PPPPA boss also seeks a reversal of the burden of proof in election petitions and a counterfoil on every ballot, says integrity deficit, not technology, is Nigeria’s electoral problem
The Director-General of the Delta State Public and Private Property Protection Agency (PPPPA), Hon. Gibson Akporehe, has urged Nigerians to exercise patience with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying the President’s reforms are well thought out and will bring the country out of the woods.
Hon. Akporehe spoke at a public dialogue themed “Democracy That Works: Bridging the Gap Between Votes, Results and Institutional Accountability,” which had a former Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Hon. Mike Igini, Esq., as Chairman of the Occasion.
Drawing a parallel with Singapore, Hon. Akporehe, who also served in the Delta State House of Assembly, recalled how Lee Kuan Yew’s reforms lifted the island nation from the Third World to one of the wonders of modern civilisation. He reminded the audience that Singaporeans endured roughly eight years of excruciating pain, which he described as the attendant consequences of growth, and that they now savour the very sacrifices they initially rejected.
Integrity deficiency, not technology
Turning to elections, Hon. Akporehe argued that Nigeria’s difficulty is not a shortage of technology but a shortage of character. In spite of INEC’s many technological innovations, he said, the country is experiencing a worsening degeneration in the outcome and integrity of its elections, so much so that the 1999 election that birthed the current democracy still stands out as the most credible in the nation’s democratic journey.
“The integrity deficiency plaguing every sector of our national life is one of the reasons why the technological innovations didn’t count,” he said, adding that Nigerians are all complicit, one way or the other, in the mess.
He described the expectation that engaging professors to monitor and conduct elections would automatically improve outcomes as a fallacy, noting that the anticipated improvement has remained a far cry from what was promised.
Reversing the burden of proof
Advancing solutions to election disputes, Hon. Akporehe called for an amendment to the Evidence Act, the law that prescribes how matters are established in court. Section 131 of the Act places the burden of proving irregularity on the petitioner. He argued that an exception should be created for election cases, placing the burden of proof instead on INEC officials to validate the results they declare.
According to him, such a reversal would inject a high sense of responsibility and integrity into the conduct of INEC officials, who would no longer be able to run away with every contraption. The position was accepted by the Chairman of the Occasion, Hon. Igini.
His second proposal was the introduction of a counterfoil on every ballot paper. Under the arrangement he described, a voter would cast the ballot and record on the counterfoil the party voted for, then hand the counterfoil to party leaders, creating an independent record against which declared results could be tested.
Igini: turnout fell to 26.7% in 2023
In his remarks, Hon. Igini pointed to falling voter turnout as evidence of public disaffection, noting that participation dropped from 53.7 per cent in 2011 to 34.1 per cent in 2019 and further to 26.7 per cent in 2023. “This shows that many people are not happy with how elections are going,” he said.
He warned that Nigeria’s democracy currently works more at the level of the elites than at the level of the many, and asked how the gap between the vote, the result and what happens afterwards can be closed in the interest of the people.
The former Resident Electoral Commissioner also recalled INEC’s introduction of the Electoral Act amendment and the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV) to curb manipulation at collation centres, and said that while the senatorial and House of Representatives results were transmitted in 2023, the presidential result transmission was sabotaged.
Hon. Akporehe stressed that elected officials cannot be held accountable without a proper mandate from the people. “People cannot be accountable to you if you did not elect them. You must give the mandate,” he said, adding that many so-called elected officials today are not accountable to the electorate.
He urged citizens to organise from the community level and take ownership of the process, describing every election as a test that requires voters to educate and organise themselves.
Both speakers closed with a call for a stronger defence of democratic institutions, particularly by the media and civil society.
