The Nigerian National Assembly, NASS, has passed for second reading, a bill which seeks to compel registered voters to compulsory cast their votes during elections. The goal of the bill is to bring to an end, low voter turn-out in Nigerian elections. The posture on its face value appears valid because of the total 93.47 million registered voters, in the country, only 24.9 million persons voted in the last presidential and National Assembly elections- a figure which represents a meagre 26.72 percent voter turnout, the lowest since the return to democracy in 1999. It is however interesting to note that our law makers think that coercion rather than voter education is a better approach to the subject. But then, they have made no effort to persuade anyone on it.

I disagree with the legislators because they should have started by convening a public hearing onthe factors that are dissuading voters from participating in voting day events. To move straight to making a law to compel citizens to vote which contradicts the constitutional provisions on freedom of speech, movement and association suggests that our law makers think they can make just any law no matter how obnoxious meaning that they only represent themselves and not the people. Before reviewing the arguments already canvassed by lawyers against the move, I am convinced that the issue at stake is not justabout law.Without any law 34.74 percent of voters participated in the 2019 elections. Why did it drop to 26.72 percent in 2023? Can law alone account it?

Those who claim to represent the people ought to know the basic grievances of the same people without much ado. It is therefore unfortunate that the current legislators think that our people are so docile that as the imperialist did during colonial rule, the average black man needs to be whipped to submission. There are Nigerians who are yet to get their voters card since 2015. If each legislator had gone to INEC to know his constituents who have any such constraint and assisted them to overcome it, such voters would not only have become ambassadors of the need to vote, the action would have reflected what it takes to appropriately represent a people. The same is true of voters whose cards had worn out that have to go through a mountain of administrative bureaucracy to regain a clean card.

Perhaps, the most important administrative issue with our elections is the so-calledlow voter turnout. The real problem everyone is pretending not to see is the existence of a bloated register. In the 70s some experts suggested that the total number of registered voters in Nigeria is less than half of the announced figure. On November 5, 2018, INEC said it had removed over 300,000 names from its voter register. Then, in 2022, INEC chair, Yakubu Mahmood said”nearly 45 per cent of completed registrations nationwide were invalid, rising to as high as 60 per cent or more in some states, and that this infraction happened in all the states of the federation.”This revelation speaks for itself.

With such a figure is it possible for elections not to have a low turn-out against the backdrop of a bloated register? What has INEC done to the call by Auwal Musa Rafsanjani the Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) that officials found wanting in the registration of underage persons be sanctioned? If our legislators are truly desirous of resolving the problems of low turn-out, it should have been more concerned with strengthening INEC’sposition on the need to make a law for the establishment of elections offences tribunal that would deter all types of election malpractices. That is the way forward rather than the decision to make a law that compels everyone to vote. To make matters worse, no effort has been made to create a convenient environment for voting. For example, many voters still have to walk long distances to their voting centresto vote.

The role which political leaders have continued to play in fabricating bloated voters register for the nation is most unfortunate. What they do is to target non-existent figures and work towards them. In 2019, in the Northwest alone, women and youth leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) rose from their meeting to strategize on how to deliver victory to the party in the zone, saying that, they will mobilize 15 million votes for the then President Muhammadu Buhari during the 2019 elections. In 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan’s admirers and ministers went from one stadium to another in different parts of the country counting the number of votes their members would cast. In both cases, the estimated figures of votes were higher than the number of voters in the INEC register. Why will we not have low voter turn out when the bench mark is fictitious? 

If we leave the issue of logic to law, there are more dissenting and articulate voices. First, is the Nigerian Bar Association which has come out forcefully against the proposed bill seeking to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory for all eligible Nigerians. In a strongly-worded statement, NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, described the bill which prescribes fines of up to N100.000 or jail terms for citizens who fail to vote as “an unconstitutional affront to civil liberties”warning that the move violates constitutional freedoms and undermines democracy.According to Osigwe democracy is not sustained by coercion, rather it “thrives on consent, participation, and trust. The moment citizens are forced to vote under the threat of imprisonment, the entire essence of free and fair elections collapses.”

On his part, human rights activist, Femi Falana SAN argued that the proposed amendment was “an unnecessary and dangerous distraction” from the real challenges facing Nigeria’s democracy. Falana argues that compulsory voting is not enough adding that criminalizing voter abstention violates fundamental human rights and misdiagnoses the problem of electoral apathy. He therefore called on the law makers to desist from fixing democracy by criminalizing dissent or forcing participation through fear of punishment. What the lawyers have said makes a lot of sense because if the real issue of voter apathy is to be pursued, government needs to examine why people are not voting.Instead of penalizing non-voters, government should address the root causes of voter apathy, including electoral violence, vote-buying, and weak electoral institutions.

We must begin from the basics of mass mobilization which indicates that citizen engagement must be inspired. It can’t be forced. The revamped National Orientation Agency NOA which has an office in every local government area should be commissioned to deploy its weekly mood of the nation report towards the identification of issues raised by the people on what voting means to them. NOA being an agency mandated to deal with citizen engagement should then proceed to design relevant strategies for value reorientation to tackle observed complaints. When it comes to electoral violence, NOA should get the buy-in of the law enforcement agencies on how the people can be enlightened on new approaches to the subject.

The question of the autonomy of the election management board is a major one. For some time now, it has become an open secret that the ruling party nominates its members to serve at the Independent National Electoral Commission as election managers especially resident electoral commissioners. Apart from the fact that it is illogical for a member of the competing teams in a game to serve as referee, it also offends our constitution which states that INEC officials must not have been involved in partisanship. Why those appointing their party members cannot see the futility of the act is shocking. During its days in power, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP did same but listened to public opinion and recalled such politicians from office. APC does not seem to be persuaded on that.

The controversial bill which is the subject of today’s article is particularly significant because it is sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen. It is important to appeal to him as a leader not to allow himself to be remembered as one who introduced coercive laws into Nigeria’s democracy. With his strong academic background as the first doctorate degree holder to be elected to the office of Speaker, he has every opportunity to write his name in gold; a feat that cannot be achieved if he remains associated with authoritarianism. There is no better time than now to bow to public opinion and drop the detestable compulsory voting law in a country where democracy is yet to be institutionalized.