Local government elections took place throughout England & Wales on Thursday 1 May 2008. Voting started at 6 in the morning and closed at 10 in the evening. By Friday 2 May 2008, most of the results were known and by the evening of the same day, it has become clear that the incumbent Labour government has suffered its worst local government elections defeat in forty years. The British people delivered a crushing blow to Gordon Brown leadership and if this pattern is maintained, the Conservative party appears set to replace the Labour party as the ruling party at the next general elections.  The icing on the cake for the Conservative party is the election of Conservative’s Boris Johnson as the mayor of London, ousting Labour’s Ken Livingstone, who has been holding the position in the last eight years.

So what can Nigeria learn from these elections. The starting point should be the orderly and peaceful nature of the elections. Although the turnout of voters was very high, any visitor to the UK would not have noticed that elections were taking place. Voting started at 6am and closed at 10pm. This writer voted at around 7pm after returning from work. The whole process lasted less than 10 minutes. There was no violence, no over-voting, or any form of thuggery.  There was no need to declare a public holiday for the purposes of the elections as one could vote either before going to work or do so after work. It helps that the public transport system and other infrastructures work efficiently.

Another clear lesson of the elections is the reactions of both the losers and the winners. Less than 24 hours after the close of voting all the results had been known. Less than 48 hours after the elections, the winners are being been sworn in throughout the country. The whole essence of democracy is that the electorates are able to send clear message to their government on how the government is performing. A fraudulent democratic process that is rigged and does not reflect the wishes of the electorates is worse than any form of dictatorship. As soon as it became clear that the Labour party was being routed, its leaders were conceding defeat and promising to listen to the electorates’ concerns before the next general elections. The people have spoken in clear terms and the losers conceded defeats gracefully whilst winners accepted the challenges of governance. Democracy is the winner in the whole process. In Nigeria, elections are a matter of life and death where the incumbents must be returned to office at all cost or if the law makes that impossible, they must vet who will replace them and demand oath of allegiance from them. The whole process is fraught with manipulations where the winners are ultimately those who could outspend, out rig and out manipulate the others.  IBB used to boast that although he did not know who would succeed him in power, he knew those who would not succeed him and proceeded to ban and unban politicians as his mood demanded and ultimately annulled the freest elections ever held in Nigeria. In the same fashion, when it became clear to him that his third-term ambition was destined to fail, Chief Obasanjo manipulated the system to ensure that the coronation of Yar’Adua was virtually a fait accompli.

Another thing that stands out from the elections is the total lack of complaint from losers in the elections. Even where the results went against the projected opinion polls, the losers accepted defeat and congratulated the declared winners. There is no need to cry foul or threaten recourse to the courts because the whole process {not unlike our own Option A4} was manifestly free and fair. As far as the British people are concerned, the elections of May 1 2008 have come and gone. The winners should now roll up their sleeves and get set for serious business of governance whilst the losers begin to strategise on how to do better next time. Well, in Nigeria, various electoral Tribunals are still sitting, one year after the 2007 elections and I have no doubt some will continue to do so until 2009. It is a trite saying in law that justice delayed is justice denied. Kenyan’s Raila Odinga asserted that one of the reasons the Kenyans took to the streets after the December 2007 elections in Kenya was that various petitions against the results of  the 2002 presidential elections had not been resolved by the time of the 2007 elections! We have an electoral system that is not manifestly transparent which oftentimes lead to legitimate complaints from participants. However instead of getting timely justice at the various courts, we have a system where there could be such a delay that impostors like Ngige could actually govern for some three years before being removed from office. To worsen the situation, the system appears to allow for an ad infinitum appeal process that goes on forever. Pray, if Audu Abubakar of Kogi State wins his next elections petition will the court order another set of fresh elections? Surely there must be some form of closure somewhere otherwise the whole process will become a huge joke.

I know there is an arguable point that perhaps it is inappropriate to compare Nigeria with the UK on the basis that the UK has centuries of democratic experience to learn from. That might at first appear to be a fair point. However if we consider the fact that  the June 12 elections took place in Nigeria; if we consider the fact that Option A4 was designed by Nigeria’s own political scientists as a veritable mean of conducting transparently free and fair elections in a society like Nigeria, the above argument suddenly sounds intellectually defective.  In any event, must we wait for centuries before we are able to conduct simple elections? If we insist on importing democratic cultures from the West, should we not be learning from their past experience, learn from their past mistakes and get it right? What is the sense in following the pacesetters only to repeat their errors? What the June 12 elections showed is that the country is capable of uniting behind a single unifying candidate irrespective of their ethnic background. It also shows that conducting a free and fair election is not beyond the ability and capability of Nigerians. What is required is the sincerity of purpose and insistence by all Nigerians to do the right things. I sincerely hope that the 2011 elections is as hitch free as the last UK local government elections.

Adebayo Kareem, a London based solicitors, writes from omoalufa@hotmail.co.uk

Robot  # 1 | 22.09.2008 11:01

Local government elections took place throughout England & Wales on Thursday 1 May 2008. Voting started at 6 in the morning and closed at 10 in the evening. By Friday 2 May 2008, most of the...Read the full article.