I was very recently, and most reluctantly drawn into a running battle of private correspondence with some shakers and movers in this government, stemming from a recent article by me regarding the aftermath of Bola Ige's murder. It has been a distasteful and totally unwanted imposition. A rather critical issue was involved in those exchanges, an issue of ongoing public interest. I intend to share that concern with you this morning.

Let me reassure our politicians rightaway that I would be the last person to suggest that they, in any way, discount the electorate, that is, do not reckon with them. The evidence to the contrary is simply overwhelming. Candidates stomp cities and villages. They canvass workers and farmers, teachers and students, royalty and commoner. When they promise heaven and earth, their words are addressed not to heaven and earth but to palpable human beings - the electorate. No one can doubt that the electorate is the politician's primary constituency. Those who are already convinced supporters need to be reinforced in their conviction. The waverers must be cajoled or bribed, and the die-hard antagonists bludgeoned into submission, harassed out of employment or, of course, abducted in play daylight. Even when a particular micro constituency is ignored, it is sentient beings of flesh and blood that are ignored, not phantoms. Thus, we dare not claim that the electorate is discounted. At least, not in the normal usage of that word.

Unless you have not been raised in this part of the world, you must be familiar with that specialised use: ah, ah, my friend, make you give me discount now. All God's creatures love a bargain and the culture of haggling is well and alive. Even when you've haggled down the price of a commodity to its bare bones, as you take out the money to pay, your cultural inclination comes to the fore. You pull back you hand, re-examine the goods as if you're seeing them for the first time and then: but even so, my friend, you no go give me discount?

And now to political discounting. Let me begin with a note of caution. I am frankly exhausted by a now predictable response to claims - no matter from what quarter - that the last elections were heavily discounted, both in that specialist and general sense. Some votes were simply discountenanced, some were counted and, I suppose, then uncounted, but since that word is rather difficult to legitimise, we have to settle for, discounted. The response to such complaints, indeed accusations, be the from local or from international observers, be they from successful or unsuccessful candidates tends to take the form of: 'I have absolute confidence in the integrity of the Chairman of INEC'. This is purely diversionary response and merely begs the question.

Take an organisation like Express Discount Limited. Suppose a crooked employee decants some your customer's earned discount into his own account, and the customer raises a squawk. The Chairman of the Board of Governors does not go around stating that he has absolute confidence in the Director, he orders the Director to go after the neck of the offender - that is, if he has not already done so. It is not the neck of INEC's chairman that is at issue - it is the neck of numerous malefactors within the organisation. The issue of confidence or lack of confidence in the Chairman is totally irrelevant. To take it to a personal level, the Chairman of INEC is not only a personal friend but a former classmate and schoolmate. When he was ambassador in the Far East he treated me to a sumptuous reception. I retain nothing but the deepest respect and affection for him. Despite all that, we have taken his organisation to court because it failed to discharge its public duties towards us and our proposed party. When I write to a public office with a legitimate enquiry, and that letter is registered as received, I expect the courtesy of a reply. It is the duty of that office and my right as a citizen. Neither my friendship not my respect for the Chairman comes into it. A lapse has taken place, my civic rights have been discounted, and reparations must be made.

How much more serious, the case of those individuals who have expended huge quantities of time and money and then, in some far flung place from the Chairman's command outpost, a lapse or a criminal act is complained off. The question of the Chairman's personal integrity cannot be waved as a talisman to deflect detractors from the path of restitution. Errors and inadequacies occur even in the most efficient organisations and in the best made master plans. Those lapses, even doubts, are not pointed out and hammered upon for the sake of hearing one's own voice, or in order to obtain some kind of relevance, but to seek redress. Even more important is the other purpose, which is to ensure that those errors are not repeated during the next exercise.

If perfection were guaranteed in the conduct of an election, tribunals established for a second opinion would not have been required. Personally, I am looking forward to the day when there would be no need for tribunals, when the electoral commission would, on its own, enquire into complaints and, wherever a vital infringement of the rules is discovered, cancel the results in those areas. Then, having finished with the more orderly and equitable scenes of voting, it would muster the full weight of its organisation, as well as that of other state agencies, saturate the problematic area and then conduct new elections. That, however, is a long way away, and our rights and duties as the electorate demand that we continue to insist that all is not well, that the patterns we have witnessed augur ill for the future of democracy in this nation. The response that we expect is not a reiteration of confidence in an individual or even a group of individuals.

Yes, we do know that it is in nature of losers to complain. The commonest expression for them is 'bad losers'. But then, it all depends on how narrowly or broadly we define the loser. Is it only the candidate that is the loser, is this limited to his family, his supporters, his backers and also - assuming there are any - his godfathers? It all depends on whether or not we believe that we all have a stake in democracy and the democratic process. If we do, then, whenever electoral justice comes undone, or we perceive it to be undone, we are all losers. If complaining means that we are bad losers, so be it. Kindly register me at the top of the list of bad losers. However, when the Unregistered Party of Insurrection raises its bloody head and mows down both good winners and bad losers before its momentum, let there be no complaint, for then, it will be your turn to be labelled extremely bad losers.

After all, in the heydays of the NPN, as that party perfected its plans to steamroll its way over all opposition, a party stalwart was heard to boast that there were only two parties in Nigeria - the NPN and the Military. The Military took note, and robbed that party of its 'well-deserved' victory, its landslide, moonslide, seaslide etc, victory, in the colourful words of one notorious commentator who would later surface as praise singer for Sanni Abacha, One bad loser went abroad after that single party election and began to belly-ache, even launching a newspaper to promote his cause. The Military Party responded by preparing a first-class passenger crate within whose interior he was duly installed and proceeded to bring him home to repeat his charges on home ground. Fortunately that effort was thwarted and the unwilling returnee lived not only to tell the tale but to re-enter the political lists yet again, and even take his complaints to the Oputa Commission for Human Rights. He forgot that during the police state that was unleashed by the NPN government, Human Rights were more observed in the violent breach than in the observance.

That commentator of the NPN was wrong however. There was another party, more amorphous and more unpredictable - this is the already mentioned PPI, the party of Popular insurrection. We all have a stake in ensuring that such a party which, our experience has proved, is just as anarchic as the military, does not come to power. The only way to ensure this is by a rigid adherence to equity in the conduct of elections, a readiness to admit the truth when a process has been found wanting. If such a lapse is denied, then of course - give all complainants the lie, turn us into bad losers and shut us up permanently. Can the Electoral Commission do this, given all accumulation of evidence to the contrary?

Long before the Tribunals began to make their pronouncements, many people in this nation already knew where and how things had gone wrong. A few days ago, a tribunal confirmed what we already knew - that a successful candidate, victorious at the polls and with an INEC certificate to prove it, had never stood for election at all! In that constituency, even the candidates of the ruling party had rigged one another out of victory, with the machinery of the Electoral Commission. The judges found - and I want you all to understand the implications of this - the judges found that the name of the man who paraded himself as the elected legislator was not the name of the man who was issued a certificate. In other words, the Party at local level had, on its own, decided that even though one of its members had indeed won the election, someone else should go and represent the Party in Abuja. What the judges found - let me reemphasise this - was that this legislator, who had now been sworn in, never even contested elections.

So you see, when we speak of electoral manipulation, we are not even necessarily pointing a finger at INEC. We are saying that even the Party - and maybe this happened also in other parties - even the parties were conducting their own internal rigging, and a post-election one at that! It is rather like what happens in examinations. You engage someone to go and sit your examinations, posing as you...At the end, you pay him off and you collect your certificate. In the case of these elections, the party nominated someone who, perhaps, would be far acceptable to the public than the intended representative. He campaigns, wins the election and then, we don't know what goes on behind the scene, but the name of someone else, maybe a political genius, maybe an absolute moron, is sent to the party headquarters and duly takes his place in the House. Now, some people may suggest that this is a fraudulent act but, no, I do not see it as such. I think it is simply a case of applying the principle of discounts.

Here is how it operates, and really, when you understand how, you will accept that it is all in the public interest. You all know that it costs a lot more - I mean in real cash - to secure the success of an unpopular candidate. An unpopular or simply unknown candidate, one without a track record, is a hard sell anywhere. It would cost a lot more in inducements - money, essential commodities, contracts and of course, violence.

Do recall that it is the public that bears the brunt of electoral costs, never mind the fund raising rallies that precede campaigns and the generous donations from known and unknown sources. When the contestant becomes the elected, his first duty is to pay back his backers. Never has this procedure been clarified so dramatically and unambiguously as in the recent saga of Anambra state. Sign a cheque for three billion Naira before you go further, and of course the elected governor obliges. Where does that three billion come from? Of course, from the public purse. Now, suppose Ngige had been a popular candidate, wouldn't his election have cost a lot less? From what we learn, it was not even he who won the election but his opponent. The case of Anambra therefore transcends an issue of abduction, kidnapping, civilian coup etc. etc.

No, the crime that was committed by the god father in that state was one of economic ineptitude, amounting almost to sabotage. He should have applied the strategy of Awka in the same state which was far more patriotic and frugal, much kinder on the public purse. By choosing a contestant on whom less money was spent, some saving was made, and you all know that the nation's economy is in a bad shape. Chris Uba should have followed the other example, picked a popular candidate, obtained an easy win, obtained an INEC certificate for him, then forwarded the name of the man of his choice to the Party headquarters.

On the other hand, it could just be that we are all practising different electoral systems. There are countries where it is not the individuals but the Parties that contest against one another. I think we should begin to consider that approach to our electoral problems. The parties contest and the seats are then apportioned to them in ratio to the number of votes they have gathered. Thus, let's say Party 'A' wins a 120 votes, Party 'B' 40 votes and 'C' 20 votes. 'A' would be awarded half of the available seats, 'B' one-third and'C' one-sixth. And if there is a problem over fractions, in other words, if that division lands us with fractions, that constitutes only a minor challenge to which there is a ready solution. As I reminded our audience when we celebrated Professor Akinkugbe's birthday last week in Ibadan, there is always the Nigerian solution. In other words, if, let us say, there are 39 seats to be shared out instead of a far more convenient 36. Party 'A' would have earned 19 and a half seats. Party 'B' would obtain 12 and one-third of a seat, while Party 'C' made do with six plus one-sixth of a seat. I am very glad to be able to answer the obvious question as to how they would physically share their seat in parliament. The Yoruba have a convenient expression for an interim government which is equally apt for this situation -f'idi he e!

If however there are physiological obstacles to three politician sharing one seat in the proportion of 3:2:1, we could simply opt for the more prosaic solution and make them occupy that seat in rotation: 'A' would take that seat for three days, 'B' for two and 'C' for one. You see, where there's a will, there is a solution.

To be continued.

Professor Soyinka is a Nobel Laureate in Literature.