Civil society group Yiaga Africa has urged Nigeria to shift focus from simply holding calm elections to building a system that strengthens public trust in democracy.
Appearing on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Monday, Yiaga’s Programme Director, Cynthia Mbamalu, said while the recent by-elections were generally calm, there were still reports of disruptions in certain polling units.
“Overall, it was a relatively peaceful process except for some constituencies in some states where there were issues of thugs trying to disrupt the process at some polling units. We need to move beyond just having a relatively peaceful process to a process that can inspire trust in the system,” she explained.
Mbamalu identified result management as the key challenge facing elections in Nigeria.
“One major challenge we are beginning to have and experience is the process of result management process,” she noted.
She pointed out that although the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had included electronic collation in its guidelines, implementation remains problematic.
“The truth is, the electoral commission had in its guidelines provided for result management that the process of electronic coalition is also still part of the election guidelines,” she said, stressing that inconsistencies in handling over-voting and ballot cancellations add to the confusion.
For Mbamalu, the core issue is not the absence of violence but whether rules are properly followed.
“The bigger question when it comes to an election is no longer saying it was relatively peaceful because we expect elections to be peaceful normally,” she argued.
She also criticized political parties for fueling electoral malpractice.
“Parties should actually take responsibility for how they have undermined the process due to their desperation to win power at all costs,” she said.
Mbamalu concluded that despite ongoing reforms to strengthen INEC and boost voter confidence, politicians often undermine these efforts.
“A lot of work has gone into trying to strengthen the process, strengthen INEC’s independence, get voters to care enough to show up and to vote but it’s almost like the more work you do to strengthen the process to advance democratic principle the greater threat our politicians, our political class deploy to undermine the effort and to take us backwards,” she lamented.
