Constitution says there shall be 12 Commissioners and a National Chairman
By Jide Ajani
President Muhammadu Buhari should not allow Nigerians to go away with the impression that he does not seem to have respect for the Constitution in the area of the structure of Nigeria’s election management body. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did not envisage a situation where a President will choose to engage a partial, piecemeal constitution of a board as sensitive as that of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Nor are Nigerians finding it funny that the self-same INEC that saw to the emergence of Buhari, by adhering to global best practices in election management issues, would be treated with such levity. This analysis would show why the President must abort this voyage.
That President Muhammadu Buhari, last month, nominated more members into the board of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, came as salutary.
But the nominations came far short of the constitutional requirement of a full board for the election management body.
A month prior to the appointment of six national electoral officers for the Commission, the government of Buhari came under several criticisms for not only attempting to undermine the independence of the electoral management body, but also for its negligence of the enabling legal frameworks which also constitutes another suspected attempt to undermine the functionality of INEC.
But rather than correct these omissions, the government made piecemeal appointments to the Commission to barely meet the legal requirements to conduct elections. That is not the spirit of the Constitution.
This perpetuation of a less that holistic constitution of the INEC board with less than the required appointees necessary to meet the functions of the Commission questions the extent or depth of understanding of the President on the origins and utility of an election management body.
Clearly, the vision of Buhari regarding election management and its importance as a pillar of democratic societies appears to be falling short of internationally recognised benchmarks.
In 1973, there were less than 46 free democracies out of the 152 countries in the world; and, by 1990, more than 120 countries had become electoral democracies.
Many countries that have become more developed have had their democracies sustained principally by adherence and respect for the enabling legal frameworks which guide their electoral processes.
The electoral legal framework, comprising the Constitution, Electoral Act, judicial electoral decisions and the by-laws and guidelines generated by election management bodies, is the DNA that sustains the practice and goals of democratic development.
Deviation from the framework is often an early sign that a country is drifting away from democratic standards.
It is thus a frightening realisation that the Buhari government had to be reminded, nay even threatened by court litigation, before it conformed to the basic structural requirement regarding the constitution of the INEC board, and it lived up to its obligation of constituting the minimum number of appointees required to conduct an election.
The Constitution, in stating that the board of national bodies be constituted in Section 153, did not direct that half, one third or any fraction of a board should be constituted.
Recent queries in government quarters regarding this anomaly had been responded to by the explanation that the government is hoping to stagger the appointments to boards such as INEC in order not to erode the legality in the functions of the board when the tenures end in one single group.
This is a weak excuse for government not being proactive in meeting its obligations of constituting boards as and when due.
The tenure of any board should be public knowledge and constituting such boards in time should be the proactive function of a responsible government.
Many observers of the Buhari government, unable to discern policy direction from its taciturn disposition on policies, have resorted to reading its perceived body language – perhaps wrongly.
If the body language of the government regarding election management is anything to go by, it may be concluded, rightly or wrongly, that election quality and election integrity are not priorities of the government, whereas these were the main reasons the President was able to gain political power after over a decade of political competition.
It is indeed a shocking embarrassment to discover that a President who, benefited from good governance and best global practices in election management, needed the legal advocacy of the civil society and, even more specifically, to be reminded that a subsisting court order requires that INEC needed a board to conduct elections.
Worse still, now, and despite that reminder, Mr. President has only made halfhearted attempt to constitute the board – he has appointed only half the constitutionally required board.
A government, which is not proactive in ensuring that the structures of election management conforms with the enabling legal framework by properly constituting the structures of electoral governance, is subconsciously sending a wrong signal that it may not be trusted to observe the principle underpinning free and fair elections. Buhari does not need this baggage.
Nigerians should not be made to begin to doubt the sincerity and honesty of the President in the area of free elections.
The board of INEC is 12 commissioners and a National Chairman – the latter is expected to break any deadlock in the event of a stalemate in decision-making.
And because Sunday Vanguard published a High Court judgment which says the quorum of INEC cannot be less that five, does not in any way confer on Mr. President the magna charter to constitute a board with just six members instead of 13 – this sends a wrong signal.(Vanguard)
