One of the principal requirements of being a good umpire in any type of competition is the ability to be just, fair and impartial and the capability to project to both sides of the equation, the seeming image of balance in all actions taken, because it is one the determinants which inspire confidence to the parties as well as participating onlookers, be they the monitors, security official, the press or the all important voter, on whose behalf the whole concept of electoral democracy lies. However, attaining such a credible position, cannot materialize without the referee having a settled code of an operational norm, which simply translates into the existence of a documented and codified body of laws, upon which all actions within the confines of the duration of the competition, followed a certain set of rules which controls, directs, guides and clarifies on all matters dealing with the contest. In the case of an electoral contest and within the purview of the current democratic republic, the applicable law is the Electoral Act 2010 as amended.
In precisely a few days ago or more specifically last Saturday the 16th of November 2013, an electoral contest was held between a number of parties, to determine who would fill the vacuum to be created by the expiration of the current incumbent in office and as it is usual with the Nigerian electoral processes, the contest was held, votes were allocated, the favored party in terms having the highest returns in votes celebrated, while the other parties feeling disfavored by the whole arrangement, shouted themselves hoarse with an evident feeling of rage for an expected victory denied but no legible result confirming victory to any of the contesting parties was declared. Rather, the Nigerian electoral umpire or Independent National Electoral Commission, after extending the process to the next day in some areas, due to the non conduct of the election there, yet it was unable to certify the whole election as finished and the winner emerging, because of the glaring discrepancies of having the volume of cancelled ballots votes, being larger than the voter difference between the first and second contestants in the whole exercise.
It is on the strength of this predicament, the national electoral umpire thought of a novel solution, which remediates the cancelled lost votes and ensures victory only to the individual having the highest majority of votes casted. This is to be obtained with the Independent National Electoral Commission’s declaration of a supplementary voting exercise, tentatively scheduled for the incoming Saturday after the voting day, to allow those who were denied electoral suffrage with the cancellation their ballots, the opportunity to vote and determine who governs the state, which obviously saves the process from falling into the quandary of past illegitimate exercises, seen by many a hapless electorate as a meaningless exercise in nauseating fraudulence. Unfortunately for the much pressured national electoral agency, the term and concept supplementary elections did not emanate from the Electoral Act, nor did the principal guiding law allowed for a single election, to be not merely segmented in scheduled chains or phases but as a distinct arrangement that is separate from the election and invoked only to augment the deficiency in the original process.
What does the statement connotes, it simply infers that the electoral agency cannot add to a process, as a means to validate an exercise, that had been deeply flawed from the beginning, due to its lack of strictly applying the operating rules in the electoral process, which means the fact that it is compromised and largely due to the inaction of the agents of the electoral agency, presupposes an evident flawed process, but unfortunately, it is not within the bounds of power of an umpire, rather, it is in the premises of function of judicial interpretation solely reserved in the courts. Meaning, a referee supervises a match, ensuring that all guiding codes and laws are followed and applied, but in the event of any honest mistake or deliberate misapplication of the rules, it is the particular games governing body which sanctions a remediation, not the referee and certainly him or her calling back a replay to right the wrongs of the past, even if not to do such damages a reputation or causes a grave injury during the time awaiting justifiable correction.
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