Nigeria has just emerged from her fifth post 1999 general election cycle, conducted within the context of sitting civilian regimes elected in the course of the 4th Republic. There were, as is often the case with elections and political contestations in Nigeria, a great degree of apprehension and engendered by high levels of intense tension across the country. It does seem now that from all the available evidence, the 2019 general elections may be ranked as perhaps the most contentious since the 1999 return to democracy, and the inauguration of the fourth republic.
Even before the actual voting, in the course of the political party primaries, the signs were already visible of how contentious the then coming elections were going to be.
In a keynote address at a one-day forum on Benchmarking the integrity of the 2019 elections against the African charter on democracy, elections and governance, held on 7th February 2019, I had observed, the following quoting figures released by INEC – the Electoral Management Body that: “However, as we all know, as widely covered by the media, and as INEC Itself has recognised and publicly stated, the party primaries of 2018 in preparation for the 2019 general elections were the most rancorous in the history of our country in general, and the 4th republic in particular; largely as a result of the undermining of internal party democracy by virtually all the parties.
According to facts released by INEC, the EMB is currently joined in 396 pending court cases arising from contentious party primaries; while it has also received a further 302 requests for Certified True Copies [CTC] of documents, mainly monitoring reports of party primaries, as prelude to further court cases. Related to this is the fact that INEC is also in receipt of 52 petitions from political party members aggrieved by the conduct of various party primaries.”
This very highly contentious and volatile trend has been further confirmed by the immediate response to the outcome of the general elections by contending political parties and politicians.
For instance, as reported in the April 10th, 2019 Newsletter of the Civil Society Situation Room :
“On Thursday, 4th April 2019, the Headquarters of the Court of Appeal in Abuja disclosed that the total number of election petitions filed against the outcome of the 2019 General elections stands at 736. These petitions touch on the Presidential election, as well as elections at other levels. The records show that four petitions have been filed against the outcome of the Presidential election. Senatorial district elections gave rise to 207 petitions while the House of Representatives elections have received 101 petitions.
For State level elections, Governorship election petitions stand at 101 while 381 petitions have been filed in respect of State House of Assembly elections.” These – the high levels of tension and degree of apprehension, together with the underlying fundamental concerns about inclusion, participation, fairness and credibility of the electoral process, were the reasons that compel civil society engagement with the electoral process in Nigeria, in general, and with the 2019 general elections in particular.
This presentation will look at the theme of “Civil society and the 2019 elections” from the perspective of civil society’s engagement with the electoral process. But first, it is important that we clarify a few things. We begin with the clarification that our understanding of civil society is one that includes actors in the life of society, who are not state actors, and that excludes (organised) business actors in the private sector – formal and informal. In this context, civil society actors maybe be organised, or they may be individuals who are active citizens, or they maybe amorphous and dispersed unstructured movements and mobilisation. Civil society is thus for us the realm of active citizenship. For the purpose of the current theme however, our point of departure and focus is on the organised component of civil society and includes social movements both the new and the old social movements.
An example of the old social movement will be the Labour and trades union movement in Nigeria, while an example of the new social movement will include mass membership based, common interest driven mobilisation such as the “Not Too Young To Run Movement.”
Secondly, we shall also be looking at civil society engagement from both a periodic, as well as a thematic perspective. And while these are separate categories, they are interlocked in reality, given that the thematic engagements take place within this periodisation. In the periodic sense, we shall look at civil society engagement with the elections before, during and after; while in the thematic sense, we shall look at engagements around increasing inclusivity and participation, improving security, improving the electoral process itself.
Civil Society Engagement With The 2019 Elections;
Before:
Civil society engagement with the 2019 elections was more pronounced around the question of inclusivity, in particular of the youth, but also of women and people living with disability (PLWD); Cards (PVCs); with improving participation – getting more people to register to vote and collect their Permanent Voters with the reform of the electoral process and institutions, including laws and the constitution; as well as with the security and integrity of the process.
Not Too Young To Run – Age Limit Alteration Movement
The Not Too Young Run movement is a movement of young Nigerians, initiated and led by YIAGA, a youth based, youth focused and youth led civil society organisation, which built a nationwide network and alliance of organisations to achieve the goal of enabling greater participation and inclusion of young persons in the electoral process and in governance through achieving a reduction in the constitutionally prescribed age limits for qualification to be able to contest for elective positions in Nigeria.
Given that these age limits were constitutionally prescribed, reducing or removing them required necessary amendments to sections of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria [CFRN] 1999.
“The Age Reduction Bill popularly known as Not Too Young To Run bill is a constitutional amendment movement led by young Nigerians. The bill was conceived and pushed by several civil society groups including YIAGA Africa, beginning in May 2016. The bill was sponsored in House of Representatives by Tony Nwulu and in the Senate by Abdul Aziz Nyako. The bill sought alteration in sections 65, 106, 131, 177 of the Constitution of Nigeria, to reduce the age of running for elective positions for House of Assembly and House of Representatives from 30 year old to 25 year old, Senate and Governorship from 35 year old to 30 year old and office of the president from 40 to 30 and independent candidature in Nigeria. ”
The journey to get such an amendment to the constitution began in May 2016, and got the necessary impetus with the introduction of the bill to the House Of Representatives [HoR], and the Senate in 2017 after getting a member of the HoR and of the Senate each to sponsor the bill.
Eventually the bill was first read at Nigeria’s House of Representatives, and subsequently in the Senate and was passed with votes of (86-10) in Senate on July 26, 2017 and 261-23 in House of Representatives on July 27, 2017. After the passage of the bill by both chambers of the National Assembly [NASS], and for the constitutional amendment to pass, the bill was transmitted to the 36 States House of Assembly [SHAs], where it required the consent of a minimum of 24 of the SHAs to for the amendment to pass.
Ultimately 33 SHAs passed the bill by concurring with the amendment, excluding Zamfara, Lagos and Kano SHAs which voted No. The Taraba SHA had initially also reportedly voted against the amendment but reversed itself after the movement had released a public statement inducting Zamfara state into the hall of shame. On February 16th, 2018, the movement had also organised nationwide rallies giving the NASS and the president a 30-day ultimatum to transmit the bill to the president, and for the president to accent to the bill.
In April 2018 the NASS transmitted the Bill to the President, and on April 20th, 2018 the movement organised an advocacy engagement and met the Vice President, urging presidential accent to the Bill. The Bill was eventually accented to by the President on the 31st of May 2018.
This engagement with the electoral process with a view to lowering age limits and creating an enabling environment for increased and improved inclusion and participation of young persons in the electoral process and governance in Nigeria was ultimately able to achieve its primary objective of reducing age limits for participation of young persons. It was initiated and led by young persons and was able to achieve its primary objective by building the necessary alliance and network of critical stakeholders and actors. It did not also shy away from taking Direct Action initiatives exemplified by the mass rallies, picketing and other forms of public engagements it embarked upon.
Continuous Voters Registration [CVR]
A second major area of civil society engagement with the electoral process before the 2019 general elections was in the area of expansion, clean up and sanitisation of the Voters’ register to ensure that more Nigerians who are 18 years and above, and are as such constitutionally qualified to vote not only get unto the voters’ register, but also get to collect their permanent voters cards [PVCs].
For civil society, the trend since 1999 of low participation of citizens in the electoral process, and particularly since 2011 when the processes towards the reform of the electoral process began to gain traction and yield some tangible improvements, had been worrisome, and continues to be a source of major concern.
For instance, of an estimated total population of about 180 million as at the 2015 general elections; only 69,720,000 million Nigerians were registered to vote. Of these, only 56,431,255 actually collected their PVCs; of which only 31,756,490 were accredited to vote; with only 28,587,564 million valid voters recorded, and 844,519 votes being rejected as invalid votes .
And similarly, for the 2019 general elections, although 14.5 million additional Nigerians registered to vote, of an estimated population of about 198 million, only 84,004,084 million registered to vote; of which only 72,775,502 million collected their PVCs before the expiration of the February 2019 deadline for collection of PVCs for the 2019 elections. Out of these 72 million who collected their PVCs, only 29,364,209 were accredited to vote, 27,324,583 million valid votes, and 1,289,607 invalid votes recorded during the elections.
The number of PVCs collected is particularly important because beginning from the 2015 general elections, the requirement that a prospective voter could only vote with the PVC, for the purpose of accreditation through the agency of the card reader, had been included in INEC Guidelines for elections in Nigeria.
“However, going through the analysis of official records obtained from the website of the INEC, it was revealed that 52.3 per cent of registered voters voted in the 1999 elections. The figures rose to 69.1 percent in 2003, then went down to 57.4 percent in 2011, 53.7 percent in 2011 and 43.6 percent in 2015.”
And in 2019, the average turnout for the general elections was put at 35.7% by INEC, showing a decline of about 8% in turnout from the 2015 figures .
Furthermore, the 84 million registered voters for the 2019 elections were distributed geo-politically thus: South-South – 12, 841, 279 – 15.29%; South Est – 10,057,130 – 11.97%; South West – 16, 292, 212 – 19.39%; North West – 20, 158, 100 – 24.00%; North East – 11, 289, 293 – 13.44%; and North Central – 13, 366, 070 – 15.91% . In order to address this observed trend of low level of citizen engagement with the electoral process and governance, a major area and focus of civil society engagement with the electoral process towards the 2019 general elections had therefore been towards redressing this seeming apathy on the part of citizens by getting INEC to create opportunities for citizens to register to vote and collect their PVCs.
INEC on its part, and as a response to this engagement by civil society and other stakeholders, had included in its timetable towards the 2019 general elections, a Continuous Voters Registration [CVR] exercise which was eventually commenced in April 2017 and was concluded for the purpose of the 2019 general elections at the end of August 2018. The success of this particular engagement, with respect to the 2019 general elections can however be said to be mixed. This is because although more than 14 million more Nigerians got registered to vote between 2015 to 2019, with more than additional 16 million registered voters collecting their PVCs; nevertheless, over 11 million registered voters failed to collect their PVCs for various reasons, and of the 72 million who did, only 29m were accredited to vote, leading to a voter turnout of 35.7%, which was nearly 8% less than the voter turnout for 2015.
In undertaking this particular engagement, civil society had adopted a series of strategies including advocacy engagements, public enlightenment campaigns, civic education initiatives, media outreaches, lobbying of critical stakeholders, and direct engagement with INEC.
Electoral Reform
Since the 1999 return to democracy and civil rule, one of the major and areas of concerns for citizens and observers have been in the area of the general reform and overhaul of the entire electoral process, with specific focus on the reform of the electoral act and of the constitutions as it impacts on the electoral process.
Towards the 2019 general elections and in the immediate aftermath of the 2015 elections, civil society organisations and their networks had engaged with various stakeholders in the electoral process towards pushing for the reform through amendment of the subsisting Electoral Act 2010. This engagement which included the participation of several Civil society organisations [CSO], was particularly led and championed by Policy and Legislative Advocacy Center [PLAC], and CSO networks and coalitions like The civil society situation room, Transition Monitoring Group [TMG], among others.
There were also active in this engagement pushing for increased and improved participation of women, gender focused CSOs and networks.
Several issues plaque the electoral process in Nigeria, the redressing and addressing of which have been the major drivers of the electoral reform process in Nigeria.
These issues include, but they are not limited to issues around integrity, independence and capacity of the electoral management body – INEC; integrity of the electoral process; integrity of the election materials; security of the electoral process including security of election personnel, election materials, voting units, collation centers, and of voters; inclusivity of the electoral process with respect to participation of women, participation of youths, and participation of PLWD among others.
Other challenges include those relating to nature and character of political parties, including with respect to membership, conduct and internal processes; issues around the nature, behaviour, attitude, utterances, and practice of the political class; issues around party funding and campaign financing; and issues around the role of security forces, particularly, units and personnel of the armed forces and intelligence services in the electoral process on election days.
Thus, it is that towards every general election cycle varying degrees of concerted efforts are made towards achieving legislative and constitutional amendments to enable sustainable reforms of the electoral process in the country. Arising out of the upbeat from the conduct and outcome of the 2015 general elections, there was a groundswell of hope and optimism that significant and fundamental steps will be taken to address these challenges.
Thus, a significant amount of optimism was invested in the process to amend the electoral act 2010. But although the NASS eventually passed the electoral act 2018, and transmitted it to the President several times, the bill was not accented to by the president each time, and thus failed to become law. Because of this failure, INEC had to resort to the existing legal framework of the 2010 act, and based on the provisions of that act, INEC had to rely on its powers to make regulations and guidelines to introduce some of the reforms, and in this instance, the exclusive use of card readers for accreditation of voters.
The Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018, which was passed and transmitted four different times to the president, and for which the president had declined accent each of the four times, had sought in particular to provide a basis in the act for the use of the smart card reader or any other similar technology for the purpose of accreditation of voters during the conduct of elections.
The fourth and last rejection of the bill by the president was in December 2018, with the president citing a potential breach of the provisions of the extant Africa Charter on democracy, elections and governance, which discourages changes to electoral laws and constitutional frameworks regarding elections from being undertaken less than six months to the elections for which they would form the basis.
It is instructive to note that each of the times that the amendment bill had been returned to the NASS, the issues raised by the president for withholding his accent had been addressed by the NASS. However though, in none of these four times when the president had withheld accent was the issue of the smart card reader included as one of the reasons.
Given the urgency of the need for substantial and fundamental electoral reforms, and the fact that the governing party at the executive level was also the majority party in the NASS, this failure to enact such a significant reform, is a clear indication of the near total complete absence of unity of purpose within our parties; and their failure as a platform to aggregate political interests and drive policy agenda and processes. (Continued in next post)
This article is the first part of a paper presented at a special rountable of the conference on the review of the 2019 elections in Nigeria, organised by the program on Ethnic and Federal Studies, University of Ibadan.
