INEC And How Nigeria Can Save Its Democracy [video]

The Imo State election presents a case as to why Nigeria has no chance on its development quest: voodoo elections destroy nations. People rig their futures for politicians, and INEC, the electoral umpire FAILS to follow its basic guidelines. I did not study law but during my MBA program in the University of Calabar in  the Business Law course, I picked some legal wisdoms!

First, the guidelines of INEC, as published and adopted, are an extension of the laws of the nation. And that means anything INEC has put there in the guidelines, provided they are within the ordinance of law, and adheres to the Constitution of Nigeria, are indeed extensions of the Constitution, even if those guidelines are not expressly stated in the Constitution. 

So, if INEC says that the number of votes cannot be more than the number of accredited voters on election day, that must not be in the Constitution of Nigeria, before INEC can throw such non-complied results out, positing that irregularities have happened. 

Understand that any company policy, via company handbooks, guidelines, etc which employees agree to adhere to, are mini-laws, and upon them, somebody could be convicted in court, depending on the severity of going against the policies. We do not say that because the Constitution of Nigeria does not have that “it is criminal to transfer your company’s money to yourself for personal gains”, that it is not a crime.  The Constitution is the Strategic Law while those policies, guidelines, etc are manuals of the law. 

As my professor noted in UNICAL, business regulations, policies, constracts, etc when done within the tenets of the Constitution, are indeed enforceable. Whatever NAFDAC puts out to ensure food is safe in Nigeria is the law of the land, and must be compiled with. If I extrapolate, INEC has no right to declare results in elections when the number of votes is more than the number of accredited voters because that is against its own guidelines. In other words, by INEC’s own guidelines, it could have stopped the madness by canceling the results before any litigation!

And that takes me to the other part, the protocol in Nigeria where parties have to sue in courts on INEC’s enforceability of its own guidelines. Yes, INEC organizes a nonsensical  rigging jamboree, discounting all its guidelines,  and then anoints one person as the “winner”, and then asks the “loser” to go to court. From my professor’s class, that was not the way the law should work: at least INEC in-house system should FIRST check if the election itself has complied with its own “mini laws” before the external courts can be involved.

That is why I maintain that when INEC wrote that elections should be transmitted electronically, and later aborted the process during a presidential election, that it violated its own law, and should have canceled (and redone) those areas it could not do electronic data transmission, as noted in the rule book. I noted that if INEC should be allowed to make guidelines and not comply with them, there is no more basis to prosecute any crime in Nigeria since one can argue that whatever NAFDAC, EFCC, Police, etc has in the books are not enforceable and should not be complied with. Indeed, INEC is expected by law to adhere to its guidelines just like universities expect teachers to adhere to guidelines they have put for grading exams, after the exams have been written!

By asking parties to go to court to fix its mess, INEC is saying that its guidelines have no material value. But that is not the way I think it should be. Get me right: I am not a lawyer and do not claim to know anything about law. But unless INEC does its job, Nigeria’s democracy will not evolve. If INEC can spend billions and organize chaos, discarding its guidelines, why do you think a policeman, teacher, banker, etc cannot discard his/her operating guidelines at work? 

The Imo State election presents a case as to why Nigeria has no chance on its development quest: voodoo elections destroy nations. People rig their futures for politicians, and INEC, the electoral umpire FAILS to follow its basic guidelines. I did not study law but during my MBA… pic.twitter.com/79oxRs0wnz

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) August 20, 2024

Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA (Feb 10 - May 3, 2025), and join Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe and our global faculty; click here.