The much-anticipated 2011 general election in Nigeria has eventually kicked off with the predictable hiccups and also embarrassing logistics problems. It may be recalled that the Nigerian elections was billed to start on the 2nd of April 2011 but was eventually cancelled shortly after it commenced due to what Nigerian electoral officials attributed to as dearth of logistics or inadequate logistics supply.
This development led to shock and angst across the land particularly amongst the electorates who trooped out in their numbers. The elections were eventually rescheduled to start on the 9th of April 2011 and were expected to have commenced as at the time of writing this. Questions and posers will continue to be asked why the electoral system in Nigeria is fraught with so much irregularities and inconsistencies, despite the huge amount of material resources committed to these exercises.
It is on record that the history of elections in Nigeria predates political independence and has been an ongoing phenomenon since colonial times, the story of elections and its conduct in Nigeria with the possible exception of the 1993 elections has continued to leave a sour taste in the mouths of both local residents and international observers. The problem[s] of elections and its conduct often starts with sundry problems such as the compilation and collation of a credible voter’s register, to institutional and structural problems such as electoral laws that are ambiguous and intended to cause confusion, outright subversion of the will of the people by diverting votes cast, inaccurate delineation of political wards and polling units. These problems become very embarrassing when we discover that countries like India with over a billion people conducts elections successfully without these embarrassing hiccups associated with the Nigerian electoral system.
It is in the light of these, that the late Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yaradua set up an electoral reform committee headed by a former chief justice of Nigeria Muhammed Uwais particularly after the much derided 2007 elections which brought him to power. This committee came up with structural reforms which on paper could guarantee at least a 90% flawless electoral system. But quite unfortunately this report has not seen the light of the day as it seems a lot of entrenched interests in the country are not comfortable with it.
The present situation Nigeria is facing as regards the 2011 polls points to the fact that unless a structural reform of the electoral process in the mould of the Uwais Report is implemented, the conduct of elections will still continue to pose a nightmare to Nigeria, no matter the amount of material resources spent on such elections.
Babs in the other article is describing the process as a mess, then Isaac is describing it as a success, so which is which? I think it depends on how one see it, may be. Or may be it’s somewhere between the two