The 2018 Elections have come and gone and already the new Government is at the helm. In all this there is one man in whose hands the destiny of the country lay although he was not a politician. Never in our elections history has there been so much scrutiny of one man by the rest of the nation and that one man is Mohamed N’fa –Allie Conteh. This one man suffered so much vilification that without so much courage and strong character any other man could have given up, but no, he kept trudging on to the end.
What many Sierra Leoneans did not know was that so many man-made obstacles were thrown in N’fa’s path and his Commission. I often say that the journey should be as good as the destination. So many people concentrate so much on the destination and forget how they get to that destination. Well for Sierra Leones who did not critically follow all the activities in the Electoral Cycle this piece will tell you how so many efforts were made to thwart the efforts of the Chief Commissioner and his National Electoral Commission and how he quietly outsmarted a grand plan to delay the elections.
You see it is the ordinary depraved foot citizens that suffer when the politicians make their monumental governance blunders. Most times Sierra Leoneans want to have what they had never had before but they refuse to what they have never done before. There is no way round the issue. The challenges to our democracy starts with the chemistry of the parties we have. I will save this for another day.
Technically the electoral process runs from NEC’s receiving the Census figures to the NEC boss announcing the final results. N’fa Allie’s real headaches stared when he was liaising with the presidency to have the dates for both the Local elections and the General Elections. Having giving the people of Sierra Leone a rude jolt with First the “After You, Nar You” gimmick, Civil Society started piling pressure on NEC to quicken the consultations with former President Koroma so that dates could be announced. This took a very long time despite many efforts on the part of the National Electoral Commission Boss to get it through. Finally the date was set for March 7 and this was done on February 14, call it Valentine’s Day gift.
One thing citizens should know is that without relevant, timely and reliable information, it will not be possible for citizens to use their power effectively before, during and after elections, nor will they be aware of the problems and issues that they need to be actively involved in beyond voting. The 2018 elections indeed had so many challenges, many of which were squarely created by the government with the perceived intension of prolonging its term in office. After the “After U, Nar U” pronouncement by fanatic members of the APC for President Koroma to succeed himseft, it was developed in what they called Third Term. This Third Term bid was very scary in a fledgling democracy like ours. Proponents quickly prepared promotional materials and started active campaigning. This was resisted heavily and the idea was given up and replaced by another called More Time meaning that the President should at least be allowed some more time in office. People vehemently kicked against this too and the issue was abandoned. Why all this was going on the populace had increased apprehensions.
Boundary delimitation is a major activity in the electoral cycle as it maps out wards and constituencies for which both the councilors and Members of Parliament gun for respectively. NEC’s team, having got the number of seats for the 2018 Elections, went ahead and did the boundary delimitation for the entire country and presented their report. The report stayed in the attorney General’s office for months without presentation to parliament as stipulated by law. That was late 2016. In early 2017 the Provinces Act was enacted making provision for two new districts of Falaba and Karene, creating the North-West Region and also identifying some 41 chiefdoms to be de-amalgamated with 99% in the North.
This act through sharp spanners into NEC’s works. So when the Boundary delimitation Report was tabled in Parliament, the document was thrown out. Added to this the Chief Electoral Commissioner was given an unfair bashing in Parliament. It even came to a head when one MP called for the resignation, referring to him as incompetent. Well N’fa remained undaunted. Parliament gave the Attorney General and the National Electoral Commission one month to present boundary delimitation Report incorporation the new Districts and Localities. Well you could not believe it, NEC redid the boundary Delimitation, taking into consideration the provisions of the Provinces Act 2017. Many citizens saw the Provinces Act coming after the Boundaries had been delimited as part of a Grande Plane to delay the elections and prolong the Government’s stay in power in line with the “More Time” bid. N’fa and his team surprised all when they presented the new report.
The other stumbling block was the issue of statutory responsibility for the registration of citizens for the purpose of elections. Parliament had earlier passed the National Civil Registration Authority giving it the responsibility to do civil registration of all citizens and non-citizens within Sierra Leone. This was done without any recourse to the public Elections Act that gave NEC the responsibility for registering citizens eligible for elections. Because of funding issues, it took too long a time for the National Civil Registration Authority to be constituted. At the end of the day the two Bodies agreed to jointly do the registration with NEC doing first the registration of citizens eligible for voting using the NCRA Form which had so many other questions not needed by NEC.
The seeming complexity of the form and questions delayed the process and it was difficult for many citizens to go through successfully. A major challenge was reported data loss. At the completion of NEC’s side of the registration the machines with the data were taken to NCRA. At retrieving time it was found out that some data were missing. This was resolved later but not without bringing down the confidence base of the NEC.
The next major huddle for NEC was funding. Staff that had been engaged to do the registration and subsequent activities could not be paid and this further created additional credibility gap. In all this N’fa stayed on top and made sure the electoral calendar was kept.
When the results of the First round were pronounced there were a lot of requests from parties for recounts. He patiently agreed to all and everybody was happy in the end. So by the time we faced the Runoff objective citizens had already known that the man Mohamed N’fa Conteh was a man with a strong character and high integrity. He remained tough even in the face of that infamous injunction. When the history of Sierra Leone Democracy is written, Mr Mohamed N’fa –Allie Conteh’s will definitely have a serious chapter to his name. The 2018 Elections exposed us and opened our eyes to so many things. Never has the future of a nation been secured by a few at NEC. This nation owes a lot to NEC’s tenacity powered by its Head and you might say “What A man…N’fa Alli
By Ben CAMBAYMA
Wednesday April 18, 2018.