Where do preparations for Nigeria’s 2011 elections stand?

As chair of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Maurice Iwu oversaw one of Nigeria’s worst elections in decades. The Domestic Election Observation Group said after the elections in 2007, “We do not believe that any outcome of the elections can represent the will of the people.  A democratic arrangement founded on such fraud can have no legitimacy.”  The international observers, including NDI, IRI, and the EU, offered similarly strong commentary on the elections.

The firing of Iwu and the subsequent appointment this summer of Attahiru Jega, an accomplished political scientist thus offered hope for Nigeria’s next round of elections.  Jega is the author of Democracy, Good Governance and

Development in Nigeria (Spectrum Books, 2007),  an evaluation of the Fourth Republic’s performance.  As a former university vice chancellor, he brings potentially useful experience in running a large organization.  Jega is also serious about electoral reform; this week INEC fired all 774 electoral officers serving in the country’s local government areas.

Nigeria’s New Electoral Law

The legal environment for the 2011 elections is framed by the 2010 Electoral Act, harmonized (similar to a U.S. conference report) several weeks ago by the National Assembly.  It is also the culmination of a process of electoral reform begun long before Jega took over, and discussed in a report by the Electoral Reform Commission.  This new electoral law contains important new provisions, including a requirement for party primaries and various steps to improve the efficiency of election result appeals.  Significantly, it also requires electoral results to be declared at the polling unit and at the ward level; this makes good on President Jonathan’s promise to audiences in Washington, D.C. and in Nigeria when he said this reform is necessary to improve the integrity of the elections.   For a more complete analysis, see the side-by-side comparison of the 2006 and 2010 electoral laws, which I completed with lawyer Amarachi Utah.  (We plan to update this document as necessary.)

Unfortunately, Dr. Jega appears to have backed himself into a corner, which puts him at a distinct political advantage at a time when INEC needs to unequivocally demonstrate its neutrality and its commitment to fairness.  His predecessor spent his final weeks arguing that the 2011 elections should be moved up from April to January.  The idea was that this would allow enough time for electoral disputes to be resolved in the courts before candidates are sworn in in May; it also of course assumed that many election results would be challenged.  However given the poor state of preparations, this would have also had the effect of increasing Iwu’s influence by creating an “electoral emergency” of sorts.  When Jega took over he went along with the January date.  He now therefore looks like he’s calling for a delay of the elections, when in reality it would have been difficult logistically and otherwise to hold them in January.  Moving the date back to April now requires consultations with a National Assembly constitutional reform committee, which apparently supported the January date, as well as possible modifications to the electoral law.

Follow this page in the coming months for additional analysis, news, and primary source documents from Nigeria.

Al-Amin Kimathi, Executive Director of the Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF), was arrested last week in Uganda and brought up on terrorism charges in relation to the bombings this summer in Kampala.  Kimathi has been working over the last several years to document extraordinary renditions which involve US and Kenyan authorities.

According to a statement by a coalition of civil society organizations, Kimathi was in Uganda for his second mission to observe the trial of terrorism suspects, several of whom were illegally transferred via rendition from Kenya.  A lawyer, who was arrested with him and who represents several of those charged with terrorism, has written a letter to the U.S. Ambassador announcing that he is pursuing civil redress against American authorities involved in their arrest.

Uganda is currently preparing for national elections in 2011.  The contest presents an important challenge to the National Resistance Movement (NRM), in power since Yoweri Museveni overthrew the government in 1986.  But Uganda has emerged as the quintessential semi-authoritarian regime, with the government organizing elections while it centralizes authority, closes political space, and makes gestures of openness to the international community.  Museveni established a government officially without parties until a national referendum opened up the political process in 2005.  Until then the NRM artfully considered itself a movement, rather than a political party, in order to doge electoral stipulations.  Aili Mari Tripp details the architecture and strategy of the “hybrid regime” in her excellent new book, Museveni’s Uganda, published in summer 2010 by Lynne Rienner.

The ruling NRM has cleverly adopted the Global War on Terrorism as a political resource.  Even before the terrorist bombing in the capital in July 2010, the government began closing political space in the name of national security while it successfully obtained aid commitments from the United States to fight counter-insurgency wars, one of which is against the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the north.

In May 2010 President Obama signed “The ‘Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009” into law (Public Law No: 111-172).  The Act states that the United States will provide “political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army” in addition to providing humanitarian assistance to communities affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army, and continuing to support Uganda’s government.  It designates $10 million from the 2011-2013 fiscal budgets to carry out these activities.  It also gave the White House 180 days to formulate a strategy to end the LRA’s brutal violence.  The NGO Resolve Uganda is counting down the remaining days on its website.

The problem is that the Ugandan government’s recent offensive against the LRA, Operation Lightning Thunder, backfired in the worst ways.  The Ugandan military has an interest in portraying the operation as a counter-terrorism success, and activists are rightfully concerned about the LRA’s brutal campaign of terror and recruitment of child soldiers see an American commitment as key to a solution.  But as the New York Times reported last year, the U.S. helped plan and pay for an attack that resulted in over 900 civilian deaths.  A series of articles by Ronald Atinkson in the London Independent further claimed that successes against the LRA had been exaggerated.

The difficulty of reconciling the forces of democratization with the country’s national security state was the subject of a letter that a dozen advocacy organizations sent to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Chief among their concerns is the danger that the U.S. will continue to provide security assistance without due consideration for human rights abuses being carried out by government forces.  Assistance currently includes International Military Education and Training (IMET) and some modest Foreign Military Financing.  Research by Human Rights Watch raises concerns about whether U.S. aid is in compliance with the Leahy Amendment, which prohibits assistance to individuals with a record of human rights abuses.  Ugandan and international activists are profoundly concerned about abuses by counter-terrorism units such as the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT), some of its former directors have received U.S. training.

Even if human rights protections are put in place, they are often easily circumvented by simply renaming the program, a practice I detailed in my 2005 book, In Democracy’s Shadow based on my Capitol Hill oversight experience.

Exporting the Worst of the PATRIOT Act?

The unfortunate truth for now is that the Ugandan government has effectively leveraged its fight against terrorism to grant itself broad authorities, which the NRM is using to its political advantage.  The government passed sweeping legislation in 2007 authorizing government eavesdropping, describing the Interception of Communications bill as an effort to fight crime and terrorism in the country.  The law gives the security minister the broad latitude to establish a Monitoring Center and to intercept communications throughout Uganda.  Through the receipt of a mere verbal request from a government institution, the government can intercept communications if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe:

• a felony has been or will probably be committed;
• the gathering of information concerning an actual threat to national security or any national economic interest is necessary;
• the gathering of information concerning a potential threat to public safety, national security, or any national interest is necessary;
• or there is a threat to the national interest involving the state’s international relations or obligations.

The legislation comes at a time when the Ugandan government is using this kind of broad authority to intimidate journalists and undermine government critics, thus making open competition in next year’s elections even more difficult than it already is.  As the July letter from US-based advocacy organizations argued, the bill is a sign that the government of Uganda will “further backslide on civil liberties and human rights obligations while using the bombings and the fight against terrorism as a shield from scrutiny.”

Development Slippage

Looking beyond the Pentagon, Washington is clearly aware of Uganda’s governance drift.  For example the US announced that will not renew 10 million dollars committed through Millennium Challenge Corporation to help Uganda move from “threshold” status to a full compact (ie, an agreement) for aid.  USAID’s plans call for strengthening democratic institutions, enhancing political competition, and improving parliamentary capacity for oversight through partnerships with civil society.  Unfortunately USAID faces an uphill battle, with no increases in the lines funding for either for civil society programs or for its good governance in Uganda, and cuts are planned for programs relating to “political competition and consensus building.” Even aid to fight transnational crime is slated for cuts.

Whatever Uganda policy the Obama administration lays out this fall needs to put securitization back in the context of democratization.  Neither peace nor good governance will be feasible without a strong commitment to accountability which extends to America’s straying allies in the war on terror.