JOHN NWOKOCHA analyses the tenure of former national chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Atahiru Jega, vis-a-vis the tasks before the new helmsman, Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari.
To say that the five years Jega’s tenure as the nation’s electoral umpire was particularly significant is to state the obvious. As evidence, the huge achievements recorded by Jega in the two general elections-2011 and 2015, would substantiate the foregoing declaration.
Equally stating the fact is that the new boss of INEC who is on acting capacity faces a huge task of sustaining the momentum of her predecessor who has been adjudged as a success largely due to remarkable changes he introduced and which are traceable in space and time. For the five years that he presided over the affairs of the commission all Jega’s engagements left a few in doubt that he was focused. All through Jega’s tour of duty in INEC was a display of passion for one’s job.
There is no gain saying that the INEC is a very important institution of the country, for this reason it attracts public attention whenever major decisions and key appointments like chairmanship of the commission are made. Another fundamental reason is non-partisanship of the helmsman and other primordial sentiments must be established before the appointment is made. It is therefore not surprising the controversy being generated over the appointment of Zakari who has been alleged to have a relationship with the Presidency.
Aside the alleged sentiment in Zakari’s appointment, the decision is also contested on the ground that before Jega’s exit the outgoing boss had carefully chose a successor. On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, Jega, formally handed over to Amb. Ahmed Wali, one of the National Commissioners in the commission at the hand-over ceremonies. Wali tenure’s as a National Commissioner of the commission would expire in August 11 this year.
However, just few hours after Jega’s celebrated handover, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed a different National Commissioner of the commission, Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari, as the new Acting National Chairman of INEC.
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Danladi Kifasi, who communicated the appointment to Zakari in a letter, said the appointment, which took immediate effect, would remain in force until the appointment of a substantive Chairman for the electoral body.
The Director of Communications for the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Haruna Imrana, in a terse three-paragraph statement then announced the appointment formally on Tuesday night.
But her appointment has generated so much interest in the polity, leading to concerns over Zakari’s chances of surviving the political intrigues and ultimately emerging the substantial national chairman of the electoral body.
Just less than 24 hours after the announcement of her appointment, the national leadership of the leading opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), declared the party’s rejection of the appointment, alleging that the new acting boss of the electoral body “is too close to the Presidency.”
Chief Olisa Metuh, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, declaring the position of the party in a crowded press conference said his “party would want the acting chairman of the commission to state her alleged closeness to the Presidency and one of the governors of the All Progressives Congress from the North-West.”
Added to the alleged closeness with the presidency, other reasons have been attributed as being responsible for the varied interests generated by the appointment of Amina Bala Zakari as the new INEC boss. For example, Zakari is the first woman in Nigeria’s history to be appointed the overall boss of the electoral body, though hers is still in acting capacity. This gender factor has been pointed at as responsible either for the support for her suitability or skepticism over her ability to step into the big shoes of the former INEC boss, Jega.
Curiously, gender dimension has been added disagreements over her appointment. Last week,
about ten different women non-governmental organizations made public their supports for the appointment of Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari, as the acting chairman of INEC. For no other reason, according to them than she is a woman.
A statement jointly signed by Women in Politics Forum (WIPF), Proactive Gender Initiative (PGI), Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA), Federation of International Women Lawyers (FIDA), 100 Women Lobby Group, Equity Advocates, National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Women Advocate Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), Women Foundation of Nigeria (WFN) and Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF). The groups said the appointment was in line with the national gender policy.
“Women in Politics Forum (WIPF) and other appreciate President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari as the acting INEC chairperson. This has shown that our President is a gender sensitive leader,” they said.Besides that, the perceived clash between the choice of the former INEC boss, Jega, and that of the President Muhammadu Buhari, makes her appointment particularly peculiar.
There was an initial report that Jega will leave the plum seat with all the national commissioners in the commission.
This fueled speculations that Jega’s successor would either be an outsider or one of the influential State Resident Electoral Commissioners. This speculation however doused when it was later revealed that not all the national commissioners’ tenure would expire as at the time of Jega’s exit on June 30, 2015.
So, when Jega eventually handed over to Wali, who immediately pledged to work with the other remaining national commissioners within the six weeks he would hold the office, observers presumed Jega consulted with the presidency before announcing his decision. So, when Buhari came up few hours later to name Zakari as the new head of the commission, pundits believed her appointment is more than meet the ordinary eyes.
Who is Zakari?
A widow and mother of five children, Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari, Nee Husaini Adamu, is a registered pharmacist and was, before her current appointment, a National Electoral Commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to her public profile, Mrs. Zakari who hails from Kazaure Local Government of Jigawa State was born on the 23rd of June 1960. She completed her elementary education at Shekara Girls Primary School, Kano in 1971 and proceeded to the prestigious Queens College Yaba, Lagos for her Secondary Education where she obtained her School Certificate/WASC in 1976.
In 1976, she went to Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Degree in Pharmacy with a Second Class Upper in 1980.
After her National Youth Service Programme at the Federal University of Technology, Bauchi between 1981 -1982, where she set up a Pharmacy and Drug Store Dispensary as her service year project, she began her professional career at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna as a Senior Pharmacist in 1984.
She was at CVS Pharmacy Hartsdale, New York, USA between 1993 and 1994 as an Intern Pharmacist and returned to Nigeria to join the Consolidated Health Services, Abakpa Kaduna, where she became the Chief Pharmacist/Consultant from 1996 to 1997.
She was a Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and was deployed to the Federal Capital Territory Administration where she, between 2004 and 2007, served as Secretary of Health, Human Services and Social Development, and later that of Agriculture and Rural Development.
A member of the Pharmacist’s Society of Nigeria as well as that of the Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM), she has also worked with the National AIDS and STDs Control Programme (NASCP), Federal Ministry of Health 2002, Project Director for National Primary Health care Development Agency in 2003, Project Coordinator for FCT Federation of Muslim Women’s Organisation (FOMWAN) 2003, National Consultant, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) 2004, Lead Consultant/ Project Manager, Songhai Medical Centre Limited 2008, Consultant, Complete Medicare Limited and Accessible Managed Care Limited 2008 and Consultant, Millennium Development Goal Office 2008.
Her other academic qualifications include Certificate in Managing Drugs Supply for Primary Health Care from the International Drug Agency, MHS Amsterdam, Netherlands and a Certificate in General Management Programme, Executive Education in Business and Management and Harvard Business School (HBS) Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Although she has a rich career in pharmacy and management, and is the Chairman of NYSC Governing Board, Mrs. Zakari’s greatest experience for her new job is perhaps her appointment as a National Electoral Commissioner at INEC since ….
Her vision and action plan
Commenting on his appointment, Zakari said, “I accept my appointment with humility and with dedication to serve. I believe it is just a continuation to what the former Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, has started which has been at a high level and there shouldn’t be any problem. I have been part of the process: I have known the problems, challenges and I have seen the successes. What is remaining is for us to build on the successes and try to tackle the outstanding challenges.
“I must say a lot has been done to improve the electoral processes in Nigeria through the past Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega and a lot more needs to be done.
I must say it is like trying to reach an equilibrium because the bulk of the work has been done by former Chairman, Professor Jega, to bring the quality of changes to election management to a high level. So, all we need to do is to put all hands on deck to improve further on what he has done and improve on the good practices he has left behind.
Basically, with the cooperation of all, and the support of staff and the people of Nigeria, we should be able to do it pending when a new Commission is put in place.”
On the likely challenges she may face and how she hopes to tackle them, she said, “Challenges cannot be envisaged because they come as the need arises. So we tackle them as they come-one day at a time. And then try to sort out administrative issues then the major electoral issues, which a lot has been put into. We just need to improve where INEC seems to have failed or erred during the last elections.
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Basically, half of the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) are on seat and half of the National Commissioners are on seat; so we will deliver the best we can until a new Commission is put in place.
“We will continue working until a new Commission is constituted. The job will continue; we still have the Secretary, the Directors and the Commissioners. The Commission will be doing what it needs to do.”
Expectations
Zakari would be expected to take deliberate steps to ensure that the nation’s electoral system derives maximum benefits from the permanent voter cards and smart card readers introduced under Jega.
That technological innovation tried to reduce the capacity of poll riggers at the last general election, but it was significantly limited by glitches, which have largely been traced to sabotage. It was those hitches that created the loopholes that election riggers extensively exploited to ply their trade at the polls.
It is left for the new INEC boss to study the problems carefully with a view to avoiding their recurrence in future elections. Her very first test for Nigerians to know whether she is prepared to take INEC to the next level, is the upcoming Kogi governorship election this year. And if she gets a confirmation of her appointment, 2019 general elections will tell whether the presidency made the right decision.
In any case, she is an insider and should know INEC enough to survive the current intrigues and record greater achievements than her predecessor.
