The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Introduction
Across the states surveyed, as well as across socioeconomic classes and political per-suasions, opinions about Nigeria’s key electoral actors are strikingly common, reflecting a broader narrative of mistrust and uncertain confidence in state institutions. Of all the state’s institutions, most respondents felt that peaceful elections in 2019 are contingent on the performance of Nigeria’s INEC. Given the relative success of the 2015 elections, they felt that INEC ought to be able to deliver credible elections again in 2019. They feared, however, that any regression from the level of performance achieved in 2015 could lead to violence because some would view the failings not as a result of incompetence but as deliberate attempts to frustrate the will of the voters.
The election management agency, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has 91 political parties on its register, 69 of which are presenting candidates for the presidency. But two contestants will dominate the presidential election: the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Buhari, president since 2015, and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar (widely known as Atiku). Both Buhari and Atiku are Muslims from Nigeria’s north, which somewhat lowers the risk of bloodshed (violence during past elections has sometimes pitted Christians against Muslims; contests in which a presidential candidate from the north competes against one from the south have tended to accentuate such risks).
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Nigerians go to the polls in February 2019 to elect a president and national legislators and again in March to select governors and state assembly members. With hundreds of sought-after posts up for grabs, and many races laced with communal tensions and bitter personal rivalries, the elections promise to be fiercely foughThe electoral process in Nigeria as in most developing democracies is fraught with several challenges, these spans operational, technological and institutional among several others. In the storied history of electioneering in Nigeria therefore, only two exercises have been internationally acclaimed to be patently credible, the June 1993 and March/April 2015 general elections.
This underscores the onerous responsibility for conducting free and fair elections in Nigeria. The present intervention argues that electoral processes are reflective of the quality of the regulative and constitutive frameworks (institutions) governing society and by extension that the extent to which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can mid-wive credible elections is dependent upon its own institutional coherence and those of ancillary organizations and the legal framework it operates within.
The analysis draws upon the voracity effect model (Tornell and Lane 1999), to underscore the challenges for managing elections in severely fractured polities with weak institutions, and will delineate the pitfalls to delivering credible elections in Nigeria. The intervention will draw upon aspects of the 2015 general elections to elucidate its argument of improved institutional capacity of INEC in historical perspective and compare the leadership of the two electoral commissions that have delivered on electoral
The challenge of an enduring democratic culture has plagued the Nigerian State from inception of self-rule; from the first post-independence general elections in 1963, electoral disputes have fuelled political instability and no presidential election has been devoid of disputations prior to the 2015 exercise. Despite the progressive erosion of democratic promise, Nigerians maintained a predilection for pluralistic politics and military rule, though extensive, was always regarded as an aberration; as Lewis observes.
Yet, the survival of democratic rule was consequent on a durable electoral system of impeachable integrity (see also Elklit and Reynolds, 2002, Lewis 2003). Successive military regimes in attempts to install credible and enduring democratic contests continuously undertake the restructuring of the national electoral institute charged with the conduct and management of elections as Aderemi notes succeeding military administrations feel compelled to reconstitute brand new regulatory bodies to replace the decayed predecessor (Aderemi 2005:326)and according to Omotola:
However, the pace of organizational reform outpace constitutional reengineering; amendments to the constitution and the electoral act are often more problematic to negotiate and quite frankly less emphasized. This betrays a dominant mentality that electoral outcomes are more dependent on the performance of the electoral body and the integrity of its personnel than the broad constitutional setting they are conducted within. In the effort to craft an effective electoral infrastructure capable of sustaining long term democratic practice both sets of reforms we argue are essential. Thus the 2015 elections was not only a contest for the popularity of political gladiators but also served a perennial purpose, a test for the viability of the electoral commission and probity of its helmsmen.
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
The outcomes from the 2015 general elections boosted Nigeria’s democratic credentials in two major respects; firstly since 1963, the incumbent political party at the centre was defeated in an election it superintended. Secondly, the inevitable legal tussles that have attended presidential elections did not ensue in the aftermath of the 2015 elections. These achievements in the wake of another electoral milestone in 2003; the successful conduct of elections under civilian auspices, may seem to indicate an upward electoral cum democratic trajectory.
However, the dynamics of the 2015 exercise we argue, suggests that the ‘successes’ are more reflective of a reformed, better disciplined and determined electoral commission with capable leadership, than of an advanced electoral or democratic culture and re-invokes Alavis’s overdeveloped thesis. The relative success of the 2015 polls we contend belies the onerous challenge for future electioneering in the country and of the extent of disarray of the electoral infrastructure as well as managing a particularly convoluted political competition.
In other words, the impressive conduct of the 2015 general elections was a result of exceptional and determined leadership, which overcame institutional shortcomings by uncommon doggedness and not the product of a vastly improved or advanced electoral system. The political intrigues leading to the 2015 general elections presaged a difficult poll; most commentators, local and international forecast an arduous presidential poll and a violent aftermath, even pedestrian analyses surmised widespread protest in the North in the event of a ruling party (People Democratic Party) victory or resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta should the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) triumph. According to an International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) pre-election survey:
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
The ‘Voracity effect’ argument was first enunciated by Tornell and Lane (1999) to analyse economic policy and growth in resource abundant developing societies, it studies the effect of large rents on economic growth in countries with a diffused power structure and where institutions are weak. The overall assertion is that in such societies (with a diffused power structure) rents are unlikely to promote sustained economic growth except there are strong institutions to broker class and group contest for resource allocation.
We will extend this model to the analysis of political stability in weakly institutionalized developing democracies where the political class is also severely fractured. This is apposite for a nuanced understanding of the 2015 Nigerian general elections, especially why a credible and widely applauded exercise was achieved in a tensed political environment and with considerable institutional challenge.
Tornell and Lane premised their model on three assumptions:
- If there is an absence of institutional barriers to ‘discretionary distribution’ and there are multiple powerful groups competing for resources, the growth rate of the economy is reduced, compared with societies in which there is a single group or where there is broad consensus among groups. According to them, this is because the existence of non-cooperative powerful groups ‘generates a redistributive struggle and as a result, a greater share of resources ends up in non-taxable inefficient activities’. Groups for Tornell and Lane include ‘provincial governments that extract transfers from the centre, strong unions and industrial conglomerates that seek protection, and patronage networks that obtain kickbacks from public works’ (Tornell and Lane 1999:22).
- Second, the model argues that the larger the number of powerful groups in a society, the lesser the concentration of power in any dominant group or better put, the more diffused the power structure of the society and the better the prospects for economic performance.
- Finally, without the existence of institutional capacity to check discretionary redistribution, ‘an increase in the raw rate of return in the formal sector, reduces growth’. The implication of intensified lobby for resources or voracity effect according to the model, is that captured rent which is ostensibly shared as booty by groups and their members is relocated from the formal sector to evade taxation, this behaviour reduces the amount of investible rent for development projects, the theorists beg this analysis further by arguing counter-intuitively that, development projects actually thrive better when ‘raw rate of return’ did not increase.
Nigeria’s political landscape presents a particularly difficult electoral challenge, the federation is composed of over 250 distinct ethnic nationalities and has over 400 linguistic groups; of these, three are dominant, namely the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa/ Fulani. It is significant to note however, that none of these three principal groups makes for more than 25% of the total population; this means, in essence, that Nigeria is composed of a motley group of small ethnic groups dominated by three fairly even groups. The religious ratios are similar with fairly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians, which dominate and pockets of less significant others. The lack of a clearly hegemonic ethnic or religious group means that political competition among the dominant subnational groups is convoluted and inevitably viewed within ethnic and religious lenses. Political contests tend to be acrimonious and often engender political instability.
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
This is more so, if the ‘regulative’ and ‘constitutive’ institutions are pliant. The Nigerian political structure is more challenging than other comparable political systems such Mas India, Indonesia and Brazil with different ethno-religious structures.In India for instance, the 81% Hindu dominance means that non-Hindu political agitation is never serious to upset the political balance, the caste system further solidifies the political arrangement by limiting the eligibility for political leadership albeit undemocratically. In Indonesia, Javanese demographic preponderance (41.7%) and Muslim dominance (89%) has restricted political contest to Javanese Muslims, and despite indigenous Chinese (Peranankan) entrepreneurial dominance, the Chinese do not offer any political threat.
A second characteristic of Nigerian politics that presents a challenge for electoral management is the nature of the political elite. The Nigerian power elite is historically fractured by ethnicity, this arose in the throes of colonialism and the British policy of indirect rule which allowed for autonomous groups to exist in parallel with geographically contiguous but culturally diverse groups as rival co-federates. The emergent political parties in the nationalism era also reflected this divide with Northern and Southern parties mutually distrustful of each other campaigning for different agenda, the northern elites wary of political domination by the better educated southerners pushed for prolonged British colonial rule until the north was able to bridge the socio-political gap between it and the south, southern elites on the other hand wanted immediate decolonization and political independence from the British.
The significance of this is that the substance of early elite competition was for ethnic group representation especially in the federal fiscal structure rather than for personal or group material gain. This trend would continue to the end of the First republic (1960-1966) and centrifugal ethnic rivalry is the prime explanation for the collapse of Nigeria’s first democratic dispensation (Dudley 1973, Idang 1973, Bennett and Kirk-Greene 1978).
The multiplicity of interest groups based on class, ethnicity, religion and socio-economic orientations in Nigeria, in the absence of credible and efficient institutional framework meant greater latitude for subjective/ discretionary destabilising decision making by public officials (Hyden 1983, Salehyan and Linebarger 2015). Another significant consequence of Nigeria’s complex political context is the absence of a coalescing goal in the spirit of nationalism, every ethnic group being encouraged to, and seeing itself as a distinct and marginalised group at different levels. Policy-making for national development is often secondary to ethnic group interests as articulated by sectional elites.
2015 Elections: Strong Man, Weak Institutions
Nigeria’s election Tzar for the 2011 and 2015 polls Attahiru Jega, was appointed on the heels of widespread disaffection with the 2007 exercise; his appointment came as part of an overhaul of the electoral commission and sack of the maligned former chief electoral officer, Professor Maurice Iwu. Being largely touted to be apolitical and a respected academic coupled with his principled and widely commended leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) the umbrella body for Nigerian professional academicians, he was largely seen as a credible choice despite his conservative Northern heritage.
In the throes of political bickering among the political parties and their supporters, INEC and inevitably Jega became the cynosure of public eye; his potential to sway the outcome of the contest fraudulently was quite patent and given the prevalent culture of patronage in Nigeria and the weakness of law enforcement agencies, coupled with the immense capacity of incumbent political leaders to buy patronage, academic permutations became secondary to conjectures as to whether the INEC boss would sell out or hold firm.
Shortly before the postponement of the polls from February/March to March/April and as the odds against the ruling party increased, there were widespread reports of attempt to replace Jega with a sibling of a card carrying member of the ruling PDP. However, Jega remained in the saddle, either because the PDP was repelled by public support for the INEC chairman or was deterred by some other considerations or never intended to replace Jega. A major testy case in the run up to elections was the PVC distribution exercise, the ruling party complained bitterly of sabotage, that INEC was disenfranchising its supporters by deliberately dragging the process in its stronghold states, again the INEC chairman was directly held responsible for orchestrating this but again, he was unscathed as the allegations proved to be baseless (see Punch newspapers February 11, 2015).
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Fani-Kayode was quoted to have claimed that ‘these PVCs are still in China and Jega has strategically delayed their arrival to suit his electioneering permutations’. The assault on Jega was not restricted to PDP stalwarts, although the preponderant opinion was of a very credible process and of an impartial INEC, several commentators still opined that the INEC systematically rigged the election in favour of General Buhari and the APC particularly vitriolic assault was by Femi Aribisala in his column of April 7, 2015 in the Premium Times. His article titled ‘How Jega Defeated Jonathan for Buhari in the Election’ catalogued several biases by Jega, although no substance was adduced in eveidence. Two different episodes in the conduct of the election punctuate Jega’s doggedness to deliver a credible exercise.
Firstly the tirade on him by a PDP chieftain Godsday Orubebe, who accused Jega of showing bias in all the fissures of the Nigerian political classin the favour of the APC along with a group of persons, who disrupted the collation of results process by seizing the microphone and insisting Jega left the hall for his office served to demonstrate Jega’s maturity and wisdom. Aside from maintaining a calm demeanour his insistence that law enforcement agents left Orubebe was quite commendable and could arguable have saved the process from a planned violent interruption.
Secondly, Jega personally and on national television single-handedly tallied the announced results, spending hours on end and refusing to delegate this function to subordinates. This was to forest all any grounds for sabotage and fraud. Thirdly, the resolve and dignified manner with which Jega responded to the rife rumour of his planned sack and replacement by Dr Femi Mimiko, junior brother to the Ondo State governor, a card carrying member of the ruling PDP also staved off a crisis that was potentially disruptive of the entire exercise. Jega was reported to have resisted voluntary resignation.
Other Challenges Faced in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections
At the beginning of the 21st century, over 95 percent of all countries in the world have granted women the two most fundamental democratic rights: the right to vote and the right to stand for election. New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote, in 1893; and Finland was the first to adopt both fundamental democratic rights in 1906. There are still a few countries that deny women both the right to vote and the right to stand for elections. In theory, the right to stand for election, to become a candidate and to get elected is based on the right to vote.
The reality is, however, that women‟s right to vote remains restricted, principally because the candidates are mostly male. This is true not only for partial and developing democracies, but for established democracies as well. The low level of women‟s representation in some European parliaments should be considered a violation of women‟s fundamental democratic right and, as such, a violation of their basic human rights. This unequal rate of representation in legislative bodies signifies that women‟s representation, rather than being a consequence of democratization, is more a reflection of a status quo (Shvedova, 2008:32).
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Given the above scenario, the truth is that the obstacle to women’s participation in politics is a universal phenomenon and not limited to Nigeria although there could be some specific country peculiarities. Therefore, the obstacles faced by Nigerian women during the 2015 general elections will generally not be different from what has been impeding the progress of women in their struggle for political emancipation in a vocation not only dominated by men but seen as their exclusive preserve.
The belief that women are not to be heard is one among several challenges that hamper women from political participation. While women represent a formidable force in politics in Nigeria, their enthusiasm and skills have not translated into supporting gender mainstreaming within parties. Thus, there is need for a more integrated strategy to influence the party to support gender mainstreaming. Nigerian women in politics also faced the challenge of the lack of internal democracy in almost all the political parties in the country. The number of women who scaled through the party’s primaries was very low in the last election compared to the number of women who
aspired. Added to this is the issue of consensus which often times does not even give room for any competition between aspirants as most of the candidates are handpicked to contest the various political offices, in a male dominated party executive it could very difficult to give women the chance to compete fairly with their male counterparts. There is also the lack of political will by the party leadership to implement measures that can aid women aspirations, for instance, late President Yar‟Adua had promised to give 30 percent of political appointments to women (less than the 35 percent in the National Gender Policy).
But an assessment conducted by Action Aid after one year indicated that women appointment was only 11 percent. President Goodluck Jonathan increased it to 32% (Anenih, 2011:12). In the word of Nadezhda Shvedova (2008:32)“ men dominate the political arena; men formulate the rules of the political game; and men define the standards for evaluation. The existence of this male dominated model results in women either rejecting politics altogether or ejecting male-style politics.
The 2015 general election witnessed a lot of political violence which resulted numerous deaths of party supporters agents and even innocent Nigerian voters. These included ballot snatching and stuffing, thuggery, vote buying, collation and declaration of fake results among other corrupt tendencies which definitely put women at a disadvantage as they are hardly able to match the male candidates in rigging and these other electoral vices. In fact, where they would even muster the courage to do so, they lack the financial muscle to finance such ventures as their male counterparts most of whom are incumbent political office holders with the paraphernalia of office attached to their offices intact at the point of electoral contest.
Nigeria is still a nation where political violence (rioting, bombing, destruction of property) is prevalent not only in the lead-up to the Election Day but also the aftermath. One telling example is the 2011 Northern Nigerian post-election violence that resulted in 800 deaths (Human Rights Watch, 2011). Political violence is a huge barrier for Nigerian women‟s participation in elections dueto the violent and intimidating behaviors that constitute election time. According to the National Democratic Institute‟s “Final Report on the 2011 Nigerian Elections”, as far as running for election goes, many women are dissuaded due to “high levels of competition, the often violent nature of Nigerian politics and deeply held prejudices against female politicians”, with some women reporting pressure to withdraw their candidacies, harassment and physical attacks (NDI, 2011:45). The late Mrs. Emily Olufunke Omope -Aborisade, also known as “Ms.
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Thatcher” for her unwavering determination in Ekiti state politics, was a victim of political violence when she was bathed in acid for supporting the then Executive Governor of Ekiti state in his bid for a second term in office in 2002. In addition to financial inequality for campaigning, this tragic occurrence describes the atmosphere that can foster intimidation in women who want to become involved with Nigerian politics (Irabor, 2012). Equally, there are other religious and cultural challenges which women find it difficult to surmount. From the ones that concern the hours of meetings which often times is held in the mid night to those that involve visits to shrines for oath administration for loyalty and commitment, the women are disadvantaged as they can hardly subject themselves to such political manipulations in the name of getting a slot for representation in whatever office that they may aspire.
In fact, for women in the Muslim sect, it is very difficult for them to break the barriers of both culture and religion to aspire for elective positions. On a more general note, in most countries, women perceive politics as a „dirty‟ game. This has jarred their confidence in their ability to participate in political processes. In fact, such a perception is prevalent worldwide. Unfortunately, this perception reflects the realityin many countries. Although the reasons for this differ, there are some common trends.
The basis of passive corruption can be explained by an exchange between the advantages and benefits of the public market (e.g. legislation, budget bills) and of the economic market (e.g. funds, votes, employment), which seek financial gains by escaping competition and by fostering monopolistic conditions. In addition to this, a significant increase in the cost of election campaigning has become obvious, and this in turn increases the temptation to use any source of money that becomes available (Shvedova, 2008:32). Corruption can have many faces. Bribery and extortion in the public sector, as well as the procurement of goods and services, are key manifestations of it.
Although new democracies need time to establish themselves and to develop roots, corruption has spread further in countries where the process of political and economic transformation is taking shape in the absence of civil society, and where new institutions are emerging. However, in many places where the changes in the political and economic system have already taken place, the market economy has become enmeshed in the „law of the jungle‟, the mafia and corruption (Shvedova, 2008:32). In Nigeria corruption manifest itself in diverse forms and even the electoral umpires have not been left out of the process
The 2015 and 2019 General Elections and the Voracity Model
Conclusions
Electoral governance in any democracy irrespective of form (parliamentary vs presidential; unitary or federal states) or system (direct vs proportional) is a collective responsibility of various institutions; the electoral commission which is charged with the conduct of elections are dependent on various other ancillary institutions, formal and informal to discharge this responsibility. To this extent, elections management cannot be entirely ascribed to a single institution. Because, of the dualistic classification of socio-political institutions involved in electoral governance, North’s rather loose interpretation is especially appropriate to broadly capture these institutions.
2015 and 2019 general elections as a part means of assessing how they fared so far in elective politics. It discovered that there is no marked improvement in the performance of women and by extension their representation in that electoral contest in comparison to past ones. This situation of women under representation becomes worrisome given the expectations and predictions from scholars, analysts and even the media that democratic rule in Nigeria is beginning to deepen and as such women would perform better in that election. In fact, it became more disappointing when weighed against the level of preparations witnessed in the build-up to the elections for women enlightenment, education and empowerment particularly through conferences, seminars and workshops organized for women both locally and internationally.
This paper uncovers the glaring fact that Nigerian women are still some distance away from gender equity and balancing in spite of some of the policies put in place to assist gender mainstreaming as the men have refused to act in ways that can accelerate the attainment by women of the 35% affirmative action whether now or in the nearest future. This paper therefore concludes that the 2015 general elections were “of men, by men and for men”
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