Ex-INEC Boss Canvasses Simple Majority Rule Review

A former member of the Prof. Humphrey Nwosu led electoral commission, Prof. Adele Jinadu has advocated the review of the simple majority rule of declaring the winner in an election.

In a telephone interview with newsmen in Lagos, Jinadu said that election rigging would continue if the winner had to “take all the glory” on the basis that he was declared winner on simple majority rule. 

“By virtue of garnering substantial number of votes in an election, other parties besides the winner should be entitled to hold some key government positions on the merit of their effort,’’ he said. 

He said that the government could learn about proportional representation from sister African countries like South Africa where the representative system had been in use for a long time.

 He said although many might claim that Nigeria was not ripe for that system of representation, but argued that it was in fact what the nation needed to curb corruption in government.

 “In South Africa, the second placed political party at a national election produces the second vice president while other parties based on votes to them get some key ministerial roles.  “Such approach in Nigeria will enrich the process to public policy making since different political ideologies through their members in the executive will be involved.  “It will make the ruling party conscious of retaining its electoral victory in the next election and also engender inbuilt checks and balances in government which is the necessary antidote against corruption,’’ he said.

 Jinadu argued that addressing that simple majority rule ought to be the most important aspect of any electoral reform in the country.

 Prof. Tunde Babawale, the Director General, Centre for Black and Africa Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) on May 14  had called for cancellation of the “simple majority principle”. 

He said the principle was also known as First-Past-the-Post system and that it was “bringing out in full blast the negations of a political system where the winner takes it all and the loser looses it all’. 

“Elections will continue to be a ‘do or die’ affair if the winner by a simple majority have to take it all,’’ he said. 

He said that Brazil and many developing economies like Nigeria had instituted constitutional means where even parties with certain number of legislative seats were entitled to executive positions. 

“Nigeria can even adopt a system where Board positions and some appointments to parastatal bodies of government go to certain political parties for getting specific votes at elections. 

“The habit of forming or calling for a government of National Unity as a way of involving losers at elections cannot be taken as forming a representative government,’’ he said.