BYE-ELECTIONS:THE WAY TO GO

Nick Dazang 

Bye-elections are conducted due to death or resignation.
Death is inevitable. It is the way of all mortals. Not even the exalted legislators in our National and State Houses of Assembly are immune or exempt to it. Neither are they beyond the formidable and ubiquitous reach of the Grim Reaper. And in a dispensation where some Senators prefer to contest governorship elections or hanker after ministerial appointments than to fashion out laws or to represent their constituents, bye-elections are unavoidable. They are also bound to inform and frame the conduct of our elections.

By the same token, bye-elections and off-cycle elections are fraught with daunting challenges – challenges that sometimes surpass the conduct of a general election. In a general election, the factors that can mar it – poor logistics, vote buying and selling, violence, rigging etc – are thinly spread over a vast area. In bye-elections, however, these fiends converge in one place, thereby suffocating the elections.
Matters are not helped by heightened insecurity, pervasive poverty in the land, the desperation of unscrupulous politicians to win, willy-nilly, and the inauguration, prior to the conduct of off-cycle governorship elections, of bogus Campaign Councils led by serving Governors who deploy huge sums of money and toughs.

By law(see Sections 76(2);116(2); and 178(2) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended), a bye-election is expected to be conducted not more than ninety(90) days after a seat has been officially declared vacant following the death or resignation of a serving legislator by the presiding officers of the National and State Houses of Assembly as the case may be. In time past, the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) had been in full and total compliance.
However, by INEC’s recent accounting, seven bye-elections, made up of five Senate seats and two House of Representatives seats, which have been officially declared vacant, are pending and are in abeyance. The Commission is said to be hamstrung in conducting the bye-elections due to the paucity of funds.
This unfortunate paucity of finances has compelled INEC, which over time, has set tremendous store by complying with the law, and in so doing it has set an edifying example for stakeholders in the electoral process and averted anarchy, to inadvertently violate the law.

Even more unfortunate, the Commission, which ought to be independent, and should be seen by all stakeholders to be independent, is being corralled into going, cap in hand, begging for funds. This goes against the grain of the intendment of the framers of the Constitution who wished for a virile Commission, and a Commission not subject to the suzerainty, whim or influence of any group(s) or person(s).
Apart from the fact that this sordid state of affair subverts the independence of the Commission, it has serious implications both for our democracy and the constituents of these vacant seats. The non-conduct of these bye-elections denies such constituents of representation and a sense of belonging to the Nigerian commonwealth. The seriousness of these are underlined by the fact that this is coming at a time of massive poverty, economic hardship and heightened insecurity.

As it is, no one is positioned or privileged to speak to these issues or concerns on their behalf. Neither is anyone pivotally placed to bring their plight to the fore of our hallowed National or State Legislatures. No one, too, is strategically placed to canvass or make a case for their receiving their deserved portions of our democracy dividends.
It is clear that the intention of the framers of our Constitution was that the Commission would be independent in word and indeed. This explains why, unlike other Electoral Commissions that came before it, its name is presaged by, and underscored with, the word, Independent.
But if recent reports are anything to go by, the Commission is anything but. To conduct the last Ondo off-cycle Governorship election, for example, the Commission, hamstrung by lack of funds, was reported to have been compelled to approach the Executive Branch for financial help. This averted a constitutional crisis that would have arisen if the Commission had failed to conduct the said election within the time frame provided for by law.

All stakeholders are agreed that the discharge of INEC’s mandate is a onerous one. Not a few stakeholders have called for its unbundling. Its tasks should therefore not be made more challenging and uphill by starving it of funds. Besides, it is to strengthen the Commission’s independence and to ensure that it carries out its statutory duties, unencumbered, that the Electoral Act 2022 insisted that funds meant for the conduct of a general election must be appropriated to it 365 days before such an election.

It is also to fortify the Commission, insulate it from pressure from stakeholders, especially politicians, and to provide for contingencies, such as bye-elections, that the Electoral Act, right from the beginning, provided for, in Section 3(1), the establishment of the Independent National Electoral Commission Fund. It states, among others, in Section 3(ii) that:”There shall be paid into the Fund established in pursuance to subsection(1) of this Section – (a) such sums and payments available to the Commission for carrying out its functions and purposes under the Constitution and this Act and all other assets from time to time accruing to the Commission;”

What this implies, and in view of the crucially important place of elections in our democracy, is that both the Executive and Legislative branches should prioritize periodic payments into this Fund. That way, INEC will not be hobbled or stranded in the event of a contingency such as the conduct of bye-elections which are time-bound and which affect the representation and welfare of millions of voters.

Of course, this Fund is not a license for profligacy. INEC will have to comport itself within the confines of extant financial regulations/rules and internal and external audit. The periodic payments to this account will not detract from the oversight functions of the National Assembly through its relevant Electoral Committees. If anything, it will encourage it in order to ensure accountability.
These periodic payments are do-able, especially with the accrual of more money to the federation account, following the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol. Rather than visit a needless amendment to our electoral law, as is being canvassed by some stakeholders, the government should, consciously and deliberately, make periodic payments to this Fund. It is already established and it is known to law. It is the way to go if want to genuinely strengthen INEC and to enable it to discharge its constitutional mandate.