Are Elections Giving Democracy A Bad Name? (2)

Magnus Onyibe argues that the will of the people is the very essence of democracy

It is pertinent to mention at this juncture that every hung election culminates in the shifting of the electoral battle from the streets (votes casting by the electorate which signify election) to the law courts for adjudication. To me, once the contest for political office progresses or degenerates to the level of imposition and resolution of the conflict therefrom is by the interpretative society, and the verdict contradicts the basic tenets of democracy and the will of the people, then a mockery of democracy of which elections are key components becomes manifest.
Apart from the political absurdities in Taraba and Kogi States that are mainly attributable to gaps in the Nigerian electoral act and constitution which failed to envisage the complex scenarios thrown up in the aforementioned states, electoral violence are touted as being responsible for the Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States elections annulment.
Hopefully, democracy would have the opportunity to redeem its sinking image in Bayelsa on January 9, 2016, a new date which INEC has now scheduled for a re-run election in one local government area of the eight local government areas in the state where elections were marred by violence and elections declared inconclusive as a consequence.
Before proceeding further, let’s dwell a bit on what democracy is all about and the responsibility of government and that of the electorate.
One interesting thing about party democracy (government of the people, for the people and by the people) is that whereas it is ‘the people’ that have the onerous task of electing members of the executive and legislative arms of government via general elections, members of the judiciary are not elected but chosen by the executive in consultation with the legislative arm of government.
To ensure that one is not operationally superior to the other, the three arms of government are supposed to check and balance one another and as the fourth estate of the realm, the media is supposed to ensure that all the arms of government are playing according to the rules. The ‘fifth’ realm of the estate, which is civil society is usually more prominent in matured democracies, and Nigeria’s democracy being in infantry is yet to blossom.
Having refreshed our memories about what l would like to refer to as civics 101 which is simply about the roles of government and that of the people in a democratic setting, lets cast our minds back to the Rotimi Amaechi case in Rivers State which has now become the flagship of judicial and electoral absurdity as it is the first that defiled understanding because although Omehia won the election, Amaechi became the governor via judicial pronouncement.
Now, the underpinning principle behind the judgment is that in the eyes of Nigerian electoral law, it was the PDP that won,and it did not matter that Celestine Omehia, the candidate that had his name on the ballot, had devoted tremendous amounts of personal efforts and committed hefty financial resources towards campaigning and securing the positive outcome.
On the other hand, Rotimi Amaechi, who allegedly did not print posters, how much less canvass for votes, but merely concentrated his efforts in getting the judicial system to consider the issue purely from the prism of legal technicalities in light of the fact that he is the one initially nominated by his party, became the governor.
Under the scenario described above, can it not be justifiably said that elections are giving democracy a bad name since Amaechi cannot be said to have truly received the mandate of the people of Rivers State to govern them in his first term?
Some may question the value of this post-mortem exercise given that Amaechi has served his two tenures, but in my considered opinion it is absolutely valuable to dig deep into a thorny and controversial issue such as the political and legal abracadabra that took place in Rivers State with a view to deciphering what could have escaped initial scrutiny so that such discovery could be added to the body of knowledge to forestall its future reoccurrence.
I’m persuaded that it’s for the same reasons that an autopsy is performed on a diseased human or animal.
In the wisdom of Cicero in the Greek mythology, “No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject”

Obviously, a media forum such as this is not a law court and l’m not a lawyer, so justice or injustice is beyond us to determine, but as public intellectuals, we can interrogate why it is the judiciary and not Rivers people that gave Amaechi the mandate for his first tenure.

This assertion is justified by the fact that an election took place and Omehia emerged the victor, but Amaechi obtained the mandate to be governor from the court, contrary to the opinion expressed by the people of Rivers State via elections.
Yes, Rivers people voted for the PDP but the party is inanimate and therefore requires a human face to breathe life into it. That is the role Omehia played in that contest. There are a slew of underlying factors that underpin my belief that the human being using the platform of a party matters. They are as follows: (1) If the party was meant to stand alone in electoral contests without human elements, there won’t be need for parties to nominate candidates through primaries. They could have simply gone into elections, then fill the positions with candidates of their choices after winning. In which case, political godfathers could even have made their horses, governors, as was the case, when Caligula the horse, was made a senator in Greek mythology (2). In the wisdom of the writers of our constitution, character and content of human beings are essential, hence party primaries are conducted to choose candidates.
That’s why those who scale through, go about canvassing for votes by marketing their best qualities to the electorate.(3) If the candidates did not matter, how come parties put the names and pictures of their candidates on the ballot paper and refer to them as standard-bearers so that voters would recognise them and vote accordingly?
l’m personally convinced that both the party and the candidate are like Siamese Twins as far as elections are concerned. As they are co-joined in the hips, one cannot exist without the other.
In that sense, if the candidacy of Omehia was tainted, then the PDP was equally tarnished because the party also erred in submitting the name of the wrong candidate and therefore the party is unqualified to be declared the winner in the contest due to the infraction earlier mentioned.
As the saying goes ‘ What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’ so

it makes no sense that only the candidate- Omehia was punished by the law and his co-offender, PDP was set scot-free.

The best that could have happened to enthrone equity and justice is to liquidate and repeat that election so that the flawed election would not give democracy a bad name, but that was not the case.
Perhaps owing to the huge financial outlay that it could have entailed to conduct a fresh election in the light of the parlours state of Nigerian economy, the Supreme Court after scanning the prevailing economic and political dynamics of the period,acquiesced by taking the easiest route out which was-replace Omehia with Amaechi.
Incidentally, Nigerian economy is worse now than it was eight years ago (when it was deemed uneconomical to repeat election) as the price of oil, the main stay of the economy, has dipped from $115 to about $37, rendering most of the state’s insolvent. How come the huge cost of repeating elections in the states where they were cancelled is not a strong consideration and therefore a disincentive for that option?
I’m not oblivious of the legal dictum, ‘Justice Is Blind’ and ‘The Law Is An Ass’. However l would like to contend that in the case of Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State, the law was not only blind, but it was blindfolded.
Undoubtedly, some might have regarded the event in Rivers State as a judicial and electoral precedent, which like a comet, strikes only once in a life time.
Nevertheless, the fact that the strange decision remained uninvestigated and therefore uncorrected, history had no choice, but to repeat itself eight years after in Kogi State where Yahaya Bello has emerged governor-elect in an election that did not have his name on the ballot.
Arising from the foregoing, could the new governor- elect in Kogi, Yahaya Bello be said to have truly received the mandate of Kogi people? I don’t think so especially because he had earlier been rejected by his people at the party primaries that he lost to Audu and Falake.