A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
May 2011
Saturday 2 April - polling day in Nigeria's parliamentary elections - was not going well. High security was visible from daybreak. Groups of voters and party agents had begun to gather at Nigerias 200,000 or more polling stations well before the 8 a.m. opening time. But of the electoral officials supposed to be running the elections, there was no sign. It was not until mid-morning - sometimes a lot later - that polling staff from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and their materials finally arrived in many areas. Thereafter, accreditation and voting began.
But it gradually became clear that vital election materials were missing - the ballot papers for the Senate and, crucially, the results sheets for both sets of House of Assembly elections. As confusion grew, polling was abruptly cancelled; postponed to the next Monday; and then postponed again, to the following Saturday.
This appalling start was a serious blow to the reputation of the Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega. No-one else in Nigeria carried such a burden of expectation for free and credible elections than he. With voting in the parliamentary, presidential and governor/state elections re-scheduled over the next three weeks, it looked as if Nigeria was reverting to type.
And yet, against all the odds, Nigeria experienced the stirrings of an 'African Spring' and what turned out to be, in general, the most credible elections in its history. The determination among Nigerians for change did not find expression in support for one particular candidate or party. Indeed, remarkably, many voters did not 'vote the ticket' across the three ballots. In Lagos state, for example, the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) swept the board in the first set of elections, taking all Senate and House seats. A week later, however, in the Presidential polls, those same ACN voters deserted their candidate, Nuhu Ribadu (tellingly, also a Northern Muslim), and voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent President, of the Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan (a Southerner and a Christian). A week later, voters returned to the ACN to give Lagos Governor, Babatunde Fashola, a crushing victory.
The elections were not perfect, and nor were they violence-free. The bloody aftermath in the North - in Kaduna state, in particular - left many hundreds dead and Nigeria's religious fault-lines dangerously apparent. But the elections themselves were, by and large, a triumph for Nigerians. They were determined to cast and defend their vote, and defy the vote-riggers and the political godfathers. An important democratic foundation was laid. What might follow is harder still - achieving a functioning, democratic and accountable polity, capable of breaking an endemic culture of corruption. Only then will the sleeping Nigerian giant begin to awake.
Stuart Mole