30th August 2018
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Exactly
two weeks ago (Thursday 16th August, 2018) Election Monitor issued a
press statement shedding light on the implications of delaying the passage of
the budget for the 2019 Nigerian General Elections. INEC issued the Notice of the 2019 General
Elections on Friday 17th August, 2018 essentially kickstarting the
2019 General Elections. It is important to note that election is a process and
not an event. The sum of the electoral process is the quality of any election. Therefore
it is absurd that elections have already commenced and no budget has been
approved for the elections and clearly there seems to be no urgency to do so.
Election
Monitor is perturbed and very worried that the National Assembly has failed to
pass the INEC budget since the request for virement and supplementary input to
the 2018 budget was made (11th July 2018) and read on the Senate
floor (17th July 2018). What this means is that the budget request
has spent one and a half months with the NASS without being conclusively acted
upon (approved for release). The argument that the budget input came in late
does not defend delaying the passage of the budget for any reason moral or
political because Nigeria’s sustained democracy is greater than the interest of
any person or group of persons.
The
window to conduct political party primaries is already open and INEC has no
budget to monitor these primaries which has implications in the future if these
primaries are held without being monitored, especially in the event of disputed
primaries.
It would
be negligent to describe the current situation as normal just because the
effects of the current delay of passage of the INEC budget have not yet been
felt. No responsible government should wait until there is a full blown crisis
to take corrective and preemptive actions when there are clearly ominous signs
ahead if the current trajectory is maintained.
While
conducting elections is based on the electoral laws, Nigerians should remember
that smart card readers have been used to conduct just under two hundred
elections since the 2015 Nigerian General Elections. Some of these elections
have been disputed and all possible legal options have been taken, yet none
have had their results invalidated as a result of the existing Electoral Act
2010 (amended) despite the smart card readers were used in all these elections.
Therefore equating signing of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018 to passing
the INEC budget is not addressing the root issue which is funding the 2019
General Elections. The meaning of this is that even with the existing electoral
act smart card readers would still be used as has been demonstrated in recent
elections such as Edo and Ondo 2016, Anambra 2017, Ekiti 2018 etc. Saying that
signing of the electoral act will determine the usability of smart card readers
in the 2019 General elections is not true and incongruent with the recent and current
happenings in the Nigerian electoral process.
It is
also important to note that the National Assembly had since June 2015 to work
on the current Electoral Act amendment bill but chose to only submit it for assent
in February 2018 despite promising that it would be passed before the end of
2016. The Nigerian Senate passed its own version of the bill in March 2017 but
in February 2018 adopted the resequencing of elections which was very controversial
and not in the original bill passed by the Senate. The National Assembly had
every opportunity to override the executive decision but that wasn’t done and
the current bill was eventually received by the executive on 3rd
August 2018. Using the signing of the Electoral
Act Amendment Bill 2018 as a precondition to pass the budget for the 2019
Nigerian General elections is therefore unacceptable.
This is a
national emergency and urgent steps need to be taken immediately to remedy this
perilous situation. Though this is an election related issue it is also a
security issue. This is because any crisis stemming from elections always has
security implications. It should be remembered that much of the civil unrest across
many African countries can be linked to elections directly or indirectly.
This is
the time for bold decisions that will save Nigeria from unnecessary chaos and
crisis on the altar of politics. Election Monitor does not accept any attempt
to truncate the hard-fought democracy of Nigeria and therefore calls on the
National Assembly to expedite action on the complete passage of the 2019
General Elections budget before the end of August 2018 which includes
reconvening the National Assembly.
In the
event of a failure to do this, Election Monitor calls on President and Commander
in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Muhammadu
Buhari, GCFR to take every step necessary to save Nigeria from an impending political
crisis which would certainly have grave security implications for which he has
a fundamental responsibility to all Nigerians. National security is primary and
every government is first expected to secure the lives and property of its
citizens and delaying passage of an election budget is tantamount to delaying
the elections which has a last date that it can be legally conducted. Therefore
since this is inherently a security situation the President should treat it as
such.
Election
Monitor calls on all Nigerians to reject the antics of political actors who are
not concerned with the impact of their actions on the average Nigerian on the
street. It is therefore imperative that all Nigerians use the 2019 General elections
to reject all candidates at all levels who would not serve in Nigeria’s best interest.
God
Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Signed
Abiodun Ajijola
National
Coordinator
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