The aftermath of the April 2007 elections in Nigeria has so far, been one of a perfect blame game seeking to identify in black and white, the culprits to be held responsible for a single show of shame that soiled the image of our dear nation before the eyes of the watching universe. As in every case of identifying clear-cut perpetrators though, the principle of black or white (and nothing between) is always doomed to failure amid emotional exacerbation and subjective aggrandizement.

While victims (in this case, our nascent democracy) are always easier to make out, judicial processes of equity and fairness in identifying or accusing the true and not superficial or even wrong perpetrators are a cumbersome assignment. Investigations are therefore, commenced from the top to bottom in a logical sequence of righting a wrong in justice and equity.

It therefore follows that civilized and functional democracies all over the world place immense unease on the heads of politicians wearing the crown of leadership. While routine practice in a sound political environment would first hold the political head of any democratic institution responsible for failures within the establishment, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that the head of a failing establishment would resign or even be prosecuted for failures under his/her leadership in a functional democracy. One thing is certain however. The head of a failing democratic entity will always be subjected to calls for resignation in every democracy.

Unfortunately however, it is pertinent to underscore one plain fact that Nigeria is not by any means a civilized and functional democracy.

True to it, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo would have been the principal actor to face calls for the judicial docks in the aftermath of the failed general elections in Nigeria for presiding over a nation that woefully failed in a simple assignment. The Chairman of the Electoral Commission would have followed thereafter. But that would have been conditional upon the operational environment being conducive and comparable to anything in a civilized and functional democracy.

Unfortunately too, there is hardly any sense of logical comprehension and analysis that would have driven any sane Nigerian into the expectation that the last general elections would have been free and fair. So charged and tense was the political atmosphere and so high was the temperature that many truly expected a military coup d’etat to save the day in their favor depending on the line of political divide they found themselves in.

No doubt every political observer and commentator, who viewed developments in South Africa lately, would be impressed by the picture of two political arch-rivals sitting side by side and slotting out their political differences at the ballot box rather than in the courtrooms. It was loyalty and subordination at its highest. Jacob Zuma who was dismissed from the Office of Vice President by his boss Thabo Mbeki amid charges of corruption and rape, went through his ordeals and stood to fight another day without compromising loyalty and subordination. Today, he is treading a steady path to grabbing the reins of leadership also demanding loyalty and subordination from his erstwhile boss as time goes by.

In pre-elections Nigeria, we had a standing Vice President who would not resign in grace and live to fight another day but rather fought a helpless, strongly divisive and futile battle with the bitter aid of judicial activism. Nigeria stood on the brink of a civil war and was badly polarized down the middle. The strength of hostility was sure to culminate in the total annihilation of the opponent. Each party used every means at his disposal to eliminate his opponent. The opposition prominently featuring the Vice President of the day had the judiciary largely on its side and the government of the day had the instruments of power at its disposal.

The utilization of the instruments of power against the opposition as far as the run-up to the elections was concerned was not even tantamount to primitive illegality as some would make believe. It was at best, controversial. The selective indictment of opponents by the anti-graft commission with the intended impact of disqualification from the elections could have been anything else but not illegal given the fact of the validity of cases that could be truly established against the culprits. It was at best immoral based on its selectivity. The outright disqualification of candidates by the Electoral Commission was at the time of such acts, indeed an absolute legality. The subsequent declaration of the illegality thereof by the judiciary was itself the actual source of controversy in the face of logical incompatibility.

One strange issue that does count strongly against the Electoral Commission is the badly flawed process of voters’ registration. Turn it, tie it or twist it, the Electoral Commission failed woefully in this exercise no matter what anyone may say in its defense. It remains a mystery till today, that registration machines were found in the house of one self-proclaimed king of thugs in a western state and no prosecution followed. This indeed, looked like one of such utilization of state machineries in the fight against political opponents. It was a segment in a chain of wholly unnecessary battles, for which I lay responsibility partly on the then Vice President for fighting his battle (justified or not) with a very wrong and destructive approach. It was indeed, at a point of do-or-die since no party wanted to commit willful political suicide.

The elections itself that had to be held under this bitterly polarized atmosphere did not stand any chance of being run fairly and constructively. Whatever the name the man at the top of the Commission at the time bore (Iwu or not) the commission was an instrument in the hand of the Executive arm of government. How this commission would have functioned independently without constitutional safeguards in spite of its name is indeed, anyone’s guess. Arguably, if the chairman of the commission had chosen to antagonize the Executive arm of government in favor of the opposition, the equally biased and polarized judiciary was highly likely to have helped him out. But the choice was his. The composition of the opposition with an imprudently stubborn Vice President at its head was as badly flawed, as was the substance of the Executive arm of government. The basic fact that a large section of the intelligentsia sided with the opposition derived indeed, more from hatred for the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo than the credibility of the opposition. That the Chairman of the Electoral Commission was not impressed with the sanctity of the opposition or convinced of the “better-than-thou” quality thereof, can in the end, not be the benchmark for discrediting the conduct of the chairman. Whichever way it goes, the elections would have been flawed all the same.

It doesn’t really matter if the flawed process of voters’ registration facilitated multiple voting or otherwise during elections proper. With the commission on the side of the opposition, the votes that went to the ruling party in the aftermath of this flawed arrangement would simply have gone to the opposition.

Moreover, the ratio of multiple voting facilitated by the flawed process of voters’ registration in the overall votes scored by the ruling party in its landslide victory has not been determined as such. It is also legitimately questionable if the opposition parties did not also devise means of multiple voting to circumvent the list of registered voters.

Prominent methods adopted by parties in the execution of their electoral interests were indeed, gangsterism, banditry and cultism. This had absolutely nothing to do with the Electoral Commission. The present Deputy Governor of Edo State was for instance, reportedly kept under house arrest by armed cultists representing the opposition candidate and never saw the light of day to cast his vote on voting day. Indeed, the outgoing governor of that state of the PDP was said to have gone all out in support of the opposition candidate out of disagreement with his own party. This was another seed of discord in which the Electoral Commission could have played no single role. While reports however unfurl that the Electoral Commission inflated vote counts in favor of the subsequent victor, the courts are yet to determine the accuracy of such claims.

In fact, it is also legitimately questionable if the multiple voting that trailed the deliberately or accidentally bogged process of voters’ registration had any significant impact compared with the number of ballot boxes that were seized by armed gangs working for different political parties in different parts of the country and stuffed up for counting.

If the ruling party outplayed and outmaneuvered its opponents in the process, it may have largely been attributable to the yet unproven allegation of the deployment of the military in its favor.

Indeed, questions can be raised if the spirit of gangsterism did not surpass anything the Electoral Commission could have done.

At the moment, it is truly yet unclear how many office holders were facilitated into power by improper conduct on the part of the Electoral Commission. Judgments so far passed have uncovered nothing in this direction.

Personalized insults and abuses on the Chairman of the Electoral Commission can be understood, if they came from any member of the losing opposition camp charging Maurice Iwu with snobbery in favor of the ruling party. From a neutral and an objective observer and commentator however, such abuses and personal denigration can hardly bear any hallmark of neutrality.

If anything, facts on the ground have indicated thus far that the problem of Nigeria’s electoral process is not Maurice Iwu. The nation is simply up against a systemic problem.

As long as the government of some Delta State stands publicly accused on the pages of newspapers without any public denial of sort, of hiring crowds to run in nude protest at the arrest of a former governor, and of sponsoring and hyping bandit activities to exacerbate political instability, electoral gangsterism will forever, remain the norm par excellence. Until such fundamental ills are addressed and corrected from the root, Electoral Commissions will forever remain irrelevant no matter what they undertake.

As if the elections of April 2007 were now a far cry of several decades away, municipal elections just a few days back hit a raw nerve once again in the skeletal structure of the electoral system. It was a brutal reminder of where the real problem lies. Lives were lost again and manipulations took their usual course. But the stakes were not high and there are therefore, no calls for the head of Maurice Iwu.

In case you have been left wondering, what all these talks have been about, then hear this: while we as independent, neutral and objective observers and commentators analyze the situation as it affects the Independent National Electoral Commission, we should go beyond superficiality. We should appreciate the truth that Maurice Iwu should not be judged by the events of the past two years as these were testing times of bloody acclaim. Lessons should be drawn from them to improve future processes. If heads have to roll, they should roll for real. Abuses on, denigration and even the dismissal of Maurice Iwu will not help the system in any single way. The ills will continue. No one should be surprised that in a sane and normal environment our INEC under Maurice Iwu may be well capable of running a very credible election of any sort.

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle5431=encodeURIComponent(The Maurice...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 25.12.2007 17:47

K_Station  Villager

# 2 Dear Frisky Lar, I want to congratulate you on this beautiful piece, you made my Xmas! This is one of the most objective analysis I have read on the NVS in a long time. You offered a clear, concise analysis from a truly unbiased perspective especially at a time that bashing individuals with or without any sound reasoning has become the hallmark of some here in the VillageSquare. People get so fixated on some individuals you begin to wonder if Nigeria was El-Dorado before 1999; and if you don't join the bandwagon they insinuate you are a tribalist, and that you are talking that way because this man or that man is "one of your own kind"! This is why today we are saying the same things we said during Shagari's regime, and then Buhari/Idiagbon regime, IBB, Abacha, and now OBJ. I fear that 20 years from today, we will be saying the same things. While we cannot discountenance the role of individuals in the way Nigeria has turned out, there are bigger systemic issues that we need to address otherwise as the Americans would say, "we ain't seen nothing yet". Posted by K_Station| 25.12.2007 21:36

ocnus  Villager

# 3 I don't propose to enter into a debate on Maurice Wuru-wuru or his tenure in INEC. I only want to comment on the flawed comparison with South Africa. If Mr. Larrrimore thinks that the debate and election of Jacob Zuma as head of the ANC will solve any of South Africa's problems he is woefully ill-informed about South Africa. The Zulus fought for many years on the side of the Nationalist Party in Inkhata. They trained 200 killers in the Caprivi Strip to assassnate and attack the ANC leadership (Operation Marion). The ties between the South African Defense Force, Military Intelligence and the Police have never been severed and Jacob Zuma, despite trying to effect a fusion between Inkhata and the ANC has maintained strong links with the former heads of these groups, especially General Groenwald. These right wing Afrikaaners, ex-military and intelligence, and their cohorts in South Africa's banks and defense industries, have been supporting and abetting Zuma and his crowd in an effort to promote chaos and tribal conflict. They hope that this will allow them "to take back our country" from the chaos which will ensue. I shall write more about this soon. I recommend that Mr. Larrimore glance at the findings of the Truth and Reconcliation hearings and reconsider his use of South Africa as a model of civilised parlamentariansm. Posted by ocnus| 26.12.2007 04:02

denker  Villager

# 4 =ocnus;4294975375>I don't propose to enter into a debate on Maurice Wuru-wuru or his tenure in INEC. I only want to comment on the flawed comparison with South Africa. If Mr. Larrrimore thinks that the debate and election of Jacob Zuma as head of the ANC will solve any of South Africa's problems he is woefully ill-informed about South Africa. The Zulus fought for many years on the side of the Nationalist Party in Inkhata. They trained 200 killers in the Caprivi Strip to assassnate and attack the ANC leadership (Operation Marion). The ties between the South African Defense Force, Military Intelligence and the Police have never been severed and Jacob Zuma, despite trying to effect a fusion between Inkhata and the ANC has maintained strong links with the former heads of these groups, especially General Groenwald. These right wing Afrikaaners, ex-military and intelligence, and their cohorts in South Africa's banks and defense industries, have been supporting and abetting Zuma and his crowd in an effort to promote chaos and tribal conflict. They hope that this will allow them "to take back our country" from the chaos which will ensue. I shall write more about this soon. I recommend that Mr. Larrimore glance at the findings of the Truth and Reconcliation hearings and reconsider his use of South Africa as a model of civilised parlamentariansm. hi, folks! ..i recommend caution and circumspection...too many snakes in grass...i do not make friends, i keep associations of needs, my only friends are my wife and daughter...do not ask me why..? Posted by denker| 26.12.2007 05:58

Onari  Villager

# 5 Frisky, I hear you ! In Nigeria every bad behavior is rationalized. it does not surprise me any more. So in all people in leadership position are not responsible for their actions or inactions any more? Iwu officially is a 57 years old man and indeed knows his left from his right. He is a world acclaimed "Professor". Professor Humphrey Nwosu in June 12 of 1993 defied the strong and mean dictator like IBB and conducted a free and fair election and eventually faced the consequence, so why not Iwu. I expect Iwu to resign if he is not allowed to do his job according to the constitution. A professor that leads an agency as important as INEC that can not even accurately do a simple addition and subtraction...those miss calculations are not just on one result, but on almost 80 percent of April election. I am wondering the logic here...even if OBJ forced Iwu to rig the election...he can not even match up figures with the number of registered voters. The agony of Iwu's incompetence is not just for the losers, but also for the winners of the election as is shown in various tribunals. We keep rationalizing our bad behavior, incompetence, dereliction of duty, in-aptitude , dishonesty, corruption and evil at every point of our nation hood while the world pass us bye developing astronomically. lets keep rationalizing illegalities. Posted by Onari| 26.12.2007 11:20

dem  Villager

# 6 No. No. No. No! What are we doing to ourselves? Geeze!! It's been only 8 months and some of us have chosen to forget?? Ok; let's take this slow: Maurice Iwu heads INEC - not Obasanjo, not Atiku, not PDP. If the elections had been run well with acceptable outcome, credit would have gone to Iwu almost exclusively. So why not the blame - almost exclusively - for dropping the ball? Instead we are talking nebulously about a "systemic problem". What systemic problem? But let me come back to this later. Nigerians are not stupid. We know what obtains in our society and we make allowances for that as appropriate. Look at our State governors; most of them did nothing but steal State resources. One or two "performed" well. Now, most of us know within our hearts that even the 1 or 2 that performed, if closely investigated would have put a little somethin' somethin' somewhere. But, we make allowance for that because, well, this is Nigeria. Things will get better no doubt, but we are not quite there yet in that regard. If Iwu had conducted, or even given the appearance of wanting to conduct a half decent elections, we would have given him the benefit of the doubt. That was not the case. Iwu let it be known from jump street that he was there to carryout a perfidious personal assignment. The unfavourable conditions leading to the elections were LARGELY created by Iwu himself to facilate his evil designs. To point to that situation and use those as excuse for failure is disingenious at best. EVERY aspect of Iwu's elections was bad. The politicians rigged, yes. But Iwu's INEC out-rigged all of them combined. The way the elections were conducted, it wouldn't have mattered how many ballot boxes were stuffed. INEC simply announced it's own set of results. This is after 1st disenfrachising most non PDP candidates. Look at some of the evidences being produced at Electoral Tribunals; INEC result forms shows dates on them that preceeded actual election dates! Logistically, he failed. How many people that went out to vote were actually able to do so. It was cringingly embarrassing to see INEC officials at polling atations without any materials and no idea of what to do. Ah, Iwu failed LOUDLY and shamed us all with the worst election in the history of elections. Re "systemic problems": This is being presented here as a shiftless mass unless some kind of 're-inventing' takes place. I'm not so sure. Pray tell, how is a systemic problem fixed? God cannot come down to do it; we know that now. So somebody entrusted with the responsibility has got to do it. In this same Nigeria during a millitary dictatorship, no constitution, cowed judiciary, IBB scheming to become a life President, etc, etc, we had credible elections in 1992/93. Nuhu Ribadu (flawed as he is) is doing it with the EFCC. Can anyone compare the efforts & results of the EFCC to anything the ICPC has done in about 8 years? Dora Akunyili did and continue to do it at NAFDAC even after attempts were made to assasinate her. In Nigeria, the systemic culture of acquiesing in the face conterfeit drugs and contaminated food has and continues to be effectively checked inspite of the Adedibus of this world. So you see; it takes just one person - usually the head. Truth is, Iwu lacks the moral fibre, the spine, the discipline, and the principle to be an Nwosu, Akunyili or even Ribadu. On top of that, he's got very itchy fingers. Uba (and later) OBJ recognised all these flaws inherent in the man and used him accordingly ... unfortunately for us all. Posted by dem| 26.12.2007 12:26

akuluouno  Villager

# 7 Greetings all Villagers, I think FL hit the nail on the head when he asked if we remove Iwu, will all be well in future Nigerian elections. I do not think that Iwu is the epitome of all that is evil in Nigerian elections. Check out the history of all INEC, FEDECO, NEC etc previous leaders and see how they have all ended unlike say in Ghana where one electoral head has managed elections for a long time. So the fault may not be totally in Iwu although he seems a good scape goat. This is for villagers to chew. Regarding ONCUS remarks on Zuma and the Zulu/Nationalists connection, I think that is stretching imagination and conspiracy too far. I do not believe that SA fought off apartheid after over 300 years only to surrender and sacrifice same on the alter of one J Zuma, Zulus, and some white suprmacists. If that is the case,then the blackman should go and rethink his humanitude in this firmament.:frown::frown::frown: I believe that Zuma was a victim of high wire politics under Mbeki which the ANC given its pedigree has seen through and democratically laid to rest.:D Posted by akuluouno| 27.12.2007 10:45