Former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has called on Nigerians to stop treating elections as a perfect exercise, saying the country should pay more attention to strengthening democratic institutions and improving the electoral processes.
Fashola, a former Minister of Works, Housing and Power, said elections, especially in a large federation such as Nigeria, involve complex logistics that make absolute perfection difficult to attain.
Fashola spoke on Friday at The Platform, a public policy forum held in Lagos as part of activities marking Democracy Day, it was reported.
He said while elections are critical to democracy, citizens and political actors must understand the challenges of conducting nationwide polls.
“Elections are an imperfect event because they require a big logistical operation across a federation,” Fashola said.
The former governor said presidential elections require thousands of polling units across the country to carry out the same process at the same time, often under different local conditions.
He said mistakes or shortcomings could occur in such a huge operation, adding the challenge should be how to improve the system rather than to weaken the public confidence in elections.
“The reality of a presidential election is that all the polling units across the nation have to be doing the same thing at the same time. “The question then is how we assign blame when things go wrong, especially when the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission cannot be everywhere at the same time,” he said.
Fashola said Nigerians should be fair in their assessment of electoral problems and should not blame the leadership of the electoral body for every operational failure.
Fashola argued that electoral challenges are not unique to Nigeria, saying even older democracies have imperfections in their electoral systems.
He said mature democracies recognise elections may not always be flawless, but continue to improve their institutions and processes over time.
“They accept these imperfections in other jurisdictions, and they aspire to improve, but they also accept the results,” he said.
The former minister said Nigeria should also learn the discipline of strengthening its democratic system without constantly delegitimising outcomes of elections.
Losers Should Go into Opposition
Fashola also raised concern over what he called increasing refusal by some political actors to accept election results after losing.
He warned that such conduct could impede democratic development and erode the role of the opposition in national development.
“I think unwillingness to accept the result of an election perhaps makes the unsuccessful participants blind to seek and take up the role of opposition for the development of society,” he said.
Democracy, he said, doesn’t stop when the ballots are tallied.
Opposition parties and unsuccessful candidates have important roles to play in holding the government accountable, offering alternative policies and contributing to the progress of society, he said.
Fashola further called on Nigerians to expand their knowledge of democracy beyond elections and political contests.
“The country has to start asking itself the hard questions about the kind of democratic system it wants to build and sustain,” he said.
“If we are going to talk about democracy outside of elections, my question is: what kind of democracy do we want?,” he said.
The ex-governor said democratic maturity should be assessed not only by the conduct of elections, but also by the strength of institutions, respect for the rule of law, accountability in governance and the conduct of political actors after elections.
Fashola said democracy can only grow when institutions are protected, strengthened and allowed to perform their roles without being undermined by political interests.
He said that citizens, leaders and political parties must continue to support systems that promote accountability, fairness and stability.
His comments formed part of wider discussions at The Platform on the state of Nigeria’s democracy, governance, accountability and the responsibilities of both leaders and citizens in sustaining democratic institutions.
“Elections are still a key pillar of democracy but the real test of democratic progress is when institutions and citizens can sustain democratic values long after the ballots have been counted”, Fashola added.
