‘Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) needs to seriously review what is currently happening in Kenya and learn that what is preeminent in the forthcoming presidential election in February 2023 is not necessarily the outcome, significant and important as it is, but to ensure that the process has integrity and credibility that will lead to the validity and acceptance of the results’
AFRICA’s presidential and other “democratic” elections are often prisoners of the mindset that places wild and excessive emphasis on the outcome framed as “who won?” On the contrary, countries that value and respect the sacredness of the vote in elections are keen on the maintenance of a trusted, respectable and transparent process. Transparency in the process is more likely to produce a reliable, valid and acceptable outcome. To prioritize the outcome over the process is the equivalent of the proverbial placement of the cart before the horse. This is the crux of the legal dispute in Kenya where the loser and perennial presidential contender, Raila Odinga, is now in court seeking to nullify William Ruto’s victory as announced by Mr. Wafula Chebukati, chairman of the country’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Kenya’s August 9 presidential election was “won” by the slimmest margin, 50.49 percent against the loser’s 48.85 percent. The country’s main constitutional stipulation for victory at a presidential poll is that the winner must garner 50 plus one (50 percent + 1 vote), not 51 percent of the vote. Ridiculous as this constitutional provision may sound to outsiders, that is not the post-election issue in contention; not even the declared outcome by the election commission chairman. The court case, not for the first time in Kenya, is about the legitimacy, reliability and validity of the process. Raila is arguing that a flawed process cannot produce a valid outcome. As statisticians and quantitative researchers know too well, an instrument for measurement must have both reliability and validity; the former is about consistency that ensures that given the same factors and conditions, a process will always produce the same result, while the latter is about the accuracy of the measuring instrument.
As Kenyans waited to be informed about the winner of their presidential polls, they were catapulted into a bizarre state of confusion after a relatively peaceful election. Four out of the 7-member IEBC held a press conference and distanced themselves from what they described as the “opaque” veil that engulfed the results. Their spokesperson and vice chairperson of the election commission, Ms. Juliana Cherera, unequivocally announced that her dissenting group “cannot take ownership of the result that is going to be announced.” They have since elaborated the reasons for their dissent.
Thus, the promise of a transparent presidential election Kenya was subverted by contestations about that solemn pledge by those entrusted with overseeing the process. So, like several issues in the continent, good and noble intentions about the election quickly dissolved into haphazardness, absurdities, recriminations, and the insanely ridiculous. Once again, the imbroglio in Kenya has cast doubts on our ability to get things straight and right in the continent. Even with the benefit of modern technology, expertise of various types and the advertised commitment to election transparency, the commission was embroiled in not getting its mathematics right. The reengage commissioners made a case that what their chairman gave as proof of Ruto’s victory tallied to 100.01percent. Then, it became a national debate as to what exactly .01 percent translated to in terms of number of votes cast. The figures in the media ranged from 1,400 votes to over 140,000 ballots. Worse still, the chairman of the commission had declared the winner with 50.49 percent without providing a convincing figure of the total votes cast, with his dissenting colleagues insisting that results from all constituencies had not come in and appropriately counted. To them, it was 50.49 percent of an unknown total; a figure that was not based on votes cast in all constituencies in the country. If this is true, and there is no legitimate reason to disbelieve them, why would the chairman declare the winner on the basis of a fraction of a phantom whole number? Rounding up figures to the nearest whole number in a hotly contested election, if I may use the cliché, is a sure or even inadvertent recipe for confusion and lack of faith in the election process, especially in a situation where the chairman’s statistical gymnastics resulted in the tally producing 100.01 percent. Perhaps, the best example of how to keep statistical assumptions out of close elections happened in the 2000 U.S. elections when George Bush beat Al Gore by a margin of 537 (0.009 percent) votes in Florida. Put succinctly, all votes matter and should be counted.
If all votes matter, then it would only be puerile to suggest that Raila should just “let go” and enjoy his old age in some tranquility. Let go of what? The present imbroglio is not about Raila the person, as much as it is about systemic or process failure. Raila has always challenged the election process in Kenya, and each time he did it, the loopholes in the system were plugged for a better future election. This time cannot be different. Left unattended, the same issues that precipitated the present impasse will pop up again, perhaps with more devastating consequence. In other words, Raila is making a case for a watchful eye on the so-called reliability that might constantly produce flawed results, because reliability could be another name for garbage-in-garbage-out. But, when process reliability is supported by validity, the outcome gains legitimacy.
It is now up to the Kenyan Supreme Court to determine if the contested process actually produced a valid outcome. But, it must be acknowledged that Kenyans went to the polls in a remarkably peaceful manner, an uncommon achievement in Africa. In neighboring Uganda for instance, presidential elections are like an undeclared war where the ruling party and incumbent president use all trappings of state power to hound opposing contenders and their supporters into choke-hold submission.
Nonetheless, the manifest inability of the IEBC to determine the winner transparently and accurately and without rancour creates an unwieldly and laughable caricature of the entire presidential election in Kenya. Even if Kenya’s Supreme Court upholds Mr. Chebukati’s declaration that Ruto won the election, the new president will have some layers of credibility and legitimate yanked away from his apparent success by a sizeable population of Kenyans who will essentially see him as a court-appointed president. If, eventually the court declares the election a procedural nullity and Kenyans go to the polls once more and perhaps elect Raila, he too will not assume office with the full regalia of authenticity and credibility. Either way, Mr. Chebukati’s hasty announcement will leave an indelible retrogressive mark in the annals of Kenya’s presidential history.
Therein lies the pitfalls Nigeria should avoid as its presidential election comes around in a matter of months. This death-trap tendency to focus on the outcome of African elections, and not on the transparency of the process can only herald the doomsday. While Kenyans have thankfully not resorted to mayhem and destruction as was the case in the 2007 presidential election where Raila also lost to Mwai Kibaki, Nigeria might be a national catastrophe waiting to happen. This is not a prayer or wish any Nigerian would want for the country. However, given the incessant free flow and availability of arms and ammunition of various levels of sophistication, kidnapping, and the general insecurity of life and property that has proved uncontrollable by the Buhari administration in times of so-called peace, one shudders to imagine what will happen when there are real reasons for people to vent their anger and frustration on the streets. Nigerians may not collectively say, let’s move on and be thrown into a pusillanimous cauldron of what musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti used to call siddon-look, if their presidential election is riddled with evidence of a massively perforated process.
Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) needs to seriously review what is currently happening in Kenya and learn that what is preeminent in the forthcoming presidential election in February 2023 is not necessarily the outcome, significant and important as it is, but to ensure that the process has integrity and credibility that will lead to the validity and acceptance of the results.
*· Professor Onyebadi is Chair of Journalism at the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, South University, Fort Worth, Texas; and Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Naija Times.
