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Nigeria’s 63
registered political parties turned up at an event organised by INEC
and the International Republican Institute on March 8. The objective
was for all the political parties in the country to sign the Code of
Conduct they had jointly developed with the electoral commission. This
Code was a considerable improvement over the one which political
parties signed in 2007, which unfortunately was obeyed more in the
breach than in practice.

The Code obliges
parties to eschew violence, abusive and hate language in their
interactions. It constrains them to abide strictly by the Electoral Act
in ensuring internal party democracy in their operations. By signing
the Code, parties would undertake to adhere to outcomes of primaries
they have conducted, and not substitute names of winners with people
who had not contested or won.

The Code also has
clear stipulations that parties who enjoy incumbency should not abuse
their powers by preventing opposition parties from freely campaigning
in their states, displaying their posters and signboards and having
access to radio and television. Indeed, the Code is clear that there
must be a distinct separation between party and government, so parties
that control governments must not use such powers to oppress their
political opponents. All governments must serve all members of their
communities, whatever their political affiliations.

These are great
principles which I admire enormously. Indeed, in my goodwill message to
the meeting, I congratulated INEC and the parties for developing such
noble principles. I pointed out, however, that the results of the party
primaries demonstrated clearly that the parties operated in flagrant
disobedience of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, and that if they
would not obey a law that has clear sanctions, they were unlikely to
take the Code and its injunctions seriously.

My argument was
that there is a missing link. Political parties do not respect voters
and party members for the simple reason that they know that citizens
either do not, or more likely, cannot sanction them for their
transgressions. It is only when the votes count and voters can sanction
parties for their acts of commission and omission that things will
begin to change. It is interesting that only 46 out of the 63
registered political parties agreed to sign the Code of Conduct. Some
of them complained that the Code is focused only on the behaviour of
political parties without corresponding undertakings by INEC that it
would change its ways and stop rigging elections. In their complaints,
they drew attention to the fact that we now have it on judicial
evidence that INEC was an active participant in the organisation of
electoral fraud.

This is true. Be
that as it may, the demand by some of the party leaders that INEC
should meet with them regularly, without the mediation of international
organisations to discuss problems, is completely legitimate. I urge
Attahiru Jega to take this request seriously and devote more time to
conversations and negotiations with the parties.

On the substance,
however, the law has already provided sufficient rules to govern the
conduct of INEC, and what remains is for the leadership of INEC under
Professor Jega and the law enforcement mechanism to monitor and report
transgressions by INEC officials. In other words, the 17 parties that
refused to sign were misguided in their actions. The idea of the code
of conduct is for them to voluntarily adhere to the highest standards
of electoral conduct so that Nigerians can see that they are opting for
appropriate standards of political behaviour.

The day after the Code of Conduct launching, the Murtala Mohammed
Foundation organised a policy dialogue for presidential candidates in
Abuja. In his session, Pat Utomi alleged that the Jonathan/Sambo
campaign organisation spends N100 million every day from public
resources, for their campaign. He castigated those of us in civil
society for not monitoring and challenging this insidious form of
corruption. He was a bit unfair to us. We all suspect a lot of the
campaign money is from public coffers. It is, however, difficult to
prove it and many of us are afraid of making allegations we cannot
substantiate. Nuhu Ribadu was also impressive at the Murtala Mohammed
Forum. In his usual fiery language, he assured the audience that if he
wins the elections, even his friends in the Action Congress of Nigeria
who are proven to have been corrupt, will go to jail. There will be no
sacred cows, he assured Nigerians.