From Ghana…Lessons for Nigeria’s electoral umpire ahead of 2027 polls

On December 7, 2024, over 15 million Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a president and 276 members of parliament. The incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo, having completed his constitutional term limits, was ineligible for re-election.

While the collation of results was still ongoing, the country’s vice president and presidential candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mahamudu Bawumia, conceded defeat to the opposition leader and candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), former president John Mahama.

Many observer groups, including the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM), the African Union (AU), the Commonwealth Election Observation Missions, Africa and World leaders described the election as largely peaceful and compliant with national and regional normative frameworks even though elections are not without flaws. 

Perhaps against the backdrop of this endorsement, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, declared that the success of the 2024 presidential election in Ghana was inspired by Nigeria’s electoral mode.

Yakubu, who also monitored the election alongside some INEC officials, specifically stated that the Electoral Commission of Ghana’s decision to decentralise its electoral system was inspired by Nigeria’s success in managing constituency election results. 

While commending the smooth conduct of the election, Yakubu observed that until the last election in Ghana, all parliamentary and presidential results were sent to the headquarters of the Electoral Commission in Accra for announcement.
 
“Although Ghana is not a federal system, they learnt from Nigeria where you have returning officers who announce results for parliamentary elections in the various constituencies around the country. Only the presidential election results come to Accra.

“In Nigeria, this is what we have done and they borrowed a leave from us, and this is the second time they are implementing that. That is why, as you can see, the declaration of the presidential election result was a lot faster than it used to be in the past,” Yakubu stated. 
 
Yakubu’s comment has generated harsh reactions from some people who were disappointed with recent polls conducted in the country.    Since the return of democracy in 1999, Nigeria’s elections have been plagued by issues like ballot box snatching, vote buying, voter intimidation and suppression. 

Some believe the February 2023 election was no different, arguing that despite the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) intended to enhance transparency, the process was marred by inconsistencies. INEC itself admitted the inherent challenges in the nation’s electoral system and has pledged to continue to improve the process. 
 
Analysts believe that Yakubu’s claims notwithstanding, Nigeria has a lot to learn from Ghana with regard to conducting transparent elections that will lead to peaceful transfer of power as exemplified by Ghana last Saturday.

With the announcement on Thursday by INEC that it would be recommending reviewing the electoral law to allow early/special voting for millions of Nigerians who do not vote at the moment on account of the roles they play during elections such as INEC officials, security personnel, ad hoc staff, among others, observers believe that the commission is already applying the lessons it learnt from Ghana’s election. 
 
At a meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), Yakubu said the proposal would form part of larger recommendations to be presented to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Electoral Matters.
 
Voting by proxy and special voting are two crucial provisions in Ghana’s electoral system. Voting by proxy allows a registered voter to appoint another person to cast his vote on his behalf, but this requires a valid reason such as illness, disability, employment, education or absence due to personal reasons. 
 
On the other hand, special voting is designed for individuals who will be on election duty and cannot present themselves at their polling stations on election day like election officials, security, media personnel, among others. Independent Candidacy is allowed in Ghana, giving individuals the option to run for office outside of traditional party structure. 

The 2024 Ghanaian elections were also powered by a relatively new piece of technology called the biometric verification device (BVD), which has been lauded for being responsible for the smooth electoral process.  
 
Speaking on the takeaways for Nigeria from the elections, Regional Advocacy Officer and ECOWAS Liaison Lead, West Africa Democracy Solidarity Network (WADEMOS), Austin Aigbe, disagreed with Yakubu’s claim that Ghana copied Nigeria’s electoral model even as he also questioned the transparency of Nigeria’s collation process. 
 
Aigbe noted that Ghana’s adoption of Nigeria’s decentralised electoral result management system almost led to disaster but for Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia’s concession call. 
 
He said the call prevented potential violence, as John D. Mahama had a comfortable lead.  He said: “The current collation process in Nigeria must be eradicated. It is our weakest link in our electoral system. You can’t have polling at the polling units and results being manipulated at the collation points.
 
“Look at all the elections we have had, even the off-cycle elections. What feedback is coming? The collation process is our worst process in the model that INEC Chairman has talked about. We must do something really quick with our collation system otherwise we will continue to have opacity in the system. And of course the trust deficit which has eroded all the gains of our electoral trajectory. I do not agree with the INEC chairman that the outing in Ghana was inspired by Nigeria’s electoral system.”   He stressed the need for INEC to be transparent; otherwise there would be a trust deficit.
 
According to him, the Electoral Commission of Ghana was going to slide into that trust disorder but for the commitment and the strength of the political party system that guided them.  
 
Aigbe added: “When you make statements as a commission, you must stick to that statement you made or when you release a procedure, a process, you must stick to it. You can’t say for this election XYZ will be done and then you just switch over to ZYM without letting people know about the new trajectory. While people are waiting for you to take the left route, you left them at the centre of the road and you took the right route. How do you expect the citizens to feel, including the political parties? And that is why we continually go to court in Nigeria, because we see INEC as deviating or diverting attention in a way that is not mutually beneficial. 
 
“INEC can learn that transparent approach, including information dissemination. Ghana has shown that path. Even when the political parties, particularly NDC, were accusing the commission of wrongdoing, the commission came out and explained in detail. 
 
“When we visited Ghana during the pre-election phase, around October, we met with the commission chair and we asked him these smaller details and he explained everything.
 

“And just to let you know, ahead of the 2023 elections, we had also met with INEC, who also explained in clear details the path to follow. When you see Ghana, the path to follow was maintained, but in Nigeria only God knows whether the path to follow was maintained and everybody knows. And that is what has led to this trust deficit that will impact future elections in Nigeria.”
 
On INEC plans to introduce early voting to Nigeria’s electoral process, Aigbe said the policy might backfire due to the trust deficit in the system.    Executive Director, Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), Bukola Idowu, suggested that as in Ghana, the electoral law should be amended to ensure that all elections, including presidential, governorship and parliamentary elections are conducted on the same day.
 
This, according to him, would help to reduce cost and manipulation.   Idowu’s suggestion was part of the proposal in a bill sponsored by a lawmaker representing the Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency, Imo State, Ikenga Ugochinyere, and 33 others, which has been rejected by the House of Representatives.   Idowu, however, argued that if elections are conducted on the same day in Nigeria, there won’t be “match fixing.”
 
“With that, it’s going to save us money.We won’t have to deploy police or logistics twice. You are not engaging the NURTW twice. Observers are not deploying twice. Media stations are not going to deploy personnel twice.
 
“Only God knows how much you are going to spend in the 2027 general election in terms of budgets if you continue like this. “Ghana’s election was conducted with no lockdown. Everybody was going about his or her business. And this is me saying without exaggeration; I did not see any military patrol.  
 
“I did not see police or military patrol. You only have one police officer at a polling unit, mostly women. No baton. They were just there seated, very relaxed and well respected. So, the question is, should we even try it and conduct elections in Nigeria without locking down everywhere? Maybe that will increase the voter’s turnout,” Idowu said.

 
Noting that the level of transparency of the Ghanaian poll was commendable, he disclosed that “each of the party agents had a seal. And so each political party put their seal on the ballot box.”
 
He added: “So, all the party agents must be present when you want to count. And each person will remove their seal. So, if the seal is tampered with, then the ballot box is in question.
 
“That level of transparency is very commendable. In order to just mention again, the trust we have seen in the institution is alarming and the readiness to accept the outcome of the election is alarming. It’s amazing. So the people are not waiting to defend their votes. They trust the agents. That is number one. Number two; they trust their institution that if anything goes wrong, the institution will do the needful.”  Idowu questioned the use of PVC by INEC as the sole means of accreditation, saying there is no need to use PVC for elections in Nigeria as BVAS does not read it.
 
“Another thing is they will say no PVC, no voting. We have seen people voting with no PVC and the BVAS was capturing them. So, why are you disenfranchising some people who did not have PVC from voting? Just take it away.  
 
“In fact, in Ghana, it’s just something laminated they have. Every detail was in that thing called the biometric verification,” he noted.   On his part, the Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Rafsanjani, attributed Nigeria’s history of contentious elections to a compromised electoral process. 
 
According to him, in the case of Ghana, everything was done transparently to the satisfaction of all the parties involved. He said: “So the Ghanaian election should teach us a lesson that it is about public service. It is about a system that is being done correctly and rightly with all parties involved, supporting a process that will be inclusive and transparent. And that definitely the outcome will be satisfactory to everyone without any contest .
 
“So, INEC should learn to be independent. Government should allow INEC to be independent because the problem is that even if INEC wants to be independent, the process that controls and manipulates it is not allowing it to be independent.” 

The Nigerian political class should actually be ashamed of themselves.
 
“The political parties in Nigeria are nothing but a group of people that gather to capture political power, not for service, not for anything. And this should be a big lesson to them that election is not a do or die affair in the real true sense of it. It is about public choice.”
 
For the Research Analyst, WADEMOS and Elections Desk Lead, David Asante-Darko, 
Ghana’s election is a call to politicians and governments across the continent that elections are always going to be a statement not only on their performance but also on their legitimacy. 
 
He noted that one issue Nigeria can identify with Ghana’s election is that voter turnout could always be relied on as a good measure of public confidence in government performance and government efforts at upholding democracy.
 
“That is something I believe all opposition parties across the continent can learn from; that apart from it being a duty they owe their political parties, it is also a duty they owe citizens to help keep government and state institutions on their toes. 
 
“So, I think this is a call to politicians and governments across the continent that elections are always going to be a statement not only on their performance but also on their legitimacy because when it becomes apparent that so much of the citizenry is not interested in who comes to power, it’s an indictment not only on the previous government but even the government that’s also in power,” he added.