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Like many other Ghanaians or maybe I should say like many people in the world, I followed the elections in Nigeria with keen interest. We all had good reason to be worried about the possibility of unrest following the elections.

When I heard a spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress (APC), the winning party, say they were surprised that President Jonathan conceded defeat and called to congratulate General Muhamadu Buhari, I realised our anxieties were not misplaced. 

The APC did not expect President Jonathan and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), to accept defeat and such a scenario would have meant another Cote d’Ivoire situation on our hands. President Goodluck Jonathan must therefore be the man of the moment; with one phone call, he saved Nigeria, our sub-region, our continent, his own reputation and triggered huge sighs of relief across the world. 

Whilst people were expecting him to start a war if he lost rather than accept defeat, it turns out that the biggest sigh of relief has come from President Jonathan himself. On Easter Day he was quoted as telling a group of visitors that his 16 years of being in public office had been like being “in a cage”. Who would have thought that losing an election would turn out to be such good fortune? 

The “luckiest man in Nigeria”, as President Jonathan describes himself, is liberated from a cage and would now have his entertaining wife Patience all to himself from now onwards. I suspect that what is left of the PDP, after all the defections, is not likely to be amused. I can hear them muttering among themselves: “if this guy felt like he was in a cage, why did he let us waste our energies trying to get him elected so he would continue being in a cage?” 

Mandela’s election
It was not the APC alone that was taken by surprise by the outbreak of peace and brotherliness in Nigeria. Much of the international press had obviously arrived in Nigeria prepared for a different story from what eventually emerged. They struggled with the telling of the story. It reminded me of 1994 when the world’s media descended on South Africa for the election that was to usher in Nelson Mandela as President. 

It had been thought that the election would end in a civil war and therefore bullet-proof vests and helmets were obligatory parts of the kit that we, foreign journalists, had to have for the coverage of the elections. In the event, those elections turned out to be some of the happiest stories that any of us involved in them had ever covered. 

In Nigeria, not only did President Jonathan do the honourable thing, Prof Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, excelled and did us all proud. I served with him on the Commonwealth Election Observer Team to the Maldives in 2013 and his quiet but dignified manner had stayed with me. In these recent elections, he was the epitome of grace under fire and probably did more than anyone to salvage the reputation of Nigeria, Africa and Nigerian universities. 

As the various academics who were mostly vice chancellors of universities got up and announced the results and when they spoke about serving as returning officers as doing national assignments, we in Ghana must surely have felt ashamed of ourselves. We, with our barely literate and barely numerate electoral officials and their “twenty-seven, zero” frauds, were shown up as amateurs. 

Lessons from INEC
One immediate lesson from Prof Jega that we in Ghana must surely learn is to demystify the collation process and enlist the services of Ghanaians who would inspire confidence and respect to serve in all stages of the electoral process. It is worth recalling that when President Jonathan was looking to find a Chairman of the Independent Nigeria Electoral Commissioner, he said he wanted someone with integrity who would oversee electoral reforms and run elections that the winners and losers and the entire population would believe in. 

Our President Mahama is also faced with the task of finding a Chairman of the Electoral Commission; one prays he will make the process as transparent as possible and find a Prof Jega type of person to head our Commission. 

I don’t think President Mahama need have any fears about nominating a Prof Jega-like Chairman to add another element to the Jonathan- Mahama symmetry, which might make him lose the 2016 elections and end up like his good friend Jonathan.   

There is no indication that our Dramani feels like he is in a cage; our President Mahama is obviously having the time of his life and enjoying being president. This would also be a good opportunity for the invisible, inaudible and inactive Mahama Council of State to help the President appoint a Chairman for the Electoral Commission that all Ghanaians would be proud of. 

In the meantime, the President-elect, General Buhari, has obviously decided he would make good on his campaign promises with the issuing of a 100-day compact with Nigerians. Since most of the things he is promising to do involve “working with the National Assembly”, I am minded to say he will need a lot of luck. 

He will need even more luck with his pledge that “all political office holders will earn only the salaries and emoluments determined and approved by the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC).” 

If General Buhari is able to “work with the leadership of the National Assembly and the Judiciary to cut down the cost of governance”, he would go down in history as the greatest ever Nigerian and we in Ghana will go and learn lessons from him. If he does implement the National Gender Policy with 35 per cent of appointive positions for women, my party, the New Patriotic Party, will be at his door to learn some lessons. I am certain General Buhari will publicly declare his assets and liabilities, thus putting to shame those who made similar promises whilst campaigning and promptly forgot about it once elected. 

But if he is able to “encourage all his appointees to also publicly declare their assets and liabilities as a precondition for appointments” and he is still able to find some people to appoint, then he would be a magician as well. I hope sincerely he would try to make good on his promise to NOT be Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces from the comfort and security of Aso Rock. 

The idea of General Buhari going back into his uniform to lead the troops against Boko Haram is thoroughly disconcerting. I am told by those who know that the Vice-President-elect, Professor Osinbajo, is likely to be the most interesting part of the new package. Competent, thorough, charming and hard-working; that is how he is described. Sounds like our Bawumia and maybe I should pay attention to this symmetry business between Ghana and Nigeria.