The pen is mightier than the sword

By Ezinwanne Onwuka

Ihad expected the INEC chairman to halt the collation exercise and investigate the claims made by individuals, civil society organisations, and election observers to undermine the credibility of the electoral process, but he simply excused the claims as a ‘disruption’.

Though one of my teachers back in secondary school had illustratively explained to me in particular and the class generally the popular saying, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’, it took the outcome of the February 25, 2023, presidential election for me to grasp what was taught 13 years ago.

Over the centuries, the metonymic adage, coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 historical play, Richelieu or The Conspiracy, has come to define the power of the written word in statecraft. At the heart of this notion is the idea that the course of a nation or people can be determined at the stroke of a pen.

At the stroke of a pen, nations can be built, and nations can be ruined. At the stroke of a pen, a bill becomes a law that can make or break nations. At the stroke of a pen, elections are either validated or annulled. At the stroke of a pen, presidents are sworn in, some by convention, others by the doctrine of necessity.

Speaking of elections, let me mention that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite the flaws that greeted the February 25, 2023, election declared and ratified the winner of the presidential poll at the stroke of a pen. However, the announcement was welcomed with hisses and sighs, wailing and whining, and, above all, a deafening silence. And the reason is not far-fetched.

Without prejudice to any of the presidential candidates, the performance of the INEC during the presidential and National Assembly polls was, to say the least, abysmal. Though INEC continuously expressed readiness for the general election, it appears that the commission underestimated the workload even with the introduction of technology in the electoral process. Preliminary reports by both international and local observers said the fraud that attended the election was unprecedented.

Notwithstanding that Nigeria, for the first time, with 93.4 million registered voters, deployed the use of technology to conduct its elections to make the process credible and deepen public trust in the independent electoral body, logistical failures, especially the patchy deployment and malfunctioning of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, hampered the just concluded election.

Other irregularities which showed that the electoral body was significantly less prepared than it claimed for the general election include the late arrival of electoral officials in some polling units, the disenfranchisement of voters in some others due to the absence of the commission’s officials, inadequate electoral materials like ink pad for thumbprinting and result sheets, violence, voter intimidation, and ballot box snatching and burning.

Undeterred by the cries of blatant and brazen rigging, occasioned by the failure of the INEC to adhere to its own law, which derives from the Electoral Act, the commission’s regulation and guidelines, that election results be uploaded to its result viewing (IReV) portal using the BVAS directly from the polling unit for real-time viewing by the electorate to boost the credibility of the results, the chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu declared Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the hotly contested presidential election.

INEC’s dismissal of the reports that the transparency of the election may have been jeopardised by rigging, violence and technical failures, which led to the opposition parties disputing the outcome of the election, with two of the main opposition parties boycotting the collation process, beggars belief given the plethora of photo and video evidence littered all over social media. I had expected the INEC chairman to halt the collation exercise and investigate the claims made by individuals, civil society organisations, and election observers to undermine the credibility of the electoral process, but he simply excused the claims as a ‘disruption’.

Curiously, the need for strict transparency by the INEC in this crucial phase of electronic results transmission was downplayed despite the commission’s N305 billion budgetary allocation –the most expensive in the history of elections in Nigeria. Many Nigerians are eager to know why the presidential election results are only being uploaded online in piecemeal days after the election ended and the reason some of the uploaded results are blurry and ineligible. However, the INEC chairman has refused to offer an explanation for this shoddiness. Rather, he promised to look into the complaints and petitions from political parties and candidates and assured that ‘where infractions of any kind are proven, there will be redress.’

There are several ways to destroy a nation without a sword. The electoral umpire’s failure to live up to the billing in the just concluded presidential election despite loud assurances has punctured the tube of trust in the electoral process and the commission, consciously letting loose the smoke of political apathy, especially by the youths who were galvanised for this year’s general election by Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate. Surprisingly, INEC has given no recourse to the wild effects of the directionless smoke.

Indeed, the destiny of a nation is held in the balance by a pen waiting to be wielded, particularly when the ink that runs through the pen is propelled by the force of the state. INEC, by declaring the ruling party the winner of the quasi-presidential election, has charted a new course for Nigeria which most Nigerians believe is catastrophic while hoping that the court, at the stroke of a pen, overturns the outcome of the election and upholds the ‘wishes of the majority of Nigerians’ before the new president is sworn in on May 29 to abort the looming anarchy and chaos.

Ezinwanne may be reached at ezinwanne.dominion@ gmail.com