By Abraham Ogbodo
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is very efficient. He has just proved it by signing the 2026 Electoral Bill into law in record time. The bill was passed by the National Assembly on Monday and by Wednesday, it had become an act. The President is also very Patriotic. Given his pattern, he must have stood down compelling foreign trips to do this for Nigerians. He patiently waited for the National Assembly to finish with the bill to sign it into law. With this development, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which has been threatening to deliver big in 2027, does not have excuses. It has been statutorily prepared to work wonders in the next general elections.
Other things would have been wrong with the 2022 Electoral Act which has just been repealed and replaced with the 2026 version. But the main thing that needed to be cured by a new law to achieve relatively healthy electoral processes in the country stood out clearly. It was the electronic transmission of election results from polling units to INEC’s Independent Result Viewing (IREV) portal in real time. The legislators needed to settle this simple matter before President Tinubu could act in the national interest. The Senate convened to pass a version of the bill and then dispersed. Not satisfied, or better still, forced into dissatisfaction by protesting Nigerians, it reconvened almost immediately to begin work again. The specific task was to create a statutory hybrid that would go a little to the right side and a little to wrong side to arrive at a passable highway for APC politicians.
And so, in one breath, the Senators managed to say that real time electronic transmission of election result is good and also bad. I can contextualise this to make it clearer. Like the President, the legislators are also very patriotic. They are realistic too. They understand why Nigeria has developed from a developing country to underdeveloped country and threatening to degenerate to undeveloped country. They allowed themselves to be properly guided by these national negativities. Being underdeveloped and being undeveloped do not mean the same thing in the life of nations. And so, it was somehow heroic for the Senators to use legislation to stem the tide and stop the nation from downgrading into undeveloped country from underdeveloped country. They had looked ahead and profiled the possible scenarios. What if on d-day internet connectivity fails to make electronic transmission of election result in real time impossible?
It means Nigeria shall become the first nation on earth that practises constitutional democracy without election results. Nigeria would automatically drop from underdeveloped to undeveloped country. The prospect calls for a back-up plan. It is a plan that says men should take over if machines fail. This is the crux of the matter. Nigerians are saying that satan is residing in the Plan B. It is a plan that negates all the efforts at limiting the involvement of humans in determining the outcomes of elections in Nigeria. In effect, the lawmakers have said stable mobile network in Nigeria cannot be guaranteed forever. It is the same way that steady public electricity supply has failed to remain part of life in Nigeria. With us, electricity and electromagnetism have remained new discoveries to be mastered, centuries after they had come on stream and their applications perfected by more serious-minded nations of the world. In other words, instead of voting for capacity to fix the problem of poor internet connectivity to help life and processes, the Distinguished Senators got extinguished and pleaded incompetence, and even stupidity, as alibi to keep Nigeria undeveloped which is worse than underdeveloped.
For emphasis, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is saying that, in 2026 and perhaps forever, the processes of elections shall be manually handled, for no other reason than the unwillingness on the part of the political leadership, to act in public interest and improve the technology to aid the conduct of elections. Even the House of Representatives which had perfected its own version of the bill to capture the people’s aspirations, backtracked into infamy. The House fell in line with the Senate. As the Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, it became the mournful privilege of Honourable Francis Ejiroghene Waive to propose the motion rescinding the same bill the House had earlier debated and passed to the admiration of Nigerians.
At national crossroads, patriots should rise to be recognised. They should point the way forward. I am particularly pained by that piece of role played by the Rep representing me in that legislative comedy of errors. Back home, he has so much recognition. He is justified by character and good deeds. Among his constituents, his explanation of merely discharging an obligation placed on him by his office is failing to make good sense. The people see ambition more than they see obligation in this shameful capitulation. We judge results not rules.
The Lord Jesus had been divinely programmed to suffer excruciating death long before his birth. Prophet Isaiah said so about 500 years ahead of the Immaculate Conception. It was ordained for the Son of Man to die. But woe betide that son of woman through whom the prophesy would be fulfilled. Judas Iscariot did not earn a medal for his crucial role in the fulfilment of the scripture. I am saying even if the 2026 Electoral Act had been programmed to die at birth by the reigning supreme power in Nigerian politics, it was not for my Rep to deliver the death sentence. Why didn’t cup pass by him?
In Africa, inheritance is by filial proximity. Someone from the Oduduwa enclave who has a higher stake in the new Nigeria project, should have been procured to do the job and not my Rep. The load owner must bear the weight of his load all alone. What is it _sef_ ? Why is it that, it is only when a difficult and dirty job is to be fixed that my people would suddenly become gallant and loved by the powers that be? That was how General Sanni Abacha procured two Army Generals from the same kingdom – Felix Mujakpero and Patrick Aziza – to arrange the processes to call Olusegun Obasanjo a bad name so that he (Obasanjo) could be tried and executed for peace to reign supreme for Abacha. Also, when the Senate under Bukola Saraki wanted to move against President Mohammadu Buhari for his incompetence, it was Senator Omo Agege, an Urhobo man, that was procured by the presidency to relocate the mace, the symbol of legislative authority, elswhere to frustrate the move. On the other hand, the Urhobo man and other minority groups are hardly projected in the effective partitioning and occupation of the political economy in spite of their enormous contribution to the common till.
My Honourable Rep, Francis Waive, should have been wiser. The only obligation in parliament is to the people. The mandate freely given to represent the people in a parliamentary democracy can neither be redelegated nor recaptured by self-serving House Rules. His explanation is an embarrassing afterthought. It wasn’t his portion to deliver a message to kill the hope of the people. His duty is to his people in Ughelli North, South and Udu Federal Constituency. It is not to his personal ambition or the ambitions of a conclave of overreaching APC politicians in Abuja and elsewhere.
As a wise Urhobo man and a reverend gentleman, I had expected him to hesitate and instinctively shout: ‘it is not my portion! I reject this assignment in Jesus name!’ The rest of us would have all chorused ‘Amen’ to his beautiful prayer. That way, he would have been set free and also justified by a good deed and not a bad deal. The 2026 Electoral Act is a matter of national magnitude, but I have chosen to be provincial for good reason. Former U.S House Speaker, Tip O’ Neill couldn’t have been more right when he said, ‘All politics is local.’ When the rat is being advised, the mouse listens too. All legislators from Delta Central at the state and national levels, including Senator Ede Dafinone, should be guided by what has happened. They do not have a private purpose outside our purpose. To grandstand in Abuja and trade the legitimate aspirations of your constituency and constituents for a national ranking is betrayal. It is not good representation.
In all cases, the standard of elections is the standard of political development. I am therefore also addressing all the legislators and backstage workers who shamelessly conspired to hold Nigeria down. If India, also a developing country, and which is five times as large as Nigeria in demography and geography, can pool the talent and treasure to electronically transmit election results in real time, the incompetence, stupidity and outright wickedness that informed the 2026 Electoral Act can only be imagined. It is indescribable. In Delta Central, we will say, it is _ungbikuable_ . In working on the bill for the first time, the Reps had maintained sincerity of purpose. They did not see the mystery angel that the Senators later saw because all the Rep members did not pretend to be good men. By the time the bill returned, the Reps had acquired a claivoyance and a third eye that offered incredible insight. They saw the mystery angel that the Senators had seen.
President Tinubu is not only efficient and patriotic. He is also a fine democrat. While the National Assembly was up and about, scoring and cancelling, the President managed to stay aloof. He is a believer in the principle of Separation of Power and he didn’t want to be seen, or even perceived, as having a hand in the legislative acrobatics that attended the passing of the Electoral Bill. He maintained a safe and conspicuous distance from the maddening crowd. It was a conspiratorial aloofness, entirely meant to deliver a beautiful impression. The impression that contrary to the popular view, President Tinubu could stage a successful performance to give vent to democracy. He made the entire noise about the electoral bill look like the business of Godswill Akpabio and Tajudeen Abbas alone. It was a good performance.
All said, conducting free, fair and credible election is not hitec. It is a measure of the national character. Ghana does it. Senegal has done it too. It happens in other less endowed countries in Africa. It is only in the country that pupports the status of a Giant in Africa that credible election has continued to remain an insurmountable challenge. Nigeria is now the accursed Oedipus who could not flee from his ill-fate in Greek mythology. Oedipus had returned from where he was abandoned to die to fulfill the horrible prediction of the gods. He killed his father and married his mother. Same way, Nigeria has not been able to refract its fate on the crucial matter of conducting credible elections. It enters each electoral season with a mission to kill its dream of becoming a great nation. It retains a character (tragic flaw) that draws it into damnation in spite of the clear warnings of God and man. The institutions and persons created to reverse the curse are themselves a bigger curse on the nation.
Late President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua was the biggest beneficiary of the charade that was the 2007 general elections. But he was charitable enough to appreciate that even though the witch’s food might cure the immediate drive for food, it would not add up to proper body nourishment in the final analysis. The Yar’Adua initiative to seriously have it better through the Justice Mohammed Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms, was made to spin into the abyss of official lethargy. Even before the advent of Yar’Adua, every version of the National Assembly and the Presidency had had reason to discuss electoral reforms. It is always coming up like a recurring decimal in every legislative cycle. It does not end. And it is not likely going to end with the 2026 Electoral Act.
