SAMSON Itodo is the Executive Director of YIAGA Africa and a principal partner at the Election Law Centre. Skilled in legislative advocacy and youth development, he was the founding convener of the Not Too Young to Run movement. In this exclusive interview with The ICIR@64 series tagged Independence Watch, he speaks on youth involvement in politics, elections, and the leadership question, among burning national issues. Excerpts
The ICIR: Let’s start with your recent engagement to Edo state, where you monitored the governorship election. You have given your verdict on that in your report, but for the purpose of this interview, we would like you to expatiate on your experience as far as that election is concerned.
Samson Itodo: Well, the Edo election has come and gone. YIAGA Africa deployed the processed results for verification, the PRVT methodology, that leverages statistical principles and technology for observing elections. We observed the pre-election and election-day processes, and there were three sorts of tests that underpinned the election.
The first was a resilience test, and it was really testing whether the people of Edo state were going to show up despite the early warning signs of violence, the adverse weather in this case, rainfall.
What we saw on the election day was that the test was partially met because over 600,000 people still showed up out of the 2.2 million people with their PVCs. The turnout of 22.4 per cent is abysmally low, so they didn’t pass the resilience test.
However, for those people who showed up, we must commend them, because despite the logistics challenge that they encountered, they were patient, they stayed in the rain to cast their votes. So, that test was partially met.
The second test was the impartiality test, regarding whether security agencies were going to be professional; whether they were going to be neutral in the management of election security operations.
To a large extent, they were professional because the election, despite concerns that it was going to be violent, turned out to be peaceful. A lot goes to say about how the security agencies managed the situation. The one concern that has actually come which we’ve also highlighted, was that we discovered that despite the huge deployment of security agencies, about 45,000, there were still uneven deployment. So we went to densely populated polling units, and still saw one or two security officials, which really questioned the efficacy of the deployment plan for the security.
To a large extent, they (security operatives) were professional because the election, despite concerns that it was going to be violent, turned out to be peaceful.
Also, you know, the role that the security agencies also play in the course of collation, we saw, from our observation, that they interfered with the collation process, and we are concerned that the police or security agencies need to explain the reasons behind that interference, especially at the collation centre, whether it was as a result of threat or violence.
We haven’t received any sort of explanation in that regard, but also the role that the security agencies played, when it came to vote buying. There were real cases of vote buying which we highlighted, where votes were sold for as high as 10,000 per vote, and some of these infractions happened right there in polling units where security agents were present. However, we commend the EFCC for actually effecting arrest, at least it is on record that the EFCC arrested people who were buying votes.
When it came to election integrity, we looked at the deployment of election materials. Based on our PRVT data, election officials arrived in about 41 per cent of polling units at 7:30am, which showed some measures of early arrival. But it wasn’t on the average. Secondly, accreditation of voting started late, because only in 17 per cent of polling units did they start at exactly 8:30, but things picked up, and by 10, 10:30, virtually 80 per cent of polling units, somewhere about 80 per cent by 11, had started voting.
So, there were logistical challenge, no doubt, with the election. I think one of the biggest issue for this election, and before I come to that, is to say for the Edo election, accreditation, voting, recording of results at the polling units, were handled in conformity with the Electoral Act. To a large extent, this actually, would have been a good election, but the collation process was where there was a challenge. That is clearly stated in our report; where results declared by INEC didn’t fall within the margin of error because the PVT detected that results may have been altered in the four local governments that we highlighted.
We clearly stated in our statement where we called on INEC to investigate these infractions, and for the officials who compromised this process, they should be held to account.
The ICIR: So in the final analysis, the verdict of that election, would you say it was a true reflection of the will of the people?
Samson Itodo: Well, what we have said in our statement is clear, in that the election did not meet the integrity test as a result of the question relating to how the collation process was managed. Usually, as election observers, we assess the quality. We’re not interested in the outcome, it’s not in our place to determine outcome.
As election observers, we are more interested in is whether the process was transparent; if those processes complied with the laid down rules. What we have done is simply identifying some of the challenges in this entire process that undermine the public integrity, that undermine the integrity of the entire process. As civil society, we’ve discharged our functions; it’s now left for the institutions to take action on the reports, but we have discharged our duties as accredited INEC observers.
The ICIR: Nigeria has turned 64 years as a nation; what is your assessment of the journey so far?
Samson Itodo: I think our democratic journey or independence has been one that had its high moments and also its low moments. When you think about high moments, it’s the fact that yes we’ve had periodic elections, even though election does not signify democracy. But we’ve had elections, and to a large extent, they have been improving, until recently, where we’re beginning to see a resurfacing of old tactics of election manipulation show up in our electoral process and that’s really one of the sub points.
if you look at the level of citizen engagement with democratic process, you see from independence till date, there has been a remarkable shift. You have citizens who have become more conscious of their rights, who are engaging and demanding accountability.
But if you look at the level of citizen engagement with democratic process, you see from independence till date, there has been a remarkable shift. You have citizens who have become more conscious of their rights, who are engaging and demanding accountability.
We’ve also seen democratic institutions being held to account, you know within our electoral process. We’ve seen government reverse policies as a result of the push from citizens. So, to a large extent, we are independent, but that independence has not delivered on its promise.
I’ll give to you examples, that in this entire journey, the whole notion of independence is to be stripped from external influence, and how you shape your own domestic policy.
I think to a great extent, we have achieved that, but then, issues relating to our debt, and the role of the IMF, and the World Bank in shaping our economic policy, still leaves us tied to the dictates of certain western countries.
If when you think about our economy, they are dictated by certain superpowers, and you look at issues around taxes, you look at issues around electricity, prices, you look across our economy, you still see those vestiges of neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism.
Internally, I’d say we’ve taken stock of our own independence, but we’re somewhat also dependent on foreign debt, and that is really crippling our future and mortgaging our future.
When you look at the policy around fuel subsidy, fantastic policy, although, when you look at the sort of interventions to cushion the effects, of the subsidy, most of them have not delivered on their desired goals, and you ask yourself, how is the west actually determining how we run our economy.
I think the second point about independence is whether as a nation, we have evolved with a unique identity and ideology, and that is fundamentally lacking within our own space. We’re so pluralised, the ethnic fragmentation is quite high. Today we talk about all sorts of zoning, there are certain parts of our country that feel marginalised, There’s a a certain group of people, who cannot become president, or situations where there are certain religions and religious groups that are actually in this tension and push and pull.
But what is the Nigerian identity? What are their national values? So, even though we’re celebrating independence, the level of nationalism and patriotism is at its lowest, what is independence without patriotism? What is independence without nationalism? It is nationalism that make citizens proud of their country. It is nationalism and independence that make citizens satisfied that they have leaders that take decisions on their behalf because they hold power in trust for them.
It is independence and nationalism that shows that when legislators in the national assembly rise and say, they speak for and on behalf of their people, they are actually doing so after consulting with the people. It is independence that make us feel secured, in our own country. It is one where justice isn’t for a selected few who can afford it, but that justice is for all.
…what is the Nigerian identity? What are their national values? So, even though we’re celebrating independence, the level of nationalism and patriotism is at its lowest, what is independence without patriotism? What is independence without nationalism? It is nationalism that make citizens proud of their country.
These are the issues that Nigerians are actually grappling with. So when you think about independence, they’re looking at independence from economic depravity, independence from political exclusion, independence from insecurity, independence from bad governance, because if you look from our local level, you’ll see how bad governance has crippled the livelihood of people.
These are the fundamental issues, and if independence cannot deliver all of these, that at a point to say, “Yes Nigeria, you are able to administer your affairs on your own without any external leadership”, then we have to rethink our model of governance.
I am glad to see that yes, whether through local governance and decentralisation, or through a restructuring of the power sharing formula between the federal and the state or the issue around our constitution that really needs an overhaul, that gives everybody the sense of belonging.
These are the crux of the discussion, and I hope that this independence gives us time to reflect about what we are as a country and what we need to be average Nigerian who is out there on the street.
The ICIR: We have had a number experiments in our governance system. Currently, we are practicing the presidential system which many have criticised as being too expensive. How effective has it been?
Samson Itodo: Well, it’s a mix bag. The truth is that presidentialism is quite expensive, but it has its own pros, it has its own cons. Those that have been agitating for a reversed, to return to parliamentarianism, they also have their reasons because we have the fusion of power, and then you have an executive that could derive from the parliament.
I would say that we’ve spent so much on this system of government and to be honest, the problem isn’t the system, the problem is the people who run the system. We can switch to parliamentarianism, but if we still have these crop of political class who don’t feel they are accountable to the people, who don’t use power, you will still have the same issue, because all systems, regardless of the protection mechanisms in place, all systems are susceptible to capture, because they are run by human beings.
I would say that we’ve spent so much on this system of government (presidentialism) and to be honest, the problem isn’t the system, the problem is the people who run the system.
So at the end of the day, it is who are these individuals? Are they political leaders that have values? Who respect the will of the people, and don’t want power at all cost, or people who see politics, who see power, who see political leadership as an opportunity for crimitive accumulation of wealth, and not necessarily using state power to serve the common goal, to protect people, to perform the real responsibility of the state which is catering to the welfare of the people and also providing security or performing your own part of the social contract.
So you see, it’s not necessarily about the system. I agree the systems have their own pros but then, you know, it’s about the people because if you think about the presidential system of government, yes we have the bicameral legislature.
Some have said, “Why do we need a bicameral legislature? Why not just have one assembly because it will reduce the cost of governance in the national assembly? But I also say you know, you look at the state, you have unicameral legislature, and the big question that we ask ourselves is, with all the structures, have we elected or manned them with people, whose only interest is the common good?
Until we raise politicians and political leaders who value transparency, credibility, integrity, excellence in service and people who don’t see public office as a tool to fight elite wars, we will still remain where we are regardless of the system that we adopt.
The ICIR: Would you say our electoral system have been credible to produce to the right leaders that we deserve?
Samson Itodo: You can have credible elections with bad leaders, and you can have bad elections with at least good and responsive leaders. The big question of our journey is we’ve made remarkable progress. From 1999 to 2003 to 2007 to 2011, you cannot compare those elections, because we have seen INEC as an electoral management body in these seven election cycles improve on its professional competence.
We’ve seen an INEC that has improved in planning, in procurement, in managing election administration, and so when you think about the professional and the technical competencies of the electoral commission, its greatly improved.
The challenge however, is that the more INEC improves on its professional competencies, the higher the political interference, so the question when we think about election administration, is it a technical problem, or a political problem?
I say it’s a combination of both. However the political issues are actually higher, and that’s why Justice Uwais in his recommendations said we need to deal with the appointment process of INEC’s leadership. That the whole process, the constitution says, the president shall appoint. For the state governors, it says they should appoint into six. Our experience in our journey to independence shows that that’s actually a tool that is used to capture the electoral commission. Year in year out, we see executives appointing people who are politically aligned into the electoral commission. You cannot have better elections, you cannot have improved elections, you cannot have credible elections, if they’re superintendent by people who are politicians, or who are aligned with politicians.
There’s a reason why neutrality is a cardinal principle of election administration. Unfortunately, the political class have bastardised that particular appointment process.
We also look at the process of discipline within the electoral commission, whether the INEC chairman and the national commissioners can discipline resident electoral commissioners. They are not the appointing authority, and so how do we regain our laws in a way that the issue about discipline of RECs is within the purview of the electoral commission because it makes no sense to me that you are the head of an institution but you cannot discipline your staff in the institution when they err.
These are some of the issues. We’ve seen a trend in these years, where we’ve spent more on elections but the quality of our elections have also declined. It’s not because we’re not planning well, it is simply because politicians are interfering with the process, so the more we spend, the lower the quality. But we’ve also seen the introduction of technology, and that is something we must celebrate for, if even voter registration, you know from optical mark, down to digital capture machines, and now we have IREV. So we’ve seen this incremental use of technology, and then all these were introduced to sanitise this process.
But the more we introduce technology, the greater the encroachment of political actors to undermine the technology and that is the saddest part of our electoral process.
The ICIR: Talking about technology, reminds me of what the former president, Goodluck Jonathan recently said that the use of technology does not necessarily solve our problems in the electoral system. Do you share with that?
Samson Itodo: Absolutely. We’ve said it. YIAGA Africa in our final report on the 2023 elections, we said that technology is not a silver bullet. It takes more than technology to fixing the challenges of our electoral system, because we need the personal integrity of whoever is manning those machines.
Machines are also susceptible to manipulation, and this is why Raila Odinga from Kenya did say that “we have to be careful about the incremental use of technology for our elections so we don’t end up with computer generated leaders because just a click of a button or just a click on a keyboard can alter figures in an election.”
…we said that technology is not a silver bullet. It takes more than technology to fixing the challenges of our electoral system, because we need the personal integrity of whoever is manning those machines.
So technology is a tool that enhances integrity, but we cannot say that technology is a silver bullet, it’s not. It takes the integrity of those who are manning it, it takes the integrity and accountability of those who are developing that technology as well, and in this case, the big tech companies. It also takes the operators of a technology. So, technology is a tool, but it is not a silver bullet, It cannot in anyway guarantee credibility of the electoral process. It can also undermine public trust and confidence in the process.
The ICIR: You have also been an advocate of youth involvement, and you were also part of the ‘not too young to run’. Talk to us about the youths in our democratic journey, especially at the leadership level?
Samson Itodo: I’m glad you said at the leadership level because if you think about our journey, young people have been very active. They may have not gotten the results of their engagements, but they’ve been very active in shaping the evolution of our democratic process.
Whether it’s true the campaigns that they run, to getting the government to act on a certain issue. If you look at change makers and youth organisations who have done very well with mobilising young people to go and cast their votes, with the ‘Not too Young to Run’. When you say in terms of leadership, we’ve also seen some remarkable improvements, we are not where we were.
Prior to 2018, the age criteria for running for office was very high, but with the not too young to run, it reduced the age for state house of assembly from 30 to 25. After that, 22 young people won elections in 2019. That’s unprecedented since the return to democracy, we’ve never had any young person within that age bracket who was in the state house of assembly.
During the 2023 cycle, in the house of reps, we had 3 young people who were under 30 in the national assembly. The question is, how are they leading? How are they representing? And we’ve been doing this evaluation with them, and we’re quite impressed with the roles that young legislators have played in this dispensation and the last dispensation.
Yes, there’s one or two who fell below expectations, but majority of these young people have been performing. Some of them even rose to becoming speaker, the speaker of Oyo was one of them. Before now, we had the speaker of Plateau, and now we have a current speaker of Plateau as well who is one of the young legislators.
These are signs, but I would say that with respect to youth turnout for election, it continues to decline, and that you can attribute to the failure of governance to meet the needs of young people.
You can also attribute to the lack of trust within the electoral process. Afro-barometer tells us, yes, 70 per cent of Nigerians clamour for democracy; we love democracy as a system of government. However, 77 per cent of Nigerians have said that this democracy is not delivering because of the failure of leadership. My call to young people is if democracy is not delivering, I bet you, you don’t want to try military dictatorship, and no one should actually clamour for military dictatorship because it’s not an option.
My call to young people is if democracy is not delivering, I bet you, you don’t want to try military dictatorship, and no one should actually clamour for military dictatorship because it’s not an option.
Forget about what’s happening in Niger and all those other countries, people are still going through hell in those countries. So, don’t clamour for military takeovers, and we should be very antagonistic of any form of military takeovers. But whilst we are doing that, we as a country must also take into consideration, the reasons why people are interrogating democracy and so government needs to respond to the yearnings and aspirations of the people.
You saw the good governance protest, and how the state also responded. There are people who are still in incarceration because they only protested including children. I think these are some of the issues that government need to prioritise, and when you say independence, we cannot talk about independence if we have Nigerians who are citizens of this country who are in detention just because they asked the question that is guaranteed by virtue of the practice of democracy by which we all subscribe to by virtue of our constitution. That is not acceptable, that is not independence, for me.
Independence means that freedom and rights are respected, and that citizens have a fundamental right and the state should understand that there is a time for citizens to ask questions, that the state understand that protest is a right that citizens have, and let me make the point that when people decide to hijack protests to advance other sections of interest, the state should prevail and arrest those people.
When people take laws into their hands and commit all sorts of violence and criminality under the guise of protest, the state should arrest and prosecute those people. But for people who are exercising a right to speak out and engage with government to be unlawfully arrested and detained, I think it is totally unacceptable. There’s no basis for celebrating independence, because independence is freedom, and it is freedom from all forms of political oppression.
The ICIR: What do you make of those charges-treasonable charges slammed against some of the protesters?
Samson Itodo: I’ve followed these cases closely, and I would say that as one who believes in democracy, I have made the point consistently, that those who participated in the civil protest, who didn’t engage in any form of carnage or violence were exercising their rights, and that government needs to understand that protest is one way of speaking out. It’s an exercise of the right enshrined in section 40 of the constitution, that using treasonable charges, and labelling them against protesters is totally unacceptable.
But we must also make a distinction, and I think that there has to be thorough investigation. If there are evidence where people have violated our law, either by instigating treasonable actions, or by instigating violence, or just trying to ensure that there is political instability, I think that the state has a responsibility to protect the state. But they must do so within certain parameters of law, and so if people go before the court, are arrested, they are charged, they are entitled to bail.
They should be given bail, not with certain conditions that you know that they cannot meet. I think this tactical way of trying to keep people in detention is unfortunate.
The ICIR: Finally, what hopes do you think the citizens of Nigeria have for the country’s future?
Guest: I think there is hope. I’m an incurable optimist in the Nigerian project. That we may be going through hard times as a country, we may be victims of all forms of political oppression and human rights violations.
But I have hope and the reason I have hope is that when there was no reason to trust that votes were going to count, citizens in their large numbers prior to 2023 showed up to register to vote, although most of them didn’t come out to vote.
I’m very optimistic that Nigerians still believe in Nigeria. I see Nigerians every day, when they ask questions, when they go on social media and they are complaining, they are complaining because they love their country, they are complaining because they want their company to deliver for all, not for a few, they are complaining and asking questions because democracy is about asking questions, and so we see these questions as them complaining but that’s what democracy actually seeks to do.
So I’m very comforted with the fact that people have not really lost hope, people who are travelling out of this country, they’re travelling because they want a better life. If as Nigerians, we work hard to provide that better life here, provide economic and political opportunities, people will stay here, and there is no place like home, and so stay hopeful that our liberation as a country lies on how citizens use their voice to continue to speak, to continue to demand and to continue to take action in such a manner that it holds government to account, because after all anyone who is in public office is your employee, so you have to keep an eye on what they do, and if the next four years come, and you are not satisfied, you know what to do as a citizen, and if you are satisfied, you vote them into the national assembly, into the state houses of assembly. That’s the power you have as a citizen.
The ICIR: How hopeful are you for a youth becoming Nigeria’s president?
Samson Itodo: I’m very hopeful that a younger person can be the president of Nigeria, but I, Samson Itodo, will cast my vote for a young person who has competence, who has character, and who has capacity. But I would not cast my vote for anyone because they are young, because being young is not the criteria for leadership.
Fidelis Mac-Leva is the Deputy Editor of The ICIR/Head of Investigation. He has previously worked with several media outfits in Nigeria, including DAILY TIMES and DAILY TRUST. A compellingly readable Features writer, his forte is Public Interest Journalism which enables him to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted..." He can be reached via fmacleva@icirnigeria.org, @FidelisLeva on X