APPARENTLY reacting to President Olusegun Obasanjo's recent statement that he did not know who would succeed him in 2007, a university lecturer, Dr. Festus Iyayi , has said that it is regrettable that the country has never witnessed a conclusively free and fair elections.
Iyayi, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Benin, disclosed this on Tuesday during a general practice session of the ongoing annual delegate conference of the Nigerian Bar Association in Abuja
The NBA had divided this year's conference into sessions in line with the International Bar Association's conference.
Speaking on a topic entitled �The conduct of elections and electoral practices in Nigeria,� at a session chaired by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Dr. Abel Guobadia, Iyayi said what the country witnessed since independence was failed elections.
The university lecturer therefore said there must be a remarkable departure from the past , adding that a revolution must be put in place to cure the social malady.
Besides, he said the conduct of election was not an end to itself, saying that rigged election was just part of the social evils that had bedeviled the country.
Iyayi, therefore, canvassed for a convocation of a National Conference with a view to overhauling the present ways of life of Nigerians, adding that the conference would go a long way in resolving crises associated with failed elections.
He said, �To a very large extent, elections and electoral practices shape the fate of the modern nation state. The reason for this is not difficult to establish. Elections provide the medium, by which the different interest groups within the modern nation state can stake and resolve their claims to power through peaceful means.�
Also on Tuesday, the outgoing President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) said the affairs of the body would be run on its own terms and not otherwise.
Olanipekun said this in reference to President Olusegun Obasanjo's address to the opening of the NBA's annual delegate conference on Monday in Abuja.
President Obasanjo, had through his Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi, said the association should not constitute itself into a political opposition to the government.
Speaking during the NBA's general session on "Electoral malpractices and the future democracy in Nigeria", Olanipekun said the association was not anti-government He said the NBA was not an anti-government organisation.
�Nobody has higher stake in the Nigeria Project than the NBA.Let me use this opportunity to reiterate it here that the NBA will be run on its own terms. Nobody will be allowed to dictate to the association on how it should run its affairs. We are not seeking for sympathy from anyone as the NBA has demotrated that it is central to the emancipation of the citizenry.�
Elections therefore determine the manner and methods by which changes in the social order may be brought about. Where this method fails, individuals and groups may be left to their own means - including assassinations, coup detats, revolutions, insurgency and bush wars - to press their claim to power.
Iyayi, who said the controversial elections of 1965 produced the coup detat of January 1966, added that the flawed elections of 1983 produced the military coup of December 31, 1983.
Besides, he said the Babangida's flawed elections of 1993 produced the Abacha palace coup of that year and paved the way to his memorable dictatorship, saying that:" As we look now towards 2007 against the background of the failed elections of 2003 and 2004 the question naturally arises as to whether our country can arrive there in one piece or survive it in whatever from thereafter.�
Iyayi equally listed four phase of elections and electoral practices in Nigeria . These are Elections in the colonial period,Elections in the first ears of independence (1960 - 1965)Elections during the years of military rule and autocracy andElections under civilian regimes in between the years of military rule and autocracy.
On the conduct of election during the military regime, Iyayi said:"The military rulers conducted three elections during their period of misrule. These were (i) the elections of 1979, under the first coming of Obasanjo, the 1992-1993 elections under General Babangida and the 1999 elections under General Abdusalami Abubakar. Commenting on these elections, especially on the first and the last, the EU Election Group, which monitored the 2003 elections has suggested that, 'the most free, fair and peacefully conducted elections in Nigeria were those in 1959, 1979, 1993 and 1999, and the most chaotic, violent and disputed were those in 1964 and 1983. The reason for this is that the first three were 'transition' elections in which the regimes in power and responsible for organizing the elections had to hand over power to democratic civilian regime. So, in 1959 the British colonial regime wanted a smooth transfer of power to Nigerian self-government.
�Both the assessment of these elections and the reasons advanced for the judgment are greatly at variance with the historical facts, some of which we have already provided. The assessment is also greatly flawed by the assumption that voter behavior on voting day is indicative of the fairness and peacefulness of elections. The colonial and military regimes were rooted in force and repression. Thus arrangements for voting were also highly militarized. The 1993 elections for example, produce the 12 2/3 controversies, which the Obasanjo military regime resolved in favour of its interest. The elections of 1992-1993 were frequently delayed, cancelled, postponed and adjusted to produce a result predetermined by the military. In the event that this did not happen, the results of the June 12, 1993 were brazenly annulled by General Babangida on the excuse that the military was uncomfortable with them. The 1999 election results were also predetermined. Acting in concert with neo-colonial and imperialist interests, the dominant coalition within the local ruling class drafted General Obasanjo into a political process that ended with him being declared the winner of the process. All these process occurred with flawed.
"It was a public knowledge that Professor Henry Nwosu who replaced Prof. Awa as head of Babangida's electoral agency was brutalized by security agents on account of the fact that he dared in 1993 to announce some of the authentic results. In 1993 as in 1999, the political parties were the creatures of the military despots. They were, as the last Chief Bola Ige characterized them, all leprous fingers on the same leprosy.�
On the conduct of election from 1983 onwards the lecturer said:" three sets of elections were conducted under the civilian regimes. These were the general elections of 1983 under the Shehu Shagari NPN government, the general elections of 2003 and the local government elections of 2004 under General Obasanjo. In the 1983 elections, the ruling NPN government perpetrated all sorts of electoral atrocities. The voting process, voter registration, and actual votes cast were all grossly distorted. To produce the so-called 'Landslides', 'moon slides' and 'bandwagon effects', the order of elections was reversed and voters' registers inflated.
"For example, whereas the order of elections provided that the presidential elections be held last, the NPN government decided that these elections would come first. In Modakeke, a suburb of Ife, voter registration jumped from an original 26,000 voters to 250,000 thus making the voting population there more than the voting population of the whole of Ife.
"Indeed, at the national level, the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) announced that voter registration had increased from 48, 499, 097 in 1971 to 65,304,818 in 1983. This was in spite of the fact that the 1979 figures had indeed been considered to be highly inflated. FEDECO and the state owned mass media became willing and active accomplices in the electoral frauds perpetrated by the NPN government in power.
�Some state-owned media, during elections, Iyayi, the state owned media equally crude partisanship in playing its role. The Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) became, in effect, the campaign mouthpiece of the NPN government as it bandied around slogans that were meant to intimidate the opposition and assure victory for the NPN government in power. The NPN government also intimidated political opponents; Alhaji Shugaba was deported from the country on the ridiculous grounds that he was not a Nigerian. The Nigerian Police was equally used to intimidate the opposition.
Regarding the feature of polls in the country , Iyayi said,:"As can be seen from this survey of elections and electoral practices in Nigeria over the period, elections in Nigeria have shared a number of common characteristics. First they have been particularly characterized by massive frauds, the intimidation of political opponents and controversy.
"Secondly, while there has been continuity in violence and warfeare, there has been lack of continuity in the political organisations through which both violence and warfare, there has been lack of continuity in the political organisations through which both violence and warfare have been conducted. Each period has thus produced new political formations reflecting not only the penchant for lack of principle and shifting allegiance among members of the political class but also the total de-ideologisation of the issues on which members of the class were divided into antagonistic camps.
"Thirdly, what is striking about this pattern of lack of continuity in the political platform used by members of the political class to compete for power is not simply that the names of the platforms keep changing; it is rather that there is simply no pattern to the way in which members of the class change their political allegiance.
"A fourth common denominator of elections and electoral practices is the increase materialization of politics. With each succeeding election, the financial stakes are raised to such level that only those who have previously exercised state power or worked in close collaboration with the state in the process of the primitive accumulation of capital are able to back their political claims".
He said factors for flawed were:the Historical Context of State Formation in Nigeria;
The Nature and Character of the Nigerian State.Developments in the International Economy and Politics; Strength of Progressive Forces in society and the Nature and Character of Nigeria's ruling Class.
"We must constitute a radical departure from the existing state of affairs. Indeed, I want to state that nothing short of a revolution is required. The goals of such a revolution must include: the completion of the Nigerian Independence project ;the subordination of the Nigerian state, the ruling class in general and the political class in particular to the will and sovereignty of the Nigerian people. The creation of a new political class whose defining values will support both democracy and development in Nigeria The creation of a politics that is values driven and therefore truly competitive, the enables the separation between interest groups and their political platforms on the basis of their defining ideologies and hence programmes. The creation of conditions of genuine equality and a shared sense of collective ownership of the Nigerian project among all classes, nationality and ethnic groups within the Nigerian nation state.
"The history of elections and electoral practices show conclusively that representative democracy of even the bourgeois variety has failed in Nigeria. Adding that a proper Nigerian constitution is required.. There is need for a fundamental change in the political, economic and social values, attitudes and orientations of members of the dominant coalition within Nigeria's ruling class in particular and the ruling class in general.
"Today, there appears to be no compelling reasons to believe that the values, attitude and orientations will change either in the near, or indeed, much farther into the future. A major departure is therefore required. That departure must lead to a change of guards and a change of course", Iyayi said.
Also speaking during the occasion a Lagos based lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, said the electoral officers should not be appointed by the president at the federal or governors at the state levels.
Besides, he said it was better for the President and other public office seekers, who are seeking re-election to resign three months before the election, adding that the Chief Justice of Nigeria could act as the President of the country during the time.
