Nigeria’s Electoral Reform: Legislative Roles And INEC Financial Independence – By CHIBUZO OKEREKE

All over the world, electoral reform is an integral part of democratic development aimed at improving the electoral process by upholding the electoral rights of citizens and by operationalizing key principles such as transparency, inclusiveness, impartiality, and integrity.

Nigeria operates the Legislative Three Reading Model (TRM) in enacting legislation, with a linear yet complex process of enacting either establishment or amendment laws, especially the electoral reform Bill seeking to improve the electoral governance outcomes in Nigeria.

From the conceptualisation stage (ideation, research,, and drafting) to gazetting of proposed legislation involves pre-legislative scrutiny by the relevant special committee of the Legislature and assigning of bill number as well as listing the Bill in the Order-Paper of the House/Senate for First Reading, which deals with reading of the long title of the Bill.

However, in Nigeria’s trajectory towards making its electoral process freer, fairer, more transparent, and inclusive through the instrumentality of electoral reforms, it is apt to sue for immediate amendment of Section 3 of the Electoral Act 2022 to introduce a 2.5% charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation as statutory provisions for funding the INEC Fund created by Section 3 amongst other recommendations.

Nigeria, has a long history of electoral reforms from different political transition processes since independence, with each transition, at some point a new Electoral Commission was created.

I have always insisted that we must think institutional rather than operational in the efforts to address the problem of electoral governance in Nigeria.

There is a need, therefore, for the National Assembly through its Committees to exercise patriotic and effective roles on INEC. Legitimate and well-intentioned legislative oversight of INEC is crucial to promoting accountability of the commission to the Nigerian people.

As of today, INEC is not financially independent and doesn’t seem to have the infrastructure and and human capacity to conduct elections across Nigeria because of a number of factors including principally the drafting mischief of section 3 that allows only the Federal Government to fund INEC and for funds to be released to INEC only one year before general elections.

There is no doubt, that the one-year period is too short for any serious and efficient procurement system to happen, and, that would impact the ability to overcome inflationary constraints, among other things.

INEC is a national body, not a federal government body. By virtue of Section 14 of the 3rd schedule to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and the Federal Character Commission Act, every state in Nigeria is represented in INEC. INEC also conducts elections for both federal government positions and state government positions, thus, allowing only the federal government to be the principal funder of INEC is a misnomer.

Like other funds established by the Act of the National Assembly, including the Ecological Fund, UBEC, TETFUND, etc., the specific statutory funding privileges were stated as a percentage of the funding source.

However, the INEC fund does not have any percentage of allocation from any named source. This is a major gateway to achieving financial independence for INEC to be able to execute its constitutional mandate without always appearing beggarly and handicapped.

Also demanding attention are the issues of electoral jurisprudence in Nigeria and its implications for the place and perception of INEC regulations as a form of subsidiary or delegated legislation.

Over the years, the Courts of the land have always made pronouncements that weaken the power of INEC to issue regulations and make judgments to suggest that INEC regulations have no substance on issues of law.

This form of electoral jurisprudence is worrisome and should be interrogated deeply. INEC regulations are subsidiary or delegated legislation made pursuant to the powers granted them by the Constitution and the Electoral Act. All regulations that are made to give legitimate effect to the powers of INEC under the Constitution and the Electoral Act must carry the same weight, recognition, and force of law.

It is important that the Courts recognize INEC regulations as a critical part of substantive laws for electoral governance, without this, the behaviour of politicians and political parties will not change and technological advancement in Nigeria’s electoral governance ecosystem will continue to crawl.

Moreover, I also contend that Nigeria’s general elections both at the Federal and State levels must be moved away from Saturdays to weekdays like Tuesdays or Thursdays, etc. My study of major Democracies and their elections around the world shows that elections are not done on weekends, from Germany to Brazil, USA, the United Kingdom, France, Kenya, Australia, etc. These countries conduct elections on Weekdays. The psychology of this policy underscores the importance of elections; evidence has also shown that it helps to improve participation and better voter turnout. Saturdays are natural rest days for most people after a long week of hard work and challenges. When elections are done on Saturdays, it affects the participation of most working families who would rather rest and watch happenings through the media. It is important that INEC and all stakeholders consider this proposal. We have several public holidays in Nigeria, though important, but some of the holidays do not match the importance of deepening democracy by ensuring that people actively participate and turnout to vote for their choice of candidates.

I there advocate that our elections should be held on Thursdays which shall be declared a national public holiday to enable Nigerians from all walks of life to turn out to cast their ballots.

Moreso, there is a need for the National Assembly to amend the provisions of Section 14(1b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended) to reduce the qualifying age for INEC Chairman and the National Commissioners from 50 years and 40 years, respectively, to 25years to be at par with qualifying age to contest for House of Representatives seat. This will give youth the opportunity to contribute their innovative ideas to transform the institution of INEC’s 21st century electoral management body.

However, we cannot legislate our way into credible elections and electoral governance integrity in Nigeria, we can only ‘rightly behave’ our way to electoral integrity to be able to have free, fair, accountable, and transparent elections.

Amending laws are important, but legislation is usually the last solution, not the first solution. No matter how many times we amend the laws or even the constitution, our ethical behaviour, patriotism and sense of nationhood is very central for sustainable progress in elections management.

Beyond the urgent need for the right political will, we also need a corresponding community will to run a Nigeria’s electoral and political governance sector that would guarantee that indeed, political leaders govern with the legitimate mandate of the people.

Amb Chibuzo Okereke is a Legislative Governance Expert/Policy Analyst and President, ERGAF-AFRICA