Symbolism with Simbo Olorunfemi
Email: simboor@yahoo.com Twitter: @simboolorunfemi
“Are you the One who was to come, or should we keep on expecting a different one?” ― Matthew 11:3, The Bible.
It is Christmas today. In the spirit of the moment, one must wish Professor Attahiru Jega a Merry Christmas. But for the reason for the season, there is little cause for cheer. There is very little to inspire one wishing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a Merry Christmas. Fifty days to the elections that must go down as the most keenly contested, with monumental ramifications for the future of the country, the agency saddled with the responsibility of conducting it is still marooned in an avoidable crisis that might taint the credibility of the exercise, if not properly handled. But for the need to be charitable there is little to be merry about in the way and manner INEC has been carrying on.
How charitable can we really get with INEC? How much love can we extend towards an agency so awash with cash that it keeps coming up with one grand idea, soon after the one on its plate flops? How do we understand with INEC when it neglects its core responsibility and dives into the arena to legislate over which party to register or deregister, in spite of court pronouncements defining the ambit within which it should operate? Why shed tears for INEC whose lapse into partisanship had been established in a few election petitions? How do we get charitable with INEC, with a whole four years on its laps to prepare for elections, yet comes up, months to go, with shenanigans wrapped as gifts for the electorate? INEC struggled to explain its position to the public on the creation of additional polling units; it eventually had to give up on that. Yet that was a well thought-out project, but ill-timing in announcement and poor presentation to the people crippled it, with the agency recoiling into its shell. INEC must be its own worst enemy. It unleashes one crisis, rides on it to nowhere, abandons the boat and hops on an Okada to go light up another fire, elsewhere. What is it really with INEC?
Why this obsession with wobbling and fumbling into and out of every election? Could it be that Attahiru Jega is a closet fan of our own Fanny Amu? Perhaps, the fault is not his. What did we do in response to the missed steps of the past? Dr Tunji Abayomi argues that one of the major challenges we face, as a nation, is our pre-occupation with mercy rather than justice. We pardon when we should sanction. I cannot agree less with him. We seem to be cursed with an obsession to reward failure and mete out punishment to the successful. You fail as an elected public official; we reward you with another term to repeat the class. We are like Sisyphus, forever rolling the rock of Barabbas up and down, even with our Jesus staring us in the face.
The case has often been made for strong institutions over strong men. But the fact that a few strong men pop up here and there to nudge some of our institutions in the right direction makes the case for strong men a compelling one to make. From our experience though, it is only a short while before the institutions suffer for it. As they begin to unravel, not even the strong men of yesterday are safe. They come dancing in the rain, with eggs on their faces.
Is that the case with our own Professor Attahiru Jega? Has he run his own course? Has the tide overtaken him? Jega comes across as a strong man. It is an irony, in fact, that such a vibrant spirit of activism sits in such a meek soul, with an endearing and gentle mien. He comes across as an incorruptible man, with eye on history. But has he built us an institution that will stand the test of time? I doubt. Indeed, under his watch, INEC has delivered some credible elections, even if the processes that led to many of them were hardly even or paved with palpable fairness.
But with observers coming in weeks to the elections, how do you make the case that the process had been rigged years before the election itself? Back to the moment, would international observers be able to capture the activities of the Transformation Ambassadors that completed a full season of play before the referee had even blown the whistle? Will they capture the fact that resources from disputable sources have been deployed for the purpose of influencing election results?
Prof. Jega might be a strong man, but he loses his voice in the face of flagrant violations of the Electoral Act, and that is a tragedy. INEC, only yesterday, reminded us it only has power to prosecute but not to investigate. What a shame that it will publicly endorse its own laxity in the face of so much going wrong. INEC says it is beyond it to ‘investigate’ the public donations in breach of the Electoral Act, and will only prosecute if those charged with the powers to investigate place a report on its desk. That is how much of an ostrich INEC has become, routinely forgetting its neck is out there for the world to see.
It is difficult to make any sense of what INEC intends to achieve with this obviously-flawed distribution of what it has tagged –‘Permanent Voter Cards’. Too many people I know have not been able to collect their cards, yet INEC arrogantly claims those without cards will not be allowed to vote in the elections. Years back, some other ‘permanent’ card was forced on us, before it came with the so-called temporary cards given to us sometime back. Now, in the name of replacing those same cards with some fancy ones, whole communities have been wiped off INEC’s record. Yet the agency announces, with glee, that its database crashed, taking along with it many names including that of the Lagos Governor Babatunde Fashola.
In the community where I reside, INEC has made a mess of six polling units. It has scheduled three different unsuccessful sessions, within one month, for us to collect our cards. We reported, even on Sunday mornings, formed long queues, compiled names only to have INEC dash our expectations. As I write, those who registered in these polling units still do not have PVCS. Some were asked to re-register. In my unit, INEC advised us not to re-register, but wait on an announcement to come collect them. I have since confirmed from the INEC website that my information is intact on its database. Yet, three weeks after, we are waiting to hear from INEC.
Many people have alluded to the fact that the crisis created by INEC in the distribution of PVCs in some states deemed critical to the results of the 2015 elections is not without some form of orchestration. Who knows if this ‘wobbling and fumbling’ is for a purpose? Who knows if what we are faced with is a ploy contrived to disenfranchise some of us? Who knows what this insistence by INEC on using the PVCs, which many of us do not have, is all about?
Whatever it is, let me put INEC on notice, in the spirit of Christmas. Neither the shoddiness by your officials nor the shenanigans cooked up in quarters beyond INEC’s control will stop Nigerians from voting come February 2015. I have a card which I intend to use. We must vote, as expected of us, with or without the PVC. If we have to compel INEC to release our cards, we will do so. We will not keep still while INEC’s tardiness threatens to steal our tomorrow. We will compel INEC to do that which the law expects of it. Merry Christmas, Professor Jega. Are you the One we’ve been expecting, or are we still waiting?
