“Thirty-one states,
1,618 languages, 6,400 castes, six religions, six ethnic groups, 29
major festivals, that’s my country, India!” Vijay appeared to have sent
these credentials with pride. Recognizing familiar comparative
diversities and complexities of India and Nigeria, it is to the
former’s credit that there’s never been a military intervention, only
assassinations. We’ve had both. Despite a polarized religious
landscape, the multiplicity of ethnicities — like Nigeria, India
remains the world’s largest democracy, although “botched elections” are
not a rarity in its history. Do Indians import ballot papers and boxes,
result sheets, pencils, marking and printing ink, vehicles and dogs
when they go to the polls? No! Do their INEC staff, contractors and
consultants travel all over the world, three-years-long for tutorials
on conduct of elections? Maybe, I’m not sure.
Two hundred million
ballot papers and result sheets ordered from abroad for each of the
Nigerian elections is a carbon footprint of massive proportions. Carbon
footprint is the totality of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an
organization, event, product or person. Imagine how much wood pulp went
into the production of the ballot papers, how much chlorine was used in
bleaching and constituting the residue of waste water discharges from
the mills. Nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, both major
contributors to acid rain, plus carbon dioxide, the culprit greenhouse
gas responsible for climate change, are all emitted during paper
manufacturing.
INEC contractors
may argue that Nigerian ballot papers are from plantation monoculture
overseas, and not from old-growth forests at home. If environmental
audits of firms producing the ballot papers are not with Attahiru Jega,
it is an unsatisfactory explanation. Monoculture plantations are devoid
of biological diversity, but rich in inorganic fertilizer, pesticides,
fungicides and herbicides. They result from clearing natural
vegetation, which is a further indictment. Within the footprint
equation, the environmental impact of fossil fuel combustion through
global and local travel of INEC staff, transportation of materials from
abroad, their distribution locally, plus energy use in INEC offices,
computers, TV, food and drink, will have to be factored in. Has INEC
disposed its waste products in an environmentally friendly manner?
Our elections have
not only contributed to climate change, but also to the accumulation of
toxic chemicals and the reduction of global biodiversity. Nigeria is a
signatory to three related multilateral environmental agreements: the
Kyoto Protocol and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, UNFCCC; the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants, POPs; and the Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD.
Foreign observers are already cocooned in expensive Abuja hotels to
monitor “democratic” elections in one of the world’s poorest nations.
Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, once observed elections
here, unfortunately categorizing Nigerians as “marvellous scammers!”
thereafter. But the results of the polls stood! Entrenchment of a
democratic culture at all levels of society, in the city and in
villages, differentiates India from Nigeria. Votes are difficult to buy
and manipulate in India. INEC or alien observers can do little about
that. When George Bush and his brother, Jeb were accused of rigging
votes in Florida, how many Nigerians were observing? Ask Al Gore for
confirmation. These elections have cost so much in lives and property,
in taxpayers’ money, and in ecological impacts. Doubts over projected
dividends exist. If every Nigerian planted a tree this month, long term
gains to the country and to a wider world could surpass the quality of
votes.
