Votes do not Count in Nigerian Elections

[Richard Akindele]

Regrettably, Nigerians have in their usual fashion failed to appreciate the source of the third term saga now haunting the nation. And because they have failed to identify the real cause of the problem, they are engaging in a hollow jubilation that the incubus of third term has been exorcised from the polity, merely because a majority of senators and representatives have spoken against tenure elongation.

Even if the lawmakers strike down the clause on third term during the time for division on the matter in the National Assembly, there would still be little to celebrate. The fact of the matter is that the phenomenon called third term is only one of the symptoms of a malignant disease afflicting the entire Nigerian system.

The virus producing this all-consuming disease of which brazen constitutional manipulation is but one of the symptoms is the fact that the people's votes do not count in this part of the world. In fact, almost every problem of this nation can be attributed in varying degrees to the bastardisation of the ballot box. I am not talking here of the Bush brothers who used their influence to legally manipulate who got into the voters register or the gerrymandering of electoral districts to favour one of their own. And I am not also talking of the electoral violence and occasional killings that have become the standard fare in India, the biggest democracy in the world. After all said and done, the votes as far as they have been freely cast by the electorate determine the winners in these countries.

I am talking of Nigeria where there is vitually no correlation between the votes actually cast by the people and those who eventually emerge as winners. Even Maurice Iwu has admitted that the 2003 general election lacked public credibility. As chairman of the electoral commission, Iwu's admission, even though an understatement of the electoral fraud in 2003, shows the depth of the problem.

The danger in all this to representative democracy is clear enough. For purposes of the third term issue, let's take the legislature to see why we are in a mess. Many members of the National Assembly and their constituents know that there is no representational relationship between them. The person in the Assembly knows that his people did not vote for him, and the people on their part are equally aware that the man they voted for is not the one in the legislative chambers. So, whatever claim to representation between the unelected legislator and his constituency is a charade. And many legislators have done enough to expose this blatant mockery of representative democracy.

Across the country, only a hypocrite will pretend not to know that the vast majority of Nigerians are strongly opposed to tenure elongation. The strongest evidence for this is that were it popular among Nigerians, its promoters would not have gone to such a ridiculous extent to foist it on Nigerians. Yet, the so-called representatives of the people who know this legislative measure to be a poison pill to the polity are speaking up for it.

In the event, constituents across the country have had to do battle with their representatives to present their true opinions on the matter. In Delta central, the people have promised Senator Patrick Osakwe their wrath if he did not recant his third term apostasy. So also have the constituents of Cross River central taken Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba to task. As for Isa Mohammed of Niger State, his people gathered and bussed themselves to Abuja to tell Senate President, Ken Nnamani, to call their man to order.

Across the country, this has been the pattern of our so called representative democracy. Emerging disclosures in the confrontation between representative and constituent makes the mockery even more comical. For instance, members of the Ukwuani Foundation Union who belong to Delta central said their people, the Ndokwa, "have never met with the Senator (Osakwue) since his election into the Senate (in 2003)", not to talk of consultation between both parties. As for Ndoma-Egba, the grouse of his people is non-consultation on third term. His predecessor in office who hails from the same senatorial district, Mr. Clement Ebri, is emphatic that the people never gave Senator Ndoma-Egba the mandate to canvass a third term. As Ebri put it, "none of them (in the National Assembly) came home to ask anybody for comments on this matter. If they did, they would have known that in every senatorial district of Cross River State, the people do not want third term."

The pro-third term legislators who insist that they consulted merely used the consultation as a smokescreen. In the case of Ndoma-Egba, the Cross River Caucus which he said he consulted is only an arm of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which determines who gets what political offices in the state. With the endorsement by the national executive of the party of tenure elongation and its arm-twisting of all party faithful, including members of the National Assembly, to fall in line behind the third term clause, the consultation of Senator Ndoma-Egba can be seen for what it truly is, a gesture to fulfill all righteousness.

At issue here is the fact that these are not the representatives of their people. They know they were not voted for in the first place and they are not returning to ask the people for their votes again after the third term perfidy. In fact, their party, the PDP, has already assured them of automatic return to the 'National Assembly. If the present dispensation continues, the people who are likely to lose their seats by way of phoney elections would be anti-third term senators and representatives who have stubbornly refused to adhere to the party line.

Source: This Day