Ahead of the 2024 off-cycle governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states, the Independent National Electoral Commission will once again be the cynosure of all eyes as the electorate looks forward to a credible conduct of the polls in the two states, GIFT HABIB writes
Recently, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at a stakeholders’ meeting proudly tasked the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security to leverage the successful conduct of the last Edo and Ondo governorship polls in 2020 and do a good job.
“There were no security incidents, materials were delivered promptly, logistics deployed smoothly, polling units opened on time, voters attended to efficiently, and results collated and announced transparently.
“Let us replicate the successful conduct of the last governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states. Working together, we should ensure that the 2024 governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states are an improvement on the success story of 2020,” he told the security chiefs.
Off-season elections are polls held outside the timetable of general elections, which could happen for various reasons. They are held when there is a need to fill a vacant position due to death, resignation, impeachment, court ruling, or other reasons.
Since 1999 when Nigeria returned to democracy, general elections have been held every four years, but several reasons have distorted this arrangement, leading to some states having governorship polls outside this arrangement. In the case of Nigeria, court rulings have primarily been responsible for this distortion.
Except anything changes, INEC will continue to conduct eight off-season governorship elections in Anambra, Bayelsa, Kogi, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, and Imo states. These states are assigned different timetables to elect their governors.
Off-season elections began in Nigeria in 2006, seven years after the beginning of the Fourth Republic, when Peter Obi, then of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, was sworn in as the governor after contesting the result of the 2003 general polls that favoured Chris Ngige, who was then of the Peoples Democratic Party in Anambra State.
Obi had to begin a fresh term of four years, automatically pushing Anambra State out of the regular four-year cycle. For this reason, Anambra’s next governorship election, going by the four-year cycle, would be in 2025, whereas Nigeria is due to hold general elections in 2027.
Currently, all off-cycle elections in Nigeria, especially when tied to contests managed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, are governorship polls. Section 180 (2) of the Nigerian Constitution specifies that a governor vacates the office four years from the date they first take the oath.
Ondo State began to conduct off-cycle elections when one of the contestants approached the court after the 2007 governorship election. Olusegun Agagu, the incumbent governor and candidate of the PDP, sought re-election and won. The re-election was, however, challenged in court by Olusegun Mimiko, the candidate of the Labour Party at that time.
In 2009, the tribunal and the Court of Appeal acknowledged the election and ruled that Mimiko was the actual winner of the polls. He was sworn in as the governor in February 2009. Afterwards, the state conducted elections in October 2012, November 2016, and October 2020. The next election will be held in this year.
Up until 2007, Edo State held its governorship elections along with other states. When Oserheimen Osunbor of the PDP was declared the winner of the governorship race on April 14, 2007, Adams Oshiomhole of the now-defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, who was dissatisfied with the verdict, filed a petition.
On March 20, 2008, the electoral tribunal overturned Oserheimen Osunbor’s victory and proclaimed Oshiomhole the winner. With just six months to the Edo State governorship election (September 21) and only eight months before the Ondo State governorship election (November 16), no fewer than 4,492,425 registered voters will be heading to 8,452 polling units spread across 395 electoral wards in 36 local government areas to cast their ballots in electing the governors for both states.
The off-cycle governorship elections are crucial with Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, seeking to install a successor, while the Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, is seeking re-election.
For Edo State, 18 political parties conducted their primaries monitored by INEC. The governorship primaries conducted by the three frontline political parties; the All Progressives Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party; and the Labour Party, were rancorous. The APC had to conduct a second primary after the first one threw up three ‘winners’.
For the PDP, there were two parallel primaries, while a similar situation played out in the Labour Party. The representative of Edo Central Senatorial District, Senator Monday Okpebholo, was declared the winner of the Edo State APC fresh primary election.
Also, the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata, won the governorship primary of the Edo State LP as the candidate for the party in the forthcoming governorship election in the state. Asue Ighodalo emerged as the PDP candidate for the upcoming Edo poll.
However, Yakubu expressed the frustration of the electoral body over the rancorous primary elections in various political parties ahead of the September 21 governorship election in Edo State. Yakubu said INEC found the infighting within political parties disruptive of its activities, adding that the commission also wasted funds to defend litigation arising from controversial primaries.
The INEC chairman said the electoral body found such a situation disruptive and called on political parties to adhere strictly to their proposed dates and modes of primaries.
For the Ondo State, political parties will commence their primaries in a week. At the moment, 17 out of 19 parties have indicated interest in participating in the election. Yet, can INEC prove once more that it can conduct credible, free, fair, and transparent elections as many believe the commission slightly improved during Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa’s 2023 off-cycle governorship polls?
Although the 2023 off-cycle polls were generally peaceful and devoid of much violence, the same allegations of vote-buying, writing of results before the election, violence, and other malpractices greeted the elections in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi.
In all three states, incumbency was a major factor, with Hope Uzodimma of Imo State winning by a wide margin of 540,308 votes, his closest challenger, Samuel Anyanwu of the PDP got 71,503 votes. Uzodimma had claimed that the outcome of the election was a vindication that he truly won in 2019, and had won again, leading in all the state’s 27 local government areas.
In Bayelsa State, the incumbent Governor Douye Diri was declared the winner with 175,196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Sylva of the APC, who polled 110,108 votes (not so wide a margin in this case).
In Kogi State, Usman Ododo, the anointed candidate of the incumbent and outgoing governor, Yahaya Bello, got 446,237 votes to beat Muri Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party who garnered 259,052 votes.
Meanwhile, there is a popular assumption that the off-cycle sub-national elections should be better governed and more peaceful than general elections. This position is premised on the notion that the limited geographical and demographical scope of such elections offers the national electoral body, security agencies, and other key actors in electoral governance the opportunity to concentrate resources and energies in a given jurisdiction for maximum efficiency.
Nevertheless, off-cycle elections in Nigeria have been triggered by a series of events and occurrences. Electoral violence often leads to the cancellation of votes from affected polling units, and according to the INEC Regulations and Guidelines, the “Margin of Lead Principle” states that the commission cannot declare a winner if the number of cancelled votes can mathematically affect the outcome of the election.
The way that INEC can resolve an inconclusive election is to conduct a supplementary election within 21 days of the initial polls. In some cases where this is successfully conducted, contestants who didn’t emerge as winners often go to court. Prolonged court debates and inconclusive results often eat into the time that one is supposed to serve his term.
Aside from violence, The Election Network acknowledged, “Elections in Nigeria are currently the second most expensive elections in the world, after India. The plethora of existing off-cycle and by-elections are causing the already high election costs to soar.”
Stakeholders have proposed an amendment to the constitution to prevent elections outside the regular cycle. On November 11, 2023, former President Goodluck Jonathan called for an end to off-season elections in Nigeria. According to him, with the trend of off-season elections, there may come a time when the presidential election will also be held off-season.
He said, “I get worried about the issue of off-season elections. I will use this unique opportunity to plead with the National Assembly that we need to block these off-season elections. It is very odd. It is not a global best practice. A country can elect its people at different times, like America and some countries, but not everybody at the same time. But anytime they go to an election, they elect everybody.
“If we continue with this trend of off-season elections based on the interpretation of our laws by the judicial officer, in that case, we will come to a time when the presidential election in Nigeria may be off-season.”
Referring to the United States of America, Jonathan said, “Everybody knows when the American elections will be held, and that’s become standard practice.”
Notwithstanding, INEC insisted that the 2023 poll was free and fair, noting that it reflected the wishes of Nigerians. The commission added that an analysis of the poll showed that no party dominated it and the spread of results across party lines was better than in previous elections conducted in the country.
INEC’s position was contained in a 526-page document titled, ‘The Report of 2023 General Election.’ The commission, however, noted that the currency swap by the Central Bank of Nigeria, attacks on INEC facilities, and a few glitches were the challenges encountered during the last general elections.
The commission said the 2023 general elections were “perhaps the best planned and most innovative election in Nigeria”.
“The election witnessed the highest number of eligible voters and voting locations across the country with the participation of over one million election duty officials and the deployment of enormous logistic requirements, including over 100,000 vehicles and about 4,000 boats protected by gunboats,” the report added.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, the Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Musa, said INEC could not afford to go below expectation, maintaining that the commission needed to begin to spearhead the efforts towards the upcoming elections.
Musa explained, “Just as conducted in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi states in 2023, another round of the off-cycle elections are set to be held in September 2024 in Edo and November 2024 in Ondo to elect the next governors for the respective states. Resulting in the aftermath of the 2023 general election that left citizens with a sense of dissatisfaction around the conduct of the election, citizens were hopeful that INEC would ride on the isolated elections to redeem its battered image from the general election. However, the Imo, Kogi, and Bayelsa elections posed another dimension of the lack of transparency, accountability, and credibility in the electoral process.
“While the next general election may be three years away from now, INEC is in dire need of regaining citizens’ trust and belief in the electoral management body to conduct free, fair, and credible elections in the country. The upcoming governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states will thereby serve as another litmus test for the commission to show to citizens and every election stakeholder its ability and capacity to entrench credible elections in Nigeria.
“It is expected that INEC would have learnt significant lessons from the past elections, done its homework, and purged itself of every element militating against the conduct of free, fair, and credible elections.
“INEC does not need to look too far to see the effect of properly conducted elections on citizens’ trust and confidence in the system and process. The credibility of the off-cycle elections of 2022 in Ekiti and Osun states contributed significantly to boosting citizens’ confidence towards the 2023 general election. This trust and confidence were immediately demonstrated in the spike in the number of citizens willing to participate in the 2023 election as seen in the voter registration process. This goes to show that the most important element in building citizens’ trust in the electoral process is conducting transparent and credible elections.
“Again, it is important to recall that the previous elections in both Edo and Ondo were significantly successful in the eyes of election stakeholders in the country. Therefore, INEC cannot afford to go below the expectation. While it is also important to mention that electoral success requires the input of every stakeholder including security agencies, civil society, and the media, INEC must begin to spearhead the efforts towards the upcoming elections.”
The chairman further advised, “INEC must resist every external attempt by politicians and the political class to undermine the successes of those elections. As observed in Kogi State in 2023 where result sheets were already pre-written before the commencement of voting, INEC must purge itself internally of compromised elements that would dine with the political class to rig and undermine the competitiveness of the elections.
“Hence, in realising the critical need to win back the trust of citizens, INEC must begin to work deliberately towards achieving that. The upcoming elections present another opportunity for the commission to quickly achieve that which is important for encouraging citizens as elections are all about citizens’ participation.”
In his own opinion, a political analyst, Busari Dauda, stated, “The INEC approach to the 2023 presidential elections did not stand the test of time. The intentional character of the electoral umpire was seriously condemned by a few people and rightly so.
“The INEC is going to these elections (Ondo and Edo) with so much baggage. Beginning with these elections, INEC must do a critical examination of the last elections and come up with comprehensive structures that will guarantee the integrity of the body.”
The National Chairman, Inter-Party Advisory Council, Yusuf Dantalle, had assured that the council would be proactive to ensure that the Edo and Ondo governorship elections met the expectations of Nigerians and the international community.
“There should be no excuse for poor performance. IPAC will constantly engage INEC and major stakeholders to ensure the success of these elections and will be there for mobilisation of voters, sensitisation, and monitoring of polls,” Dantalle said.
However, only time will tell if INEC will be able to conduct free, fair, credible elections in the forthcoming exercise in the two states.