Legislative opera and INEC timetable

Posted by admin Elections 2011, INEC Politics, Legislature Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

The rather flighty way the National Assembly hides behind Constitutional and Electoral Act amendments to shield the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Federal Government from the charge of short-sightedness has become one of the notable features of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Since the collapse of the grand effort to amend the constitution in the closing months of the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, the National Assembly has fallen in love with the piecemeal method of tinkering with the great electoral document. The House of Representatives on Tuesday kick-started the latest round of amendments by extending by four weeks the period provided by the Electoral Act for registration of voters. If this had not been done, INEC would have breached Section 9 (5) of the Act if it extended the registration of voters by even one day after January 31. The Senate is expected to follow suit today after hearing from INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.

This fresh amendment, the third in about six months, is required to address hitches bedevilling the registration of voters all over the country. The first was in August, which repealed the 2006 Electoral Act, and upon which premise the first INEC tentative timetable was issued. Soon after, everyone realised that we were operating on an incredibly short leash, and we needed to give ourselves some rope in order to graze with a little more freedom. Just when the second amendment was being debated, this column and a few others advised that both INEC and the National Assembly be less sanguine about the efficiency of the entire process and instead give themselves enough breathing space to order voters registration equipment and to put the necessary administrative structures in place. They opted to remain starry-eyed and constrained themselves in a suffocating enclosure. It was clear that as the second amendment was meandering its way out of the parliament, it was not going to work. It was nonetheless passed in November, and the parliament, presidency and INEC believed they got it right that time.

But here we are in January, once again embarrassingly amending the Act a third time, and with the world wondering whether we had always being so slothful and incapable of identifying the right people either in parliament, presidency or INEC to help us think our way through difficult and tricky situations. There will probably not be a fourth time, for that would be too depressing and ego shattering. Nevertheless, it is all but clear that Nigeria is in dire straits because it lacks people of high administrative acumen in sensitive places. We should have foreseen these problems with the Act, and we ought to have had the humility and courage to forestall them. Let us now hope that given the worrisome hiccups ravaging the compilation of the register we would not end up disenfranchising the electorate during the general elections.

The Nationwp_posts