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In the middle of
the re-run of the Ekiti gubernatorial elections on the 28th of April
2009, Olusola Ayoka Adebayo wrote to then President Umaru Yar’Adua to
resign her appointment as Resident Electoral Commissioner for Ekiti
State in the following terms:

“… the on-going
election in Ekiti State was suppose [sic] to be the election that will
enhance the image of INEC, electoral process in our dear country
Nigeria and the whole black race. Unfortunately, the circumstances
changed in the middle of the process; therefore, my conscience as a
Christian cannot allow me to further participate in this process.”

We didn’t hear much
from Mrs Adebayo during the original April 2007 gubernatorial elections
in Ekiti State, but in that election, although Kayode Fayemi had the
plurality of the valid votes cast, she felt comfortable declaring that
the winner of the election was Segun Oni.

By the time the
re-run election ordered by the Court of Appeal came round however, the
big story was Mrs. Adebayo’s ‘Christian conscience’ as per the above
letter, and what it would or would not allow her to do.

Champions sprang up
for her everywhere. The Anglican church was trenchant in its defence of
the REC, while we women were also presumed to have something in common
with her that would make it impossible for us to stand idly by while a
‘fellow woman’ was hounded into unconscionable acts. If the Association
of Pensioners hadn’t been so busy fighting to show that their members
weren’t dead, they too might have come out to defend the septuagenarian
Adebayo.

But INEC Chairman
Maurice Iwu and the nation’s PDP masters were having none of conscience
or resignation. The Inspector-General of Police was asked to fish the
fugitive out, and after she had been gathered into the bosom of the
INEC ‘family’, she emerged to do what her Christian conscience now
apparently found acceptable – that is, to declare as winner of the
election the man, Mr Oni, who had not won it.

Now that the
fraudulent result of the re-run election has been set aside by the
Court of Appeal, many insist that there must be some retribution for
the forty months during which Mr Oni usurped Mr Fayemi’s rightful
position. Governor (at last!) Fayemi has suggested that there ought to
be an Electoral Offences Tribunal to deal with people who defraud the
voters by rigging elections and/or awarding them to those who did not
win.

Mr Fayemi certainly
has many other matters to deal with as he settles down to the business
of governing Ekiti, so he won’t be unduly or at all bothered if I
differ from him on a matter that is – for now – behind him. At any
rate, it seems to me that the problem of elections is not the absence
of an Electoral Offences Tribunal, but the absence of an Electoral
Offences Commission to get election riggers investigated and
prosecuted.

The venue of such
prosecution is secondary to the business of actually dragging the
wretches to court. The Electoral Reform Committee chaired by former
Chief Justice Muhammadu Uwais had recommended that just such a
Commission be established: “to work independently in the arraignment
and prosecution of electoral offenders. This will include offences
arising from failings of INEC before, during and after voting day.”

Explaining why an
ECC was necessary, in their joint publication on Electoral Reform: Ten
Critical Points of Order, the Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria Labour
Congress and Transition Monitoring Group asked whether the electoral
body could truly police itself. They noted that the excuse given by
INEC’s then chair, Mr Iwu: that the Commission was waiting for election
tribunals to complete their work, was fraught with danger and bound to
affect impartial adjudication. An ECC would have removed the burden of
investigating and prosecuting electoral offenders from an INEC which
must clearly have its hands full with the conduct of the elections and
mundane matters such as getting election officers and materials to
polling stations on time, and accurately counting and declaring the
tally of valid votes cast.

Although the result
of an election petition may very well reveal some electoral offences,
it makes no sense to suggest that no offences can be discerned until
the winner of an election is known, and rather tends to support the
fear that the (election-victory) end justifies the (election-rigging)
means.

Do I need to note
that the National Assembly, in its wisdom, rejected this as it rejected
all the Uwais panel’s proposals for the unbundling of INEC?

As for Mrs Adebayo, she may or may not escape prosecution for
falsification of election results. Unfortunately it is not within
Attahiru Jega’s power to ‘sack’ Mrs Adebayo. For all his instructions
to RECs about what they should or should not do, she isn’t his
employee. RECs are appointed solely by the president, and need not even
go through any Senate confirmation to secure their jobs. So Mrs Adebayo
has the job for five years unless the two-thirds of the Senate accept a
presidential recommendation for her removal. Unless of course, her
Christian conscience again prompts her to do what she tried to do in
April last year. That is, to resign.