Nigeria: Foreign monitors may be barred from elections

CDD Statement on Expressed Intention to Bar Foreign Monitors from Nigeria’s 2007 Elections

The Centre for Democracy and Development would like to express its concerns at the 7 September statement by Professor Maurice Iwu, Chair of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission in which he seemed to indicate that foreign election monitors will be barred from the crucial 2007 presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections in the country.

At a meeting of the stakeholders election forum committee at INEC headquarters in Abuja, Professor Iwu, as widely reported in the media, stated that ‘Nigeria does not require any (overseas) election monitor… nobody is going to monitor our election… it is a policy of this commission that the issue of somebody monitoring our election does not arise’. This position is of both surprise and concern to CDD in our position as long-time observers and participants in democratic reform processes in Nigeria.

Professor Iwu flatters to deceive when he remarks that Nigerian groups now have the capacity to undertake all such monitoring activities domestically. We do certainly think that the efforts of Nigerian civil society monitoring groups have contributed considerably to strengthening democracy in Nigeria, and we see domestic observers as the prime actors in safeguarding against electoral abuses. But their efforts are best complemented by a broad international presence comprised of monitors and observers of as many different bodies and nations as wish to take an interest in Nigeria’s democratic consolidation. Just because Nigerian civil society groups are currently engaged constructively with INEC on a number of issues, the INEC Chair should not conclude that the role of external actors has become redundant, nor should he conclude that domestic civil society will be content at such exclusion.

Further elaboration that there will be guidelines for the conduct of observer groups are also cause for concern. Other nations which have insisted on guidelines for observers have invariably done so to limit their access to sensitive stages in the polling or compilation of results, as in the controversies which erupted around such behaviour in Mozambique’s elections late last year. The only satisfactory guidelines for observer and monitoring groups are that they be allowed access to all stages of the electoral process, in order to satisfy the demands of full transparency.

Such pronouncements on barring monitors, in tandem with INEC’s insistence on the introduction of electronic voting systems, have bred a situation in which many in the political world and wider populace are becoming convinced that there is a hidden agenda to manipulate the results of the 2007 elections. This impression is compounded by the recent discussions of constitutional changes to allow an extended term for the incumbent which have recently been floated in some circles of the ruling party.

Even if the ultimate intention of the policy or the statement is not to compound the lack of transparency which plagues electoral matters in Nigeria, the immediate effect of the statement has already been damaging to the general sense of trust in the political arena, as concerned responses from the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties indicate.

Overall, we consider that the move to ban foreign election monitors from observing the 2007 elections is a wholly retrograde step which can only add to the culture of non-transparency, distrust and malpractice currently characterising electoral politics in this country and which contributes so much to consequent injustice, violence and instability. It is also a policy wholly incompatible with the stated intention of the Nigerian government to be a regional leader on governance issues, and its aim of meriting election as a permanent presence on the Security Council of the United Nations.

We call upon INEC Chair Professor Maurice Iwu to:

• Clarify the difference – if any – between his conception of the roles of election monitors and those of election observers, and to justify the different treatments he envisages;

• Reconsider the policy in the light of its clear contravention of international norms;

• Withdraw the statement of policy and formulate future policies in such areas only after consultation with a wider range of stakeholders.

We call upon the Federal Government of Nigeria to:

• Clarify its position as regards Professor Iwu’s statement of 7 September;

• Explicitly deny that it is considering a policy limiting access to the 2007 polls by overseas monitoring or observation groups.

We call upon international actors, governmental, non-governmental and multilateral to:

• Communicate officially their displeasure at such an intended policy to the Federal Government of Nigeria and its representatives.

For further information, please contact:
John Ikubaje, [email protected], +234 (0)1 804 3221, +234 (0)1 473 0705