A Multi-Track Approach to
Rethinking Peaceful Elections
and Transition in Nigeria
Professor Isaac Olawale Albert
Peace and Conflict Studies Programe
Institute of African Studies,
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
Opening Remarks
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I like to start this presentation by reminding us why we are here.
The meeting is aimed at bringing together major stakeholders
including Election Management Experts within and outside Nigeria,
political parties, security agents, academia, civil society
organizations, development partners, ECOWAS, among others on
the need to work collaboratively towards a peaceful election in
Nigeria in 2015.
For achieving this objective, WANEP has recommended multi-track
diplomacy framework as its tools of analysis. What this framework
tells us is that the threats to the 2015 elections in Nigeria go
beyond the government and the Independent National Election
Commission (INEC) that everybody seems to be talking about now.
If INEC conducts itself the best professional way and the other
stakeholders fail to do what is expected of them, the elections
would fail and people are likely to end up calling for the heads of
those managing the election. Our argument in this keynote address
is that the other stakeholders need to be conscious of what they
have to contribute to the process.
2015 Elections and Nigeria’s Future
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To many Nigerians, the 2015 elections are very critical. The fears of
Nigerians about the elections is aptly captured by a former Head of
State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar who observed in the Punch
Newspaper of March 7 2014 that the conduct of the 2015 general
elections will determine the unity of the country. He described the
elections as “a watershed moment in the history of our dear
country”. According to him, “The way we are able to handle this
very important event will largely determine how successful we will
be in our efforts at remaining a united, indivisible and stable
country…Already, the fault lines are apparent and politicians are
ready to exploit them to the fullest to achieve their sometimes not
so noble objectives”. He sees a contradiction in the political system:
the desire of the North to have power returned to it and the
determination of President Goodluck Jonathan to run for the
second term in office”. The ex-military leader warned that “the
unfolding scenario may portend danger to our nation if Nigerians
from all parts of the country do not close ranks and put the
interest of the nation first”. I see the meeting we are starting today
as a laudable response to this kind of call for peace.
Other risk factors
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To Abdulsalami Abubakar, the problem is the ambition of President
Jonathan and the desire of the North to have power back.
But there are some other risk factors. The first of these problems
is the fact that not too many Nigerians are committed to the unity
of the Nigerian state. Nigeria’s centenary provides the opportunity
for Nigerians to further question the legitimacy of the Nigerian
state.
It would be recalled that from 1967 to 1970, the Igbo of the South
east attempted to secede from the Nigerian state through a civil
war. Since the war, the people have always been manifesting the
behavior of a group being forced to be part of Nigeria. Though not
popularly supported by the Igbo people, the insurgencies of the
Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra
(MASSOB) is a constant reminder of the fact that the Igbo imagine
themselves as an endangered species in Nigeria and would want to
exit from the Nigerian state if given the opportunity.
Other risk factors (ii)
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Since the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election
which Bashorun MKO Abiola was popularly believed to have
won, the Oodua People’s Congress has always been pursuing
the hope of the Yoruba establishing an Oduduwa State one
day. The National Anthem of the group is instructive in this
respect. It says:
 Homeward journey
 Homeward journey the sons of Oduduwa
 If we don’t know where we are going
 We should not lose consciousness of where the journey
started from
 Let us dispense with Ogbono soup that fails to draw
 And give better attention to okro soup
 Homeward journey
 Homeward journey the sons of Oduduwa
Other risk factors (iii)
The Shariah crisis in the North from 2000 to 2002 is another form of
attempt to exit from the Nigerian state. The affected states and
communities were simply saying that Nigeria, as presently constituted, is
not acceptable to them. The Movement for the Sovereignty of Ogoni
People (MOSOP) was recently reported to have declared Ogoniland a
sovereign state. Militants in the Bakassi peninsula did same thing. Both of
them are merely responding to the frustrating environment within which
they live. In the 1990s, the Nigerian state killed Saro Wiwa and other
Ogoni leaders on the account of their environmental activism but this has
not stopped the degradation of the people’s communities by oil companies.
The federal government has found it difficult to rehabilitate those displaced
from Bakassi ten years after this part of Nigeria was ceded to Cameroon.
 Bayelsa State has already has already made a nation flag for itself as if it is
going to secede from Nigeria. Osun state is moving in same direction. It
now calls itself “The State of Osun” and not “Osun State”. There are
several other states in which the people are still hiding their national flags
awaiting the much expected dooms-day being manufactured by politicians.
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Other risk factors (iv)
There are several other issues. In the past one year, some exmilitants from the Niger Delta have been threatening to
make Nigeria ungovernable if President Goodluck Jonathan is
denied the opportunity of making his second term in office
come 2015.
 On the other hand, some eminent northern Nigerian leaders,
most especially Professor Ango Abduallahi has said the North
is taking over power in 2015.
 The leadership of the All Progressive Party (APC) too
throws more pebble in the pool by saying in The Punch of
August 8, 2013 that “Any party that fields Jonathan‘ll lose” in
2015.
 Nigerians of various ethnic and religious dispositions add to
Nigeria’s problems with their bellicose statements that dot
the pages of Nigerian newspapers on daily basis.
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Boko Haram crisis
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The most threatening of the problems now faced by Nigeria is
probably the ongoing Boko Haram crisis in the North eastern part
of the country. In the September 3, 2012 edition of TheNews, Abua
Qaqa the former spokesperson of Boko Haram sect in northern
Nigeria said “The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies
and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its
security apparatus as well as Churches until we achieve our goal of
establishing an Islamic state in place of the present secular
arrangement”.
But things have gotten worse since then. The sect now kills more
Muslims than Christians and the disposition of the Nigerian
security apparatuses towards the Boko Haram crisis is that of
helplessness.
The sect compounded Nigeria’s problems recently by tagging
“democracy” as its number one enemy thus making everybody now
talking about elections to be within a firing range.
National conference?
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What the foregoing suggests is that those who have grouses with Nigeria
would be glad to see the 2015 elections fail. This would help them to attain
their objectives of seeing Nigeria disintegrate. Africa would be in a deep
trouble should anything happen to Nigeria. The world would be in a deep
crisis. That is why all of us must support the government of Nigeria to
ensure that the 2015 elections are free, fair and successful.
To prevent this dooms-day prediction about Nigeria, the federal
government has put in place a national conference to discuss whatever is
wrong with the country and map the way forward. The conference will
take off on March 17, 2014 and run for three months.
Should this conference fail to produce results that would fit into the
schemes of the different groups contesting the legitimacy of the Nigerian
state, more pressure might be brought to bear on the 2015 elections.
The present situation is worsened by the deplorable history of elections in
Nigeria. Most of the past elections in the country were flawed.
Those who went to courts to contest the results also the money spent of
litigation. What all of these suggest to us is that those charged with the
conduct of the 2015 have a lot of problems up their sleeves.
Multi-track Framework of
Response
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The meeting we are starting this morning is
aimed at using multi-track diplomacy framework
for illustrating the roles that each of us have to
play at ensuring the success of the 2015 elections.
This framework calls attention to the nine critical
stakeholders involved in security challenges. These
are (1) government, (2) professional conflict
resolution, (3) business organizations, (4) private
citizens,
(5)
research/training/education
institutions, (6) activists, (7) religious formations,
(8) funding organizations and (9) public
opinion/communication.
Multi-track Diplomacy
Electoral Security Indicators
All the above tracks can be broken into
three main categories for the assessment
of the risk factors for the 2015 elections:
 (i) state actors, namely Track 1
 (ii) non-state actors, namely Tracks 2, 3, 4
and 7 and
 (iii) crossing cutting tracts, namely Tracks
5, 6, 8 and 9.
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State Actors:Track 1
Diplomacy
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As earlier observed, Track 1 has to do with the role of the state in ensuring the success of
elections in our particular case here. This is the most important of the tracks. What existing
studies have shown in Africa is that most election disputes in Africa are related to the
disposition of regimes. Regimes that make for free and fair elections have peaceful outcomes but
manipulative regimes obstruct smooth conduct of elections. In Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zimbabwe
and even Nigeria some past elections were manipulated in favour of the incumbents and this
created huge problems. Note the following:
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Executive and Parliament: existence of appropriate electoral laws; provision of adequate
financial resources for the conduct of the elections; lack of official interference in how all
relevant agencies do their business; existence of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms for
addressing human rights violations; appropriate rules of engagement for security agencies.
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Electoral justice system: existence of fair, capable, and transparent electoral dispute
management mechanisms for processing civil challenges to the electoral process filed by voters
and political contestants on matters relating to eligibility, disenfranchisement, campaign practices,
irregularities, and other disputed outcomes among others.
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Security agencies: professional and transparent conduct of security agencies in terms of
capacity to protect election personnel, media representatives, observers and monitors as well as
physical and material facilities.A major problem here is selective enforcement of regulations.
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EMB: degree of EMB independence; transparent compliance with all relevant sections of
electoral laws (registration of political parties, regulation of election financing, constituency
delineation, registration of polling stations, political campaigns; election information security
etc.); working relationship with security agencies. Public perception of EMB also matters.
Non-State Actors: Tracks 2, 3, 4
and 7
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While the state provides the legal framework for elections, it is non-state actors that actually
organize at the grassroots level on who the candidates should be and how these people would
organize for attaining the objectives of elections. In this respect we need to take note of the
following:
Political party system: At the risk of oversimplification, political parties could be categorized
as part of non-state actors. One is jumping to this kind of conclusion against the background of
the labeling of state stakeholders as being “regulatory, security, political and public administrative
in nature”. Though the activities of political parties are regulated by the state in terms of how
they could be formed and managed, they have the right to determine what they want to do
independent of official controls. However, this observation does not preclude the fact that in
some developing democracies, some political parties most especially those in power could be
state proxies to the extent that one finds it difficult to differentiate between the ruling party and
the state. For our purpose here, one key point to be made is that political parties are regarded
as the “weakest link” in the chain of democratic institution building in the context of how they
rake up issues that further divide the society and incite violence. Where political parties are
driven by national interests, they conduct themselves in manner that supports peaceful election
but when the members are driven by selfish interests, problems are created for managers of
EMBs. Political parties could support a peaceful electoral process through increased internal
democracy in terms of legislating and enforcing organizational rules, compliance with code of
conduct, reduction of political exclusion, financial transparent and accountability, transparent
nomination of candidates for elections.
Social cleavages: In most multicultural and multi-religious societies around the world, ethnic,
religious, and regional bodies intervenes in elections with a view to promoting representation of
members in the government. This problem is more serious in a society that has not been able to
find forge an inclusive political process but that is still operating on the principle of “winnertakes-all”. Social cleavages in our context would also include major demographic changes in the
society such as youth bulge and risks associated with the presence of too many unemployed
youths that could be mobilized for electoral violence.
Cross cutting stakeholders (i)
Cross cutting stakeholders as problematised here refer to those institutions and
engagements that could be owned by both state and non-state actors. These are
stakeholders that provide education on elections (Track 5), agents of activism such
as a human rights organization (Track 6), and media houses and other agencies of
public opinion dissemination (Track 9):
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Research, Training and Education: Successful elections are usually knowledgedriven. By this is meant that people are provided with all the information they need
to have as a strategy of making them to participate effectively, fairly and nonviolently in the election. Without the provision of this knowledge, things could go
wrong. For example, voters must be educated not only on how to vote but on the
need for proper conduct of themselves so that chances of violence are minimized if
not completely blocked.
 Activism: The role of activists is to take all legal measures at ensuring that the
election process is not marred by physical, psychological and structural violence.
Activists also speak for the rights of the physically disabled, women, diaspora
communities and other disempowered groups. There are several non-governmental
human rights groups in Nigeria. The country also has a National Human Rights
Commission.
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Cross cutting stakeholders (ii)
Funding: Domestic and international financial
support for election-related activities most especially
reduction of violence.
 Media and Public Opinion: The media covers all
tracts but I like to include the elite here. What they
say during elections have impact on political behavior
of voters and the generality of the people. For
reasons of religion, ethnicity and safety of some
private interests, some elite in the society could
choose to sabotage an electoral process or make
hate speeches and peddle unhealthy rumours that
could further heat up the polity and incite people to
violence. There are also situations where the bellicose
disposition of the elite is dictated by the way the
ruling elite conduct themselves.
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What more?
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The point made above is that the success of any election requires a multi-track framework. There are things that
the state must do and things that non-state actors must do. Where there is a lapse in one sector, it would be
difficult for the centre to hold. We need to ask ourselves a number of questions at this point. How healthy is
INEC at this moment in the history of Nigeria? How ready is the electoral body for a successful election in
terms of having the needed resources and commitment to running a free and fair election?
How healthy are the political parties in the country? Events over the last number of years have highlighted the
fact that none of the political parties in Nigeria has anything called internal democracy or any credible grievance
procedures. This heats up the polity and makes the conduct of any election in the country to be very challenging.
In a normal democracy, problems are supposed to be coming from the competition between political parties but
in Nigeria we generate more problems within political parties. The issues usually revolve around nomination of
candidates for offices. It leads to several court cases, decampment, assassination of opponents, and cabalism
within the political parties.As long as this problem remains, it is difficult for us to have a free and fair election.
We have also noticed that the political parties do not address issues but personality. I have been watching with
keen interest the ongoing debate on which region should produce the President in 2015. The arguments have
been heated on television screens and pages of newspapers. But none of the gladiators have cared to address
Nigerians on how to improve the conditions of the people. What each side says is “It is our turn to produce the
next President”.
The other problem that has to be considered is the high level of corruption in the Nigerian judiciary. This makes
many to doubt the sincerity of the judgments of past election-related litigations. It was in this context that
General Muhammadu Buhari (retired), a former Nigerian head of state who went to court several times to
challenge his supposed loss of the 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential election in Nigeria had this to say
about the 2015 elections: “God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair
election or they go a very disgraceful way. If what happened in 2011 (alleged rigging) should again happen in
2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood’’ (David Attah and Uzoma
Ubabukoh, “Shocker for Jonathan: Northern govs defend Buhari”, The Punch, May 18, 2012). The best solution to
avert this dooms-day prediction is for the tribunals and courts in the country to become more transparent in
dealing with the petitions before them.