If we tossed coins to select our rulers, would we get a result worse than what we have so far?
The Chairman of the Independent National Elections Commission, Prof Joash Amupitan, recently raised the alarm over funding gaps for the next general election due to commence in January 2027. Amupitan was addressing a conference of senior police officers in Owerri, Imo State, on Wednesday, September 23, 2026. The commission which has requested for N873 billion to conduct the election has apparently not received all it asked for. Amupitan stressed that inadequate funding could affect the ability of INEC and security agencies to carry out their responsibilities effectively with implications for the conduct of the election. “Sometimes, it is not what you would like to do that you are able to do because of financial constraints … In Nigeria, we want the best. We want our electoral system to be 100 per cent. But sometimes we don’t ask ourselves the question: if we want the nation to be perfect, there must be a cost for it,” he said. In Amupitan’s construct, money maketh all things right. But is that really true of our elections over the years? Can we truly say that our elections have delivered the best outcome for the country and its subnational units given the money that has been sunk in them?
Days before INEC released the timetable for the 2027 general election in February 2026, it had presented a budget of over N800 billion to conduct the elections, an amount that is over twice what it applied for and got in 2022 for the 2023 election, ostensibly because of the inflation in the last four years. Over the last 27 years of our democracy, INEC has collected and spent billions of naira for our national elections and this is only at paper value, not calculating it at today’s money value which should give us several more billions. The cost of the various polls in Naira and Dollar given Nigeria’s official exchange rates at the time of the elections are as follows: 1999 -N32bn ($1.46bn); 2003- N55.172bn ($483.965m); 2007- N74.2bn ($618.333m); 2011- N99.7bn ($664.667m); 2015-N122.9bn ($646.842m); 2019-N242.2bn ($794.098m); and 2023-N355.298bn ($815.475m). This is aside from the electoral commission’s annual budgets for capital and operating expenditure. The estimate for 2027 is N873.78 billion ($641 million).
The INEC spend is just one portion of the whole election-season bonanza because governments and individual candidates deploy billions of naira yearly in the race for a piece of the action of political power. Under the current spending limit in Section 92(1-8) of the Electoral Act, the spending threshold for presidential candidates has been raised from N5 billion to N10 billion while the spending threshold for governorship candidates has been raised from N1 billion to N3 billion. Other contested offices also got increases. But, surely we all know that these figures are peanuts, compared to what is actually spent, especially by the leading candidates and most especially by the ruling party in power in an election year. From reports already in the media, governors and other political office holders are pooling massive amounts – already approaching a trillion naira – for just the presidential election campaign of the ruling party. One medium announced the sum of N800 billion as pledges already made. Yet, from experience, heads of MDAs at all levels will divert funds to their principals’ election causes, this at a time public infrastructure is in a bad shape.
And, politico-preneurs in the shape of big business people will chip in their hundreds of billions more to hedge their business bets and special interests. It appears that the only business of government, and the most important, is the 4-year campaign spend. Yet, here we are, seeing such massive mobilisation of public and private resources for what is increasingly a sham process at a time public infrastructure including some federal roads across the country are virtually impassable, especially as the rains have arrived with fervour. Meanwhile, the only roads that can take you anywhere are in government press statements, the few shiny ones over which an extended extrapolation has been made in conversation brickbats such as the Lagos-Calabar road. It is quite appropriate that Works minister David Umahi has renamed it the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Coastal Highway, puts the whole project in perspective and we can now rest because nowhere have we seen a 700km road with such convoluted nomenclature, especially one that will cross rivers and several states. As they say, we learn everyday.
Imagine what could have happened if the whole money spent on elections went to fixing infrastructure. So, you may ask, if we don’t spend on elections how do we get our rulers? I’ll say, just toss the coin, it can’t throw up worse outcomes.
The conduct of elections is regarded as a critical part of the democratic process, we are told, and institutions like INEC exist, not as part of the bureaucratic furniture but to ensure that the elections deliver on the expectations of the people. Of course INEC does not produce the candidates or leaders, it only acts as umpire. It is not the business of INEC to determine who the parties put forward to contest an election. The politicians have made it fait accompli that any forger or criminal can contest an election and be crowned thereafter. So if we have bad rulers or candidates stepping forward we can’t truly blame INEC, but the process that has thrown up such men; or, if we are honest with ourselves then we should admit that these ones are the cream of our society. Which means they’re the best of us and we must then shut up because the rest of us must be way worse. What this also means is that we may as well have had those declared as the losers as the winners and we may just as well have had the same outcomes at national and subnational levels. Tell me, would Chief Olu False have been worse than President Olusegun Obasanjo if he had won the presidential contest and been sworn in as President on May 29,1999, just by throwing the dice? I doubt very much. Then, imagine the other benefits. If someone is declared winner in an election all he has to say is that ‘I was lucky’, not that ‘the people chose me because I was the best and had the best plans.’ We would be saved from the nonsense of sloganeering and posturing, which is the much we got from campaigns all these years.
Then, consider the mindless waste of resources organising elections, especially as more money has been voted in every succeeding election cycle on what is hailed as systems and processes to enhance the credibility of the elections. Just like Prof Amupitan has weaponed the fear of a poorly-organised election, so in 2006 Professor Maurice Iwu said he needed so much money to conduct a free and fair election. The result was an election judged as one of the worst in recent times such that the chief beneficiary, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, admitted to its failings and set up a committee on election reforms. INEC spent N74.2 billion on that election. Since then, as Nigerians yearned for a better electoral process, the answer has been more money.
At all times, with the blackmail or hope for better outcomes, Nigerians say give them all they want. It is enough, I say give them nothing. If you look at the products of INEC – our politicians and leaders in the last 27 years – is there any sense that they have done well? In spite of a burgeoning purse, is there any sense that there has been much benefit to the average Nigerian or that the best people have been elected? The other question to ask is if the opponents of the various winners had been declared winners, would we have fared worse? That is, if the alternative candidates had won, would we have been worse off? I doubt very much. This is without sounding insulting to the various winners or losers over the years, because the evidence, whether in policy, strategy, comportment or character, does not acquit them. If, indeed, the candidates, systems and processes had worked well, what are we still doing with an economy in tatters after 27 years of continuous democracy, with more people in poverty and marked de-industrialisation, among other indices.
Then consider the people thrown up as leaders. After all, the elections midwifed by INEC have given us drug dealers, criminals of all shades, including fraudsters, at the commanding heights! What could be worse than that? We have had rulers who could not express themselves just as we have had excellent communicators who were not elected but are happy to work under these characters and credit them with phenomenal intelligence and competences. We have had rulers who shared stomach infrastructure and the ones who gave out wheelbarrows and shovels as economic empowerment for the 21st century, at the dawn of artificial intelligence! The same way we have the ones who budgeted billions for palliatives and locked them up to use for campaigns. When you add that as yet another tentacle of corruption, you see that we could not have done worse choosing anyone else, whatever the position.This is why the whole argument for elections as we know them, and a huge budget for INEC, needs a rethink. I think we are wasting money and time and we will be no worse if we just tossed the coin to select our rulers. Just legislate two parties, establish some criteria, get the names of candidates for all positions and toss the coins. It will save us money, which they could deploy to social services or steal, as they wish. It will also save us the emotional and physical traumas that come with our elections. And, it will save us the headache of expectations.
Professor Joash Amupitan SAN, the INEC chairman, says though he cannot guarantee a perfect election, “by the grace of God, the 2027 election will be the best Nigerians will have.” This is because, I guess, as he said, “When people trust INEC and their leaders, the country moves forward.” Those were his words at a townhall on the electoral act organised by INEC in Abuja in March, six months ago. It is indeed strange logic for a prof, this ‘God-Grace’ as the x-factor, but seeing that he is now at the centre of the power equation this is understandable; we only need to trust him. It is interesting that the good prof said that the glitches that marred the 2023 election have been addressed. “Glitches have been eliminated. By God’s grace, they will not surface again.” He was addressing the failure to transmit results electronically three-plus years ago. God again. Hmmm, I believe God but whenever His name is employed as QED I lower my expectations. And, well, that one does not matter because, after all, the Supreme Court effectively settled that matter in 2023. What use is the promise of transmission when in the case of Rivers State, the one transmitted and recorded on the IREV in the presidential election was different from the one announced by the INEC, yet the supreme court took no notice of this. Me sef, I am taking no further notice of any election matter; just toss the coin.
This writer can be reached at: hadjigworo@gmail.com
