In Nigeria, no electoral commission chairman has conducted two general elections. Professor Attahiru Jega was appointed in 2010 to conduct the 2011 general elections. With a five year term set to expire in June of 2015, two months after the 2015 election, EMMA ALOZIE examines the possibility of Professor Jega breaking this jinx given the recent criticisms, especially arising from the creation of the controversial polling units.
The history of electoral commissions in Nigeria is as old as Nigeria. The first post independence election was conducted in 1964 by Eyo Ita Esua. From 1960 till date, no electoral body chairman has conducted two elections before. Either the person’s term expires or the person was removed from office. However, with the appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega in June of 2010 and his first five year term expected to end in June of 2015, two months after the general elections, it seems the former university don is set to break this jinx.
Professor Jega is the 11th indigenous electoral body chairman and the first northerner to fill that position. The first post-independence election held in 1964 was conducted by Eyo Ita Esua from Cross River State.
Then Michael Ani, also from Cross River State headed the then Federal Electoral Commission, FEDECO that conducted the 1979 election after which he stepped down allowing Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey from Delta State to conduct the 1983 elections.
Then, Professor Humphrey Nwosu from Anambra State conducted the annulled June 12, 1993. At the return of civilian rule in 1999, Justice Ephraim Akpata from Edo State conducted the election that ushered in President Obasanjo into office in 1999.
Unfortunately, Justice Akpata died in office in 2000 and he was replaced by Dr. Abel Gubadia from Edo State, who conducted the 2003 general elections. When Gubadia’s tenure ended in 2005, Professor Maurice Iwu from Imo State succeeded him and conducted the 2007 elections that brought in the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. When Iwu’s tenure expired in 2010, Professor Jega was appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan to succeed him.
With Jega’s five year term coming to an end in 2015, clear two months after the election, the question is will he be the first and only electoral body boss, in the history of Nigeria, to conduct two successive general elections?
Jega has come under heavy criticism recently, especially over his decision to create additional polling units, where he claimed to have relied on voter statistics to allocate 70% of the new polling units to the northern part of Nigeria.
This has expectedly given rise to many agitations, especially from southern leaders who argue that Prof Jega is up to mischief. Though the Senate committee on INEC has advised Jega to suspend the action till after next year’s general elections, the INEC boss is still under substantial negative spotlight based on that action.
Jega’s appointment came with much fanfare and perhaps some little dissention here and there. He was hailed as the activist and unionist who had come to level the electoral playing field.
However, after the 2011 elections that returned President Jonathan, there was groundswell of approval, both national and international that the people’s votes counted. Though, some other voices disagreed arguing that it was far from a perfect election.
But recent happenings have shown that the former Bayero University vice chancellor may not be having the best of times. The INEC boss has been getting flaks from those who have been following his moves since his appointment four years ago.
President of the Public Interest Lawyers League and a delegate to the just concluded National Conference, Barr Abdul Mahmud, described the new polling units’ creation as “Jegamandering.”
“While it is the statutory duty of INEC to have done what it did, it raises some fundamental questions and worries. In the first place, INEC does not have a credible voters’ register, if you consider the discrepancy between INEC’s registered voters and the number of voters who turn up eventually to vote.
“It beats the imagination of any fair minded observer how for instance; the whole of the South- East region has less than 2,000 polling units in the new Jega’s arrangement, which I call “Jegamandering”. This is a region with the highest population density, a region swarming with people like every other region in the country.
“Jega is absolute tosh. The exercise is nonsense. This Jegamandering serves one purpose; give advantage to the North based on a fictitious statistical census projection. It is all a lie. He arrived at his new pus with 175 million population projection for Nigeria. Jega’s population growth rate does not match those of the previous census decade. His Jegamandering must be resisted,” he said.
Similarly, Chief Victor Umeh, national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA said, “Prof. Jega has done his worst so far and nobody, I repeat nobody, is happy with him. He has shown his teeth as a northerner and has deliberately emasculated and disfranchised millions of Igbo and people of the Southern Nigeria as a whole. It is clear that the new units are not acceptable to millions of Nigerians and our position is that it must be revisited or we revert to the one being used until we get it right. For now, it is flawed.”
Also, N digbo Cultural Society of Nigeria (NCSN) has asked President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly to order an immediate sack of Jega before he plunges Nigeria into political crisis that will ultimately implode Nigeria. The group in a statement signed by its President, Chief Udo Udeogaranya accused Jega of gross bias in the allocation of new polling units. “In the same vein, Prof. Attahiru Jega in his creation of new polling units policy, is attempting to give the North a far more polling units than the North’s voting population, so that the Northern politicians can exaggerate their voting results to tantamount with the voting strength of this new polling units that Prof. Jega is blindly attempting to give to them, so that the North that has already been deserted by insurgency can have the power to determine who becomes president against the South with exponential increase in numbers as many northerners are relocating to the South.
“Ndigbo will resist this new unwarranted policy of electoral fraud that is totally undemocratic, hence there are no indications that warrant any creation of polling units anywhere and elections were held successfully in Ekiti and Osun States without agitations of disenfranchisement,” he said.
However, Professor Jega’s tenure seems to be secured going by the constitutional provision for his removal. Section 157 (1) of the 1999 Constitution states that “subject to the provisions of subsection (3) of this section, a person holding any of the offices to which this section applies, may only be removed from that office by the president acting on an address supported by two-third majority of the Senate praying that he be so removed for inability to discharge the functions of the office, whether arising from infirmity of mind or body or any other cause or for misconduct.”
Going by sentiments, Jega would have been out by now. However, with the glaring constitutional provision, Professor Jega may break the record by being the first national returning officer to conduct two elections.