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IBB’s Speech to the Electoral Reform Committee In Nigeria

I submit for discussion the speech delivered by His Excellency Gen. Ibrahim B. Babangida, GCFR, Mni, to the Justice Muhammed Uwais (Rtd), former CJN of Nigeria led Electoral Reform Committee when they visited Minna, Niger State for Public discussions, on July 22, 2008.

It is on record that Babangida’s regime orchestrated to completion and annulled a successful election held on June 12, 1993. He has since accepted responsibility for the annulment without equivocation, however, as a citizen of Nigeria and a former President; he has a constitutional right to express his opinion on such an important discourse. Kindly read on. “It is about issues and not individuals.”

This also affords Babangida’s friends the opportunity to read his position on the issue of electoral reforms as well as give his traducers additional opportunity to vent their anger; it is therapeutic indeed….so let’s rumble.

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The Chairman,
Electoral Reform Committee.

MEMORANDUM

Electoral Reform and the Party System, Notes for Interactive Discourse Felicitation and Introduction

I wish to express our pleasure and sense of privilege and honour for your coming over here for this interactive discourse. Both the subject matter and purpose of our meeting represent one area of our experience in the rare privilege of governance in our country.

Nigeria is a highly blessed nation by the Almighty, but people and the leaders at any point in history have had to cope and will continue to cope, with daunting challenges. Governance is not easy, neither is it extraordinary difficult. It is the amount and quality of knowledge, focus, sensibility and grasp of the challenges that can make a difference. We believe that there may be no dispute about our knowledge of our country and of our experience in its governance. However, it must be emphasized that the regime, which it was our privilege to lead, was one of dictatorship. Nonetheless, that regime was driven by vision of history of our people and of political challenges. Accordingly, the regime had a mission to create the necessary institutions, structures, processes and environment for a much better system of government to exist. The regime had a “controlled environment” by the fact of military dictatorship, yet if possessed a clear purpose with observance of basic freedoms and human rights as well as the consciousness to maintain the country’s federal society and federal system of government. It also established the policy basis and structures for a new and better national economy from day one that was inherited. The same thing can be said about country’s foreign policy and international relations.

We are engaged in this discuss in, and for a different governance regime from the one we utilized for the country. There may be defects in the present constitution but the country is being governed under a constitutional regime, democracy and federation. The present ruling class cannot tamper with the system arbitrarily even if with noble causes as it is possible under the military. There is a lot to inform us about our past, but we cannot lose consciousness about the limitations of democracy and constitutional government.

REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
Against the preceding introductions, we wish to draw attention to some lessons and make suggestions, which may be of use in your deliberations.

Imperative of the Environment of Elections: Aside from the cancellation of the result of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which is not the subject matter of this discourse, you are likely to agree with us that the elections conducted under my watch between 1989 and 1992 were generally free, fair, acceptable and credible. One of the many success factors of those elections is the environment. The environment, which we utilized for the elections under our regime, may be described as one of “guided democracy.” There is another element in that environment, namely the absence of undue partisanship. It is common knowledge that power incumbency or the power system is always interested in succession elections. But this element is more apparent and brazen under governments of elected rulers. It is therefore easy to understand why elections conducted by the military when they are exiting from power have been much freer and more credible than elections conducted by Nigerians when the rulers are members of one political party. The problem, which this factor poses in how, the credibility of the national framework and of the role of elections in sustaining proper democracy can be guaranteed through succession elections by politician rulers.

We have raised this important issue of environment of elections so that you may wish, after this deliberation; bring into your recommendations the need to sanitize the environment of elections (I will return to this element again below).

We hear these days about the need to return to what, under our watch, we called ‘Modified Open Ballot System’ in elections. This is simply a big phrase for Secret Ballot. We still believe that Nigeria should continue with the Secret Ballot (or Modified Open Ballot System). But this can succeed only if the environment of elections is properly sanitized. This observation and suggestion applies to what we called ‘Option A4’, particularly for party primaries. We believe ‘Option A4’ is good again only if the environment is sanitized. Today in large sections of the country, the use of dangerous weapons including sophisticated arms and ammunitions have become commonplace spectacles. If the environment is not sanitized, any criminally minded fanatic or thug or even those who see every election as the ‘last election’ (what some people call “do or die election”), the venue of conducting party primaries or actual elections can easily be disrupted by the use of guns or any other weapons of threat to life.

The issue of how to fully harness and use the people’s ballot or vote came up for discussion during our regime. This is whether we should continue the ‘first-pass-the-post’; or to adopt proportional representation in which the contesting political parties can be allocated seats in the legislature or in the executive, which are proportional to the votes obtained by them at elections. The fear, to which we subscribe, is that proportional representation may even provide tensed and fractious environment of quarrel and hostility in the calculations of fractions of the vote involved. We therefore subscribe to what has been with us ‘first-pass-the-post’ in winning elections.

We think the emerging factor of staggered election is good for the system. The logistics, security and other items of elections, which create tensions in the one general election, may be reduced. We are therefore persuaded that elections should be staggered whether according to the present geopolitical zones or any permutations and arrangement which makes it easier for elections to be conducted with adequate and concentrated attention of local, national and even international interests. Incidentally, the valuable decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times will now make if possible for elections in many states to be conducted only in those states that have duly completed their stipulated tenures after the re-run elections.

On Election Management Body
Two issues strike me about the body or institution, which manages elections. We recall clearly the work of the Political Bureau (1987) and its recommendations. We deliberately called the body then National Electoral Commission (NEC) as different from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to emphasize the national nature and character of its responsibilities and mandate.

Here, we may recall the historic contention and tension between the structures and values of unity on the one hand, and those of our federal society or diversity or the other. These structures and values were basic to the reforms of the political process and governance during the regime under our watch.

Incidentally, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha also retained the same focus and called the body NECON. The same has been carried forward to the fourth Republic. While the present body is also described ‘Independent’ we operated even within the limits of our military regime the “independence” of NEC.

The issue of interest is whether this body should be the only one under the system of federalism to conduct elections for the national executive and legislative branches, state executive and legislative branches and local government executive and legislative branches; or whether in compliance with the principles of federalism there should be two bodies as we have in the 1999 Constitution or indeed we should have three bodies each to be national, state and local government elections.

Whichever framework is adopted, we need to bear in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages. The Nigerian Nation and the Democracy Project are still being forged. We need therefore to cultivate a sense of balance between institutions that have national focus and those that have state and local government bearings in obedience to the Nigerian federal society.

Our reflection since 1993 is to allow federalism much more space in the politics and governance of our country without the tendency for undue nationalization of the political process. There is nothing wrong if the Election Management Body can be organized for national elections, state elections and local government elections independent of one another, provided however that the implications for fairness, mutual interest rather than destructive partisanship are borne in mind.

The second issue is the composition of the Election Management Body. We adopted during our time – and this has been followed up today – the minimum number of national commissioners under a Chairman. We are aware, as we were then, that the commissioners could be selected to reflect the states (and this was what FEDECO was) or to reflect membership of the political parties. In the case of the last suggestion, it can be most difficult to deal with fifty political parties.

We suggest that the composition of the Election Management Body should continue to be by a carefully selected number of Nigerian men and women who appear not to be too partisan and possessing credible antecedents of either public or private services to Nigeria. Such composition can be undertaken at the national, state and local government levels as we have just suggested.

On the Political Party System:
The issues here are many. One is that of the number of political parties. In obedience to the constitutional provisions and of course, the expectations of democracy, we can allow the free flow of the formation of political parties without any limitation on the number. This is quite attractive particularly in the possibility that a small political party with credible ideologies and commitment can grow over time if it is continuously funded to become formidable political party.

But like many other aspects of our society, the free flow of party formation can easily create chaos. We know that some political parties as registered today have no existence beyond the registration certificates in the pockets of their owners. They are like the ownership of petrol stations, which have business when there is fuel and no business when there is no fuel. In the case of the political parties, they are even aided by the constitutional requirements, which compel INEC to regularly provide them “free fund.”

Can we not continue even in the face of democracy to regulate the formation of political parties? Our feelings are that, perhaps unlike what we did under military rule in 1989, there should be a process of each election (national, state nor local elections) with stipulations which political parties should meet failure of which they can be weeded out from the system or be ‘de-registered.’

There is the issue of internal democracy of the political parties. This is a huge problem. But how can we have internal democracy within the parties when the national political process is not really democratized. It is well known that just as party primaries are captured by individuals in power and money, so also the national political process with reference to elections are captured by individuals with money and other non democratic resources.

We have in my mind what everybody calls political godfathers and godmothers or garrison commanders within the political process. It is a matter, which your Panel will have to deal with. We have only raised the issue because there is logical relationship between lack of democracy in the political process and lack of democracy in the political parties.

The last issues are those of transparency and funding of the political parties. Like internal democracy, these issues are products of the political process. We enjoin you, therefore, to deliberate on the intricacies and dialectics of how the reform of the political process and elections can be made to positively impact on the reform of the internal operations of the political parties.

CONCLUSION
I thank all of you for coming. I wish you success in the discharge of the responsibilities of your assignment.