Fixing Some National Electoral Challenges in Nigeria
1. The National Secretary,
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
INEC Headquarters,
Plot 436 Zambezi Cresent,
Maitama District,
Abuja.
2. The Clerk of the National Assembly
The National Assembly
Abuja
Dear Secretary,
FIXING SOME NATIONAL ELECTORAL CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA, FOR THE UPCOMING 2027 GENERAL ELECTIONS
I hereby forward the above referenced proposal to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with the relevant Damage Control Measures. I hope you will find the suggestions useful inputs for deliberations towards the upcoming General Elections in Nigeria slated for 2027. I am available to shed more lights on any of the items should the need arise. I sincerely thank you for finding time to go through this proposal.
I shall appreciate it if the receipt of this document is acknowledged.
The Contents
1). States must be given Exclusive Powers to micro-zone Elective Offices,
2). Fix the Career Path for Public Office by Law
3). Fix the Voting within the areas zoned for the Elective Offices
4). Fix the emoluments of the elected Representatives with their Constituencies
5). Rejig the Electoral Constituencies
6). Abolish the Constituency Projects
7). Federalise the Electoral Process with the States
8). Release the Incumbent office holder if he opts to seek election or re-election.
9). A call for Introspections
Fixing Some National Electoral Challenges in Nigeria for the upcoming 2027 General Elections!
There is no gainsaying the fact that the system of Government in Nigeria is 100% copy and paste, the same as some contents of our electoral laws. But if we see nothing wrong with this approach to Governance, which is the highest most essential, we should also see nothing wrong to tinker with these foreign tenets of Governance, in order to spare our citizens from needless agonies in the upcoming elections, and give them something to hope for. Because at our age and status as a sovereign Nation, we should have long designed, evolved and patented the method of Governing ourselves: Original, New, True, Independent and Indigenous.
Some of us are no longer amused by the sensational and overdramatized unprofitable arguments by our elites in the corridors of power, of how things are done in America or in Europe or in Asia. Because we do not belong there and shall never become one of them. Even if we have to build our homes in Mars or do business in Jupiter, we shall do so as Nigeria and not as America etc. So we ought to weave something original into our mindsets and begin to weave such originals into the very fabric of our existence as a sovereign Nation.
Our daunting challenges are just peculiar to us. They have been designed and allowed to challenge us till we fix them. And we are the only ones to fix them. It is only when we fix them shall we attain the independent status like the other Nations we always like to cite.
For instance, when the Americans developed their system to fix their peculiar challenges, they did not have Nigeria in mind, nor did they look up to any other nations of the world or cite them. They knew the challenges were theirs to fix and they rose up and fixed them. That is why their system shall never ever fix our recurring Nigerian challenges, instead it compounds them. And it is time we realized this Truth.
For me and for some of us, the debate of whether or not Nigeria should be, is no longer entertaining or frightful. Instead, our collective resolve now is how to get Nigeria to work, not again as before, but for the first time in history, because Nigeria has never worked. And to get Nigeria to work should begin with how we choose our leaders.
However Nigeria was created by God to work, and it shall work even in this generation. But her failure to have worked in the past 65 years has driven us towards the fringes of successes and the clamour to settle for shortcuts. However, all we need now is to think originals and come up with something original to fix our Nigeria's original challenges.
So while Nigeria is currently in transit to the Zero-political Government with Divine Leadership, which is no doubt, the original and incontestible panacea for our integrated recurring challenges, I wish to submit my humble antidotes to some damaging national electoral pitfalls. If our leaders should humble themselves to look into the merits of these suggestions and consider them in our next Electoral Bill and Constitutional Amendment Bill where necessary, our transition shall have begun. And with this, the panel-beaten system shall produce the transitional leaders on our landscape who shall guide us into the next step.
For now, Nigerians are tired of copy and paste transactional Leadership!!
Fixing Some National Electoral Challenges in Nigeria!
1. States must be given Exclusive Powers to micro-zone Elective Offices.
The State Governments through their Citizens at the Villages, Wards, Clans and LGAs should be allowed by law to zone elective offices in their respective local areas, billed for both the States and Federal elections.
Political parties are just mobile vehicles to ferry their candidates to elective offices. They do not own the State or the people of any State, nor do all the people belong to the parties, except an insignificant minority. The minority should not decide for the majority.
Only the States have what it takes to micro zone elective offices in their domains, while the duty of the political parties is to field their candidates for those offices.
The idea of allowing the political parties, total strangers with very parochial interest to determine where an elective office should go to, is a brazen robbery of the rights to self-determination for the people who own the areas, majority of who belong to no political parties.
Let the entire indigenes of an area or constituency whose lives are going to be affected by the occupant of that elective office, determine where the office should be zoned to. They have the history of the place more than some members of the political party in a given area. They also have the vested interest of the area, whereas the interest of the political parties is to reap the benefits of the elective offices by all means, even at the expense of the indigenes.
Therefore the entire people of the area should sit down and agree in writing which office should go to where. And this should be projected into several future elections.
The Zoning Agreements reached should be deposited with the Court and sent to our Electoral Umpires for their guide.
The current practice which allows the political parties to micro-zone Elective Offices is grossly faulty and intentionally fraudulent. It breeds rancour, bad blood and uncontrolled vicious competitions, and renders monetary politics inevitable.
This Damage Control Measure shall reduce pre-election litigations to 30% in the Country and slash the cost of Elections borne by the 2 tiers of Governments to 70%.
Besides, it shall make our electoral processes far less expensive at any level of elections.
2. Fix the Career Path for Public Office by Law.
People should not just eye an elective office and migrate there because they have access to the National and State resources. It is time to inject some sanity, decorum and guidance through legislation. There should be a Career Path to elective offices in Nigeria.
To wit, a person who enters public service through the State Executive Arm of Government should keep his Career in this Arm of Government, and rise to the highest office in that Arm of Government even at the Federal level. But he should not jump from the Executive Arm to the Legislative Arm of Government. The same thing applies to a person who starts a public service Career in the State legislature, he should not jump to the Executive Arm even at the Federal level. Nor should he cross this boundary when he leaves the Federal to the State Service.
Generally, no person should be seen as an all-rounder, too good for everything in public service. No person is a star in all Arms of Government. Because they are evidences that absolute opportunities can corrupt absolutely. Or he should as well carry his ingenuity and service prowess to the Judiciary, to complete the circle of his public service.
But if this is rejected at the National level, the State should be allowed to establish it by law, practice and enforce it. It is a matter of live and let live. Let everybody have an equal chance and opportunity to serve his or her Country. Everybody should be given opportunities to build the capacity to serve.
For instance the Governors should concentrate on Governance and not to amass wealth and build resources to migrate to the Senate, which is the Legislative Arm of Government. The same counsel goes to the Commissioners and the Ministers who eye the legislature, and the legislators who eye the Executive. Even by morality, once a Career Path is chosen by a person through an initial appointment or election, he should follow that Career to the highest level.
This Damage Control Measure shall halt the practice of converting public service into business investment or family inheritance, and reducing our electoral process to a pure and stiff monetary competition.
Besides, it shall give competent and trustworthy citizens with lean finances equal opportunities to vie to serve in Elective Offices. Because no citizens have the monopoly of knowledge.
Moreover, it shall eliminate the tendency of creating a class society of the superclass and the underdogs, with all the bestial fallouts in-between.
3. Fix the Voting within the areas zoned for the Elective Offices
The National Electoral Act should allow INEC to conduct elections only in the areas for which the offices have been zoned, and not the entire Constituency or Districts, even for Governorship or Presidential elections.
For instance if in a Federal Constituency of 227 villages, a legislative office is zoned to a blog of 20 villages within that Constituency, commonsense dictates that only the citizens in these 20 villages should vote in that election.
Then why print voting materials, post election staff, line up security personnel, close economic activities and arouse tensions among the people in the entire 227 villages?
Besides, why should the candidates waste their resources to campaign in the entire 227 villages instead of just 20 villages?
This should apply evenly through to the Governorship and the Presidential elections. In the Governorship election, the Senatorial District to which the Governorship is zoned shall become the area to vote. While in the Presidential elections, the Geo-political Zone to which the Presidency is fixed shall become the Voting area. Each District and each Geo-political Zone will bring out the best material for the Governorship and the Presidential elections respectively. And the entire State and Country will reap multiple benefits of having the best persons to serve in these public offices.
This Damage Control Measure shall reduce the cost of Elections by 60% to both the Governments and the contestants.
It will curb unnecessary wastages to the candidates. It will eliminate tensions and opportunity cost to the areas that should not be involved in the voting.
Besides, it will limit elections' fevers, risks and idleness to only the voting areas.
The much needed Organic Unity of the Country for example, shall not only be put to test, but it shall be made to work.
Leading the Country should then be left in the hands of competent and excellent citizens from each Zone and not to a political leadership which is a compromise of all the Zones in the Country.
4. Fix the Emoluments of the Elected Representatives with their Constituencies
The Constituency which an elected legislator represents should determine, fix and pay the emoluments of that legislator. According to the resources of the Constituency. The legislator is elected to serve the public interest of the people of his Constituency, and not to make money.
Each Constituency should determine the emoluments of its representative in the legislature that it can afford, and how to generate the resources for such emoluments. Let us wake up from mental laziness and slavery, engage our brains and strategize for the way out. It is an opportunity to build the Constituencies into strong and lasting institutions. It is the building block for the Unity and Strength inscribed in our National Coat of Arms.
The duty of the Federal and State Governments is to provide his accommodation, and allowances for his oversight functions.
The Federating States and the LGAs have been hanging on the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, for monthly handouts. This promotes indolence almost everywhere, instead of creating opportunities to generate Revenues in their domains to fund their programs.
And the Constituencies have also been depending on same Federal might for monthly handouts to their elected employees in the legislatures. But It is time to inject some disciplines into the National psyche. The Constituencies must pay the salaries of their elected legislators.
I will first focus on the National Assembly legislators.
The issue with the legislature is both delicate and tenuous, and should be handled with knowledge.
The legislator in the National Assembly is not a Federal Government staff member or employee, for instance. Rather, he is a staff member and an employee of his Constituency, who has been posted to the Federal Government for dedicated services. He is a component of his Constituency in the Federal legislature, just as the President through the votes of the entire Country is also a staff of the Country in the Executive Arm of Government.
In other words, the legislator is an employee of the Government of the Constituency that elected him into the National Assembly.
So first and last, he is an employee of his Constituency and not an employee of the Federal Government. Consequently, it is his Constituency that should fix and pay his emoluments.
Besides, the legislator is not an employee of his chosen political party. And in matters affecting his Constituency, it is immoral to shift his loyalty to his political party, because though he used the party platform to stand for election as required by the extant law, but his True allegiance is to his Constituency who actually elected him, and not to the party. His relationship with his Constituency is a legal responsibility and moral duty, while his relationship with his political party is just a formality. Because if not a Constitutional requirement, his Constituency would still have voted him to represent it at the National Assembly without a political party.
That is why a legislator can be removed only by his constituency who elected him and not by the Executive Arm of Government, or by his political party. Whereas the President can be removed only by the entire Country who elected him, but through National Assembly whose members represent all the Constituencies in the entire Country, including his Constituency. And his political party cannot remove him.
Honestly, the issue of party loyalty should receive the correct education so that we may know how to keep it in its True perspective. Party loyalty has to be whittled down to where it belongs, from the mountain top where our legislators and other elected representatives have ignorantly lifted it. Because belonging to a political party is something very temporary, but belonging to the Constituency is permanent for all generations.
The Damage Control Measures
I. If we correct this anomaly and allow the Constituency to determine the pay for a legislator and settle it, this will make the legislator Accountable to his Constituency. But today, the same legislator is 100% Accountable to the Federal Government who fixes his pay, which is wrong. And this is a serious moral breach.
II. When this anomaly is corrected and a legislator is found wanting by his Constituency, it shall become easy to recall him. And this also is a positive outcome from the context of True micro- zoning. In this same context, the legislator should not even spend a dime to be elected! Because everything should be done by his Constituency, his employer.
III. Take it or leave it, if a legislator did not buy our vote or our mind when he was elected into office, he cannot buy our vote or our mind when he is to be recalled from that same office. And if in addition, his pay is fixed and settled by his Constituency, he owes his total loyalty to his Constituency, and that is when the Constituency shall have True Representation at the National Assembly.
IV. In this matrix, our vote is the constant while the legislator is the variable. The constituency is an institution we ought to build, defend and strengthen, and not the legislator. Because the Constituency is the Government of his community in perpetuity, of which the legislator is a part.
V. This is when power shall indeed belong to the people, and when the process is used to build strong institutions and not strong sacred cows.
V. This Damage Control Measure shall make our Elective Offices less attractive. Therefore, it will shore up those who are willing to serve the public because they are called into Leadership.
VI. Besides, it will reduce the cost of election to 1%, and the cost of Governance by 40%.
VII. Ultimately, it will also promote true representations away from political gladiators.
Let us understand that the Constituency has not posted its trusted staff (the legislator) to the Federal Government to engage the President in a duel, or shouting match et al, but to assist him do well in discharging his responsibilities to his Constituency which is a component of his Country, and to check his excesses. Owing to this, the legislator will be duty bound to consult his Constituency for every major decision to be taken at the Assembly. But today to a large extent, this is lacking in our narratives .
Because instead, the legislator is covertly consulting with the Federal Government, his pseudo employer. And it is said that he who pays the Piper dictates the tune. So the President can even act ultra vires or act blatantly or with insensitivity towards the interests of his Constituency, and the legislator just turns a blind eye. After all, if he is loyal to the President and the party, he will be given a ticket to return. And with this attitude, the Constituency has become useless and meaningless in the power equation even during elections, because it has not been built as an institution.
Our people should spend more time and resources to build their Constituencies than to build political parties, because building the Constituencies means building the people.
And the Government at all levels should intentionally devote resources to build people in all Constituencies than to build political parties. Because in the past decades of political Governance in this Country, political parties have not built anyone except with the resources of the people through Governments.
And to the extent that the Constituency has not been built, to that extent the people in that Constituency have not been built. So they remain powerless and poor, to be pitied, served and maintained with palliatives from their Elected legislator, till the next election.
Given the above disclosures, at this time we should begin to introduce and collate enforceable anti-Constituency activities into law, and the breach of each activity should be punishable by the withdrawal of the Elected legislator. And the activities should be placed higher than the much touted anti-party activities which the legislator respects and of which he is afraid.
By reason of this anomaly, we do not have the full benefits of the Doctrine of Separation of Powers, since the loyalty of the legislator is with the Executive Arm and not to his Constituency who elected him, i.e. dislocated.
And this accounts for why a sitting President of Nigeria cannot be impeached, regardless of his anti-people policies, decisions and actions, because the same legislators who should impeach the President will consult with the President to know whether or not they should impeach him.
Whereas when the legislator recognises his Constituency as his employer and owes his allegiance to it, then the President will be careful and sit up, knowing that if not, the Legislature will not spare him.
For the legislator at the Subnational, the scenario are the same and the Damage Control Measures are also at Subnational level.
5. Rejig the Electoral Constituencies
Each State should become a Senatorial District, while the existing Senatorial Districts in the States become Federal Constituencies.
Each State shall produce 1 Senator and 3 Members of the House of Representatives.
With this rejigging, in the Senate, there shall be 37 Senators, including 1 Senator from the FCT.
And in the House of Representatives, there shall be 109 members including 1 Representative from the FCT.
The size of the National Assembly shall be reduced from the present 469 members to 146 members, while the 323 members shall return to their private undertakings to boost the Private Sector.
Accordingly, the cost of hosting the National Assembly legislators and running their activities at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja by the Federal Government, shall be proportionally reduced. In addition to this, the burden of the entire jumbo salaries of the Federal Legislators shall be lifted from the Federal Government.
This Damage Control Measure shall reduce cost of Governance to the Federal Government by 40%, if not more.
In addition, this shall liberate more people from the idleness of politicking into productive engagements.
To that extent, corruption shall be proportionally reduced.
If our sitting President appointed 48 citizens into his cabinet instead of 36, one from each State, and Heaven did not fall, he could also have appointed 20 citizens into the same cabinet, and denied some States ministerial appointments, and Heaven would not have fallen either.
Oh the fruitless argument is that it is a Constitutional requirement. Are we not aware of the new Tax law in town, and the tax exemptions granted to poor citizens of Nigeria? When the provisions of the Constitution drives 99% of our citizens into abject poverty and only those in appointive and elective offices can pay taxes, perhaps that is when our leaders shall recognise that our Constitution has neither a heart nor conscience.
Every decision a person on the Throne takes is evidence of whether he is a leader to the Country or a manager of the resources of the Country. We need a proactive problem-solving leadership in Nigeria, so that we may have something to teach Africa and justify our claims to leadership. Otherwise Africa has lost her bearing and hope.
Nigeria is still a poor country. And at the moment, given our current profile of challenges, we cannot afford the luxury of this large legislature. It is unnecessary and wasteful. In this, we have overreached ourselves.
37 Senators would be enough to handle the job of the Federal legislature at the upper chamber, and 109 Members are even too many for the Lower chamber.
Now let me say this, if the President feels overwhelmed by the large field of work he is saddled to do, he can cede some of the items in the Exclusive List to the States to handle. These should be as many as would allow him to maintain a lean Government with lower cost of Governance to Nigerians than at present.
In other words, if the President has identified this as a challenge, he should then lead Nigeria out of it, and this is Leadership, than to circumvent and manage it at excruciating cost to Nigeria.
Doing this may not yield the desired result overnight, but he could start the process. And when Nigerians see the honesty and transparency of his intentions and his desire to give us a workable Nigeria, then assuredly, cooperations will spring up from everywhere to drive his success.
In the 90s, the late Mr Mikail Gorbachev, the then President of the defunct USSR, had set a world record that is yet to be broken.
Recall that while on the Throne of Government, he voluntarily instituted a Policy of apparent self-defeat that dismantled the erstwhile Soviet blog over which he was the sitting President. Today the Countries that sprang up from that policy decision make more purposeful contributions and impacts to world affairs. Ukraine may serve as a sterling example.
Therefore it is a matter between the survival of self ego of a sitting President and the survival of the entire Country.
And ultimately, it is a Presidential decision either to build for himself a National legacy, or to continue to breed a clan of more sacred cows. And for me, it is a matter of National priority and a not a subject of legalism.
Now to the Subnational legislatures.
For the State Legislature, the extant Senatorial Districts should become the State Constituencies. And each Constituency should produce 4 House Members making each State Assembly 12 Members.
In Akwa Ibom State for example, 12 Members are enough to handle the volume of legislative work generated by the Executive Arm of Government. And if the Executive Arm of Government is disciplined, then the oversight functions of the legislature will just be minimal.
This Damage Control Measure will reduce the cost of Governance to the States by at least 12%. For instance the cost of running the legislature in Akwa Ibom State will be reduced by 40%, if not more, since the size of the legislature is reduced to 50%.
We do not need an overly large Government at the National and at the Subnational levels in the Country, because of the increasing rate of idleness and poverty among the Citizenry. The cost savings should be deployed to build factories for Production.
Even at the LGA tier of the Government, the legislature should be reduced to 3 per each LGA, i.e.1 from each Senatorial District.
6. Abolish the Constituency Projects
Constituency Projects attached to the legislators should be abolished forthwith at both the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly.
If constituency projects given to the legislators shall have to be executed by the Executive Arm of Government, or are to be executed at all, and not just legislated upon by the legislators, then why are they routed through the legislative corridor? What is the intention? What are the safeguards that in this passage they are not subjected to the routine corruption in monetary values and in work qualities?
This should be likened to the madness, mindlessness, irrationality and impropriety of awarding a contract for the construction of a bridge over an ocean, to a firm of Chartered Accountants, or contracting a firm of lawyers to manage the manufacture of autos.
This Damage Control Measure will eliminate frauds and promote discipline among the law makers to concentrate on their law making. Besides, this will reduce cost of Governance by 15% as well as the pressure to be in public office. It will check corruption.
7. Federalise the Electoral Process with the States
The subsisting Constitution of Nigeria should flex the electoral process to allow the States to develop and install the electoral processes that are peculiar to and consistent with their moral values and ethical profile. If this is done, Nigeria shall not collapse or cease to be Nigeria.
The electoral process should be Federalist and not unitary. It should be liberalised and unbundled to allow for peculiar and Zero-political inputs.
For instance a state may fall in love with the iconic Option A4, which is practically simple, inexpensive and transparent. Then why drag her into the mud slinging corrupt prone complicated process of party congresses that are bound to end in chaos and mess? Must we all be forced to participate in these bestial activities because we are in a Federal Republic of Nigeria?
Besides, some States have designed their fraud-free, rancour-free and corruption-free transparent Zero-political Way and Means of selecting and electing their leaders into public offices, without the use of political parties as enshrined in the subsisting Constitution. We should let this be. But the law has dictated otherwise.
Honestly, some States which have better ideas of conducting elections are only hamstrung and stuck with an alien incorrigible electoral process imposed on them by the Central Government.
Why do we not liberalise the electoral process at this time?
This Damage Control Measure will produce the True Leaders that are in dire need but in short supply in Nigeria, owing to faulty electoral system and processes.
It will also reduce corruption and cost of election.
8. Release an Incumbent office holder if he opts to seek election
If the incumbent of an elective office desires to contest in the next election into another office or the same office the second time, let him first resign say, 180 or 90 days before the election. The power of incumbency is a full blown corruption for all politicians in Nigeria.
Even if this obtains in Countries xyz of the world, the elites in Nigeria without exception, will continue to corrupt it to xyz. So the best antidote is to refrain from it and outlaw it.
This Damage Control Measure will ensure a level playing field for all contestants. It will eliminate corruption and undue influence on the electoral empire. It will reduce litigations and the associated cost. It is a moral fraud to use official resources to contest for elections while other contestants use their private resources. Where is equity?
It will also sanitise the electoral process and ensure transparency, freeness and fairness in the system. It will make the election result credible and more acceptable, and reduce the cost of litigations and bad blood among the contestants. It will promote brotherhood and strengthen democracy.
9. A call for Introspections
Finally, the above antidotes are my personal suggestions. They may not be the actual solutions required to ferry Nigeria to her Eldorado. They are just damage control measures. So we may have to open the National space for discourses, debates and inputs to make them work. But certainly they do not call for shouting matches and abuses, because these will only shut in the voices of other Nigerians from contributing to nation building.
I remain,
A loyal Citizen of Nigeria,
Francis J Sharon,
The Head Coach to Divine Leadership
The Villa, Ediene Atai
Ikono LGA, Akwa Ibom State
@ francisjsharon@gmail.com
August 30, 2025.
CC
1. The State Houses of Assembly
2. The Registered Political Parties
3. The Democratic Institutions
4. Select Civil Society Organizations
5. Select Media Groups