove significant if the useful lessons are learnt. If INEC is able to see what happened in Anambra,to borrow a management cliche,as “intelligent failure”,which comes from acknowledgement of not anticipating the enormity of “evil” in advance,then the new knowledge learnt,can lead to strategies necessary to avoid future failures.In this
respect,one would want to give the commission the benefit of the doubt that it was caught unawares by unanticipated failures,particularly that of its own staff who is under security interrogation,for “messed up” things in Idemili,we will see how INEC can get it right this time around,and use the lesson of quantum for future elections in the country.
Again, I ask:has INEC learnt any useful lessons from Anambra poll? The lapses in the voters’ register,were alarm bells to be etenally vigilant.It teaches one useful lesson:that politicians and their supporters are often ahead of INEC and the security agencies put together.Looking back on what went wrong with the Anambra election,and looking forward to future polls, it’s a matter of sadness that losers of elections in Nigeria hardly concede defeat and congratulate the winner.
The present situation in Anambra where key losers are calling for a total cancellation of the entire exercise and are threatening to boycott the supplementary election,mirrors what is always wrong with democracy in Africa.
Here lies one of the challenges of the electoral process in Nigeria.The mindset of every politician in Nigeria is to win election at all cost.Nothing else matters.But politics matters.
That is not to say that INEC’s conduct of the Nov.16 election was not fraught with many irregularities and unforgivable errors of judgement.
With staggered election now part of our electoral process,one had thought that INEC would minimize the manifold problems that often go with more than one election same day.
As the election in Anambra has shown,INEC chairman has for sometime now been riding on exaggerated public expectation.Public expectation before the election was that INEC would not disappoint,that there would not be any room for errors.In retrospect now, we should scale down our expectation.
However, my advice is that our faith should remain with the commission,believing that its leadership has realised how disillusioned the electorates across the country are in the aftermath of the governorship poll in Anambra. Nigerians, in spite of INEC’s frequent errors and our political class that remains impervious to the lessons of failure,majority of Nigerians are determined that democracy will survive in our country.
INEC must realize that its success is defined in part by the kind of challenges it faces and how it’s able to overcome it.The scheduled supplementary election in Anambra may not be the medicine to cure the ailments we all saw on Nov.16,but it might help lessen the severity of the sickness,only if INEC gets it right.
————————————–
Read this article in the Sun Newspapers
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
