EU report: Rigged elections cannot produce Nigeria’s president by Olu Fasan

Nigeria’s president is a very strong individual. He has more authority than the US president. The term “the most powerful man on earth” is frequently used to refer to the American president. However, that only applies to foreign matters, where he has unrestricted authority. Given the federalist structure, clear separation of powers, and strong checks and balances in place in the US, the president faces significant domestic restrictions.

The president of Nigeria, in contrast, enjoys full executive authority. The court, which is vulnerable to executive bullying, is normally a toothless bulldog, and federal agencies are completely dependent on the presidency and serve only as a rubber stamp for the executive branch. also the states? Since they are a part of the federal government, any state that isn’t on their good side may find life to be challenging. That some consider the president of Nigeria to be “next to God” is understandable.

Now, given the aforementioned facts and the fact that Nigeria is unstable and sharply divided along regional, ethnic, and religious lines, the president—who would exercise such immense, unrestricted powers over the country—must win a resounding victory in an election that, without a shadow of a doubt, represents the free expression of the will of voters throughout the nation. Given these circumstances, Nigeria’s division, instability, and fragility would increase if a “president” was elected through a corrupted and invalidated process.

Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s current president, was unfortunately elected following a deeply tainted and discredited election that failed to pass basic transparency and credibility tests, as made abundantly clear in the recently released final report of the European Union Election Observation Mission, EU EOM, on Nigeria’s 2023 general elections. As would be expected, Tinubu’s administration disregarded the findings and even funded an attack on the Abuja headquarters of the EU by demonstrators. However, it is difficult to dispute the report’s meticulous examination.

It’s certain that Tinubu’s followers will continue to slander, threaten, and harass me on social media, but this editorial speaks the truth to power. I love the United States because it indicted a former president on felony charges and penalised him for sexual misconduct that occurred more than 30 years ago. I am a citizen of the United Kingdom, where a prime minister was removed from office and expelled from parliament for lying. However, in Nigeria, political leaders are exempt from both legal and institutional oversight. That’s intolerable, especially when their actions put Nigeria’s long-term prosperity, stability, and unity in jeopardy.

Since Tinubu has serious integrity issues and is, in my opinion, morally and ethically unqualified to lead Nigeria, as frequent readers of this column know, I was vehemently opposed to him being president. However, if he had won in an election that was free, fair, transparent, and trustworthy, I would have accepted his leadership. However, it didn’t, and the EU EOM study backs up the claims made by other genuinely impartial observers—not by compromised observers.

Of course, I will respect the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the petitions related to the presidential election. I truly hope, though, that it isn’t based on some twisted public policy theory or technicalities, but rather on a fair and reasonable interpretation of the substantive and procedural laws. Technicalities cannot take precedence over substantive fairness and procedural values in determining the legality of the judgement. Let there be a repeat if the Supreme Court orders one!

Strangely, some have stated that it doesn’t matter how anyone wins the presidency—whatever path he takes—as long as he succeeds—since Tinubu has assumed that position. A military dictatorship doesn’t matter as long as it is benign, competent, and effective, according to those who make that case. After all, what distinguishes gaining control through a fraudulent election that subverts popular will from gaining control through the use of force?

In actuality, the “goal justifies the means” argument put out by those who claim that “performance is what matters,” as if performance were a universal property, will entrench rigged elections in Nigeria, obstruct democratic advancement, and entrap the nation in a cycle of ever-deepening instability.

And that brings us full circle to the EUEOM report. The fundamental argument is that there are no fair playing conditions in Nigeria’s elections. This is very important since fair play is essential to any competitive sport or activity. Because of this, any athlete who wins a medal through cheating will always have the medal revoked if discovered, and any referee who is biassed or inept will always suffer public disapproval and may have his licence revoked. Why then do we only hear the taunt, “Go to court,” in relation to Nigeria’s presidential election, which is ostensibly an electoral contest in which someone might “win” through cheating and the electoral organisation, INEC, can be blatantly biassed and completely ineffective?

Consider the referee. “The selection method of INEC commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners leaves the electoral institution open to perceptions of partiality,” the EU EOM claims.Is that not accurate? As national and local electoral commissioners, the former president Buhari selected APC supporters. A few days ago, Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State and current minister of transport, openly cautioned Buhari not to re-appoint Professor Mahmood Yakubu as INEC chairman because “he’s a Tinubu supporter.” The fact is that unless INEC is genuinely independent from the ruling party and administration, Nigeria won’t have elections that can be trusted.

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Regrettably, INEC is unable to refute claims of bias in this year’s elections. Despite the ridiculous justification of “technical problems,” it is quite suspicious that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) functioned in other elections but not the presidential. Only 31% of the presidential election results uploaded to the IReV system, according to the EU EOM study, were officially and mathematically valid.How can an election be credible if there are such significant differences between the results?

Every impartial observer will agree with the other findings of the EU EOM study. For example, wasn’t misuse of incumbency widespread? Buhari and the majority of the current governors would be found to have influenced INEC officials and the security services in order to get election advantages if put on a lie detector. Furthermore, despite the Electoral Act’s prohibition against “the use of state apparatus to the advantage or disadvantage of any political party or candidate,” the incumbents flagrantly misapplied official resources to level the playing field.

Do not thus shoot the messenger. The EU EOM was correct. And it matters because Nigeria’s president is simply too strong to win in corrupted and delegitimized polls!