Mma Odi, the Executive Director of the Emma Ezeazu Centre for Good Governance and Accountability, is a woman with a track record of leadership in social movements, coalition networks and feminist organizations. An elections expert to boot, she talks about her advocacy journey and views on Nigeria’s electoral challenges, including experiences with the recent Anambra state governorship elections.
On her advocacy on electoral reform and citizen awareness of political rights and issues:
In my line of work over the years, we have mobilized citizens to ensure that they know their political rights and are part of the process, to ensure that credible candidates emerge as political leaders in Nigeria. We have also built capacity, mobilized, enlightened, and created awareness on the political rights of the citizens, making them part and parcel of the political process and the ultimate decision makers on who becomes their political leader in Nigeria. We monitor the activities of the elected representatives and leaders in Nigeria. We have mobilized people to become activists, those who actually engage their leaders, try to proffer solutions, and highlight what is not going well in the society. As we have seen, as old activists are giving way, there is a serious gap in new activists not coming in. So, we have tried to mobilize people by telling our stories and assuring them that the society belongs to the next generation and if they do not come in, Nigeria’s society will be destroyed because what we have over the years is a failure of leadership. If we get the leadership right every other thing will fall into place. Every incoming bad leader is worse than the one we had before and the only way we can ensure that we bridge the gap is to ensure that many new young people are interested in what is going on as activists, to actually bring accountability to our leaders and ensure that they perform or fulfil the promises they made. We also have part of our work as observing elections which is part of ensuring citizen participation in governance, because if they do not participate in mobilizing people and teaching them the dangers of voting for a wrong candidate, if we do not have credible elections, we would end up with bad leaders and bad governance that will define our lives as Nigerians and as a country
Furthermore, we have programs for women inclusion in politics and persons with disabilities. We also work with traditional partners which include labour leaders, religious leaders, women groups, and persons with disabilities. We recognized that inclusion is one of the cardinal points in ensuring that any society works, and Nigeria’s society is not working because it is full of exclusion and injustice. Half of the population of women are not included like in the legislature, we have only like 5% representation which is a far cry from the 35% that even the government gender policy has given since the year 2005. Now, so many years after we have not even started walking, talk less of running. A society that is full of exclusion and injustice cannot have good governance. That’s why we also have worked in the area of women participation in governance, politics, leadership and in decision making because you cannot decide for half of the population what their need is, their interests and concerns when they are not on the table.
“The government in power is shrinking the space because we are working as individuals; we are not working as a collective.”
Mma Odi, Executive Director, Emma Ezeazu Centre for Good Governance and Accountability
On shrinking civic space, challenges, and outlook for CSOs:
We face challenges of funding, insincerity and shrinking civic space. It affects all the work we do because the democracy we fought for is not what we have seen in civilian rule.
I think we have to go back to the trenches because there is no difference between what we have today and the military rule we fought against. All we need to do now is to join our forces together to work as a team. The government in power is shrinking the space because we are working as individuals; we are not working as a collective. When we fought against military rule, we worked as a collective. We didn’t know who was who. Whoever brings an idea to the table, everybody would fight behind that idea. It is now a competition. In 2007, women had over 15% representation and now in 2021 we have about 5% representation in the legislature. When we go back to the states, it is worse; I don’t even think it is up to 2%. It is also part of the issues of the 2015 general election. In a bid to remove an unpopular president everybody went to war with a slogan, “Anything but this one”. We did not have time to negotiate spaces for women, for youth, for persons with disabilities. When they went to war, it was a war to remove one man and it backfired and closed almost all the spaces women won over the years. So, women are now outsiders fighting hard to come in and it’s more difficult to open the spaces when it has been closed because people have been emboldened and have sat on the spaces for women all over the years.
We have to know that something is at stake and what is at stake is the democracy we fought for because nobody can dream of a military regime. It was a bad dream that we do not want to even think about. We do not want this country to get to the point that we say, ‘anything but this kind of democracy’, because when you take over the spaces that the citizenry can no longer talk or say anything then, there is danger and people will now start desiring what we rejected before.
Funding is good but funding is not everything. Funding cannot open the spaces, only the people can. If the space is continually shrinking the way it is today, in five years’ time or in three years to come, there would be no spaces left.
“women are now outsiders fighting hard to come in and it’s more difficult to open the spaces when it has been closed because people have been emboldened and have sat on the spaces for women all over the years.”
On the major challenge in Nigeria’s electoral process:
I think the biggest challenge is the politicians because these politicians do not know that the democracy they are stealing from and enjoying, was not won by talking. It was won by the blood of Nigerians; Nigerians were actually killed in the streets of Lagos, in the streets of Nigeria for this democracy. Even in Kaduna, journalists were killed for reporting what was going on. This democracy was not cheap, it was bought by the blood of citizens and those people that have found themselves in positions of power and leadership do not understand it. They do not know that so much went into the struggle for the civilian rule they are enjoying. The greatest challenge of this democracy and electoral reform is the politicians. You can see what happened at the Senate. They did not even want electronic transfer of the election results because they want to continually rig the elections and continually bring themselves, bad people, and corrupt people back to power, who would block every access to electoral reform that will ensure free, fair, peaceful, and credible elections. Take for example, Anambra governorship elections. In the build-up to the election, the politicians became merchants of fear. They killed people so that they would rig the election. So, by the time this election happened, no more killing of people, no more fear in Anambra State. You can agree with me that the politicians are the trouble of our electoral process.
Look at somebody like Clement Nwankwo who has fought for democracy. In the last 22 years, Clement has been working and training people. Initially, activists that fought for democracy didn’t want to work with politicians but people like Clement who saw the future, started. He called people, established the Transition Monitoring Group and has been building the capacity of so many legislators over the years. But some of them have been in that position for as long as this civilian rule has lasted and you can see they are still talking; the same way they talked 20, 21, 22 years ago. They have emboldened themselves to be talking like soldiers you know, and unfortunately, they were supposed to be representing the people, but they have assumed themselves as the monsters, as the alpha and omega. They no longer care about the people and the only thing that has emboldened them not to care about the people they are representing is because there are no transparent elections. You can see during the fight over the electronic transfer of results, when the citizens rose, they had no hiding place. That’s why the work of INEC is very important and that’s where Situation Room comes in as a credible voice.
If the military strikes today, the politicians are the ones that would go, we would be here. Whenever they say no to this reform, they are actually saying no to their positions. That’s one critical point they have missed over the years, that they are the only ones that would be missing in action if the Nigerian democracy fails today.
“This democracy was not cheap; it was bought by the blood of citizens and those people that have found themselves in positions of power and leadership do not understand it.”
On Anambra 2021 Governorship election:
You have to talk about it in context. The build-up to the election was something different. There was so much killing since January 2021 in the South-East geo-political zone by the unknown gunmen which also they say is IPOB. The gap I observed in the election is that because the merchants of fear have gone ahead to say they would kill people, people were not willing to come out. Even when they decided to come out, part of the INEC Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was not working. Also, some of the ad hoc staff, some of the people INEC trained, even the ones they went to bring from Enugu and Delta State, did not show up. So, some of the polling units did not have INEC personnel and materials for conducting elections there. When we went to Anambra on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of October to meet with stakeholders, even the security personnel that accepted to be part of the meeting withdrew at the last minute. The journalists withdrew and said they would not come but when we went ahead with our meeting, the journalists came. Even some security people sent representatives and many people that said they will not come started trickling in. When the meeting ended many of them were not willing to go. One woman actually asked the convener of the Situation Room in Awka on the 5th of October, if her safety is guaranteed and she won’t be killed when she gets home if she speaks in the meeting. She said that they see unknown gunmen going round Anambra with AK-47 riding in New Hilux vehicles every other day. So, it was as bad as that, but personally I know that it is politicians that are merchants of fear.
On the 5th of November my team went to INEC Awka-South Local Government office. We interviewed some youth corps members on why they were there. They responded that the DG of NYSC came to Anambra and told them that nothing would happen to them; he guaranteed their safety. For some, their parents asked how much they would be paid that is worth dying for, so they withdrew their children which affected the deployment of INEC in Anambra governorship election. We saw attempts by hoodlums to fight against INEC, not to hold the election. But we also saw determined citizens, because the person carrying the result of 41 polling units in Ihiala Local Government that the election did not even hold at all; it was a citizen that arrested the INEC official and handed him over to the police.
Another thing I saw is that before the election on the 4th of November, the police authority invited us for a meeting and said they had paid all their police officers but on the election day we saw many police officers who said they had not received anything. We also saw that though they were professional, in many instances, they looked the other way and didn’t even care what was going on because they were not happy that their money was not paid. Also, I observed that there is improvement in vote buying and selling. I saw many citizens who said they will not sell their votes, that they have come to vote their conscience. Some people still sold their vote. I saw one remarkable thing that happened in the votes buying and selling in Anambra 2021 election, it was no longer public enterprise the way it was in 2010 and 2017 that they were selling votes openly. You will even look for it seriously to see them selling and buying in this year. I also saw so many people that even when the machines rejected them, they went and brought seats and were sitting down waiting patiently because they wanted to vote. Old people, 80s 70s 90s, came out with walking sticks to vote and I was so amazed. The youths must hear this story and take it to heart. They must join and fight for the soul of Nigeria because nobody has the capacity to chase us away. Nobody will chase anybody away. Nobody will chase Tivs, Idomas, Igalas, Yorubas, Igbos, etc. away. Providence has joined us together; we must enjoy our togetherness and take collective ownership of this country.
“No country can run on a single engine. Nigeria is meant to work on two engines and the two engines are men and women working together as partners, to change the society.”
On what can be done to better women’s participation and representation in Nigerian elections:
What are things that can be done better? Women need to open their spaces. We must go back to the strong room. I held many positions in Women in Nigeria (WIN). I was the national secretary, the secretary of women Lagos state branch. I know that in WIN, we could fight among ourselves but when it came to the issues of women, we were together fighting as one. That is the spirit we must go back to. If we saw any man working for inclusion of women in politics, we celebrated the man. Today, because people are more interested in funding opportunities, if they see anybody working for women they will be thinking, what is the interest of the person? That attitude must die for us to move forward. We must reach out to men because we can only win this battle with men and women working together as equals as partners. We have to create spaces for women to come in with their voice. No country can run on a single engine. Nigeria is meant to work on two engines and the two engines are men and women working together as partners, to change the society. The country has been working on a faulty engine. Women are the only ones that know how it feels as mothers, home givers, caregivers, and home managers.
On the recent passage of the Electoral Bill and promotion of political rights:
In fact, we thank God for electronic transfer; we must go back to the basics. We need to fight because it is not yet there. We must have the Presidential assent (to the Electoral Bill) because we don’t have people who we can actually beg to override the assent. We need to fight the way we fought for transmission of electronic results There’s no two ways; if need be, get out to the streets, take over the media houses and fight to ensure we have Presidential assent. After all, it didn’t take him time to assent to the Petroleum Industry Act. If he has concerns over the mode of primary elections, whether by delegate or by anything, let him raise it after giving assent to the Bill. Let him just do what he will be remembered for.