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Last Updated: Aug 14th, 2006 - 11:32:28
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Arc->Electoral Irregularities
Saving Our Democracy
Apr 28, 2003, 20:59
| | The Presidential flag-bearer of the All Nigeria People Party (ANPP), General Muhamadu Buhari, who was declared defeated in last Saturday’s presidential elections, on Wednesday, April 23, threatened to make the country ungovernable and ground all machinery of government if the declared winner of the elections, President Olusegun Obasanjo, is sworn-in on May 29.
At a press conference in Abuja mid-week, the former military head of state stated categorically that there would be no government in Nigeria by May 30 if the elections were not repeated alongside the gubernatorial elections in some parts of the country. The specific areas in which Buhari wants a repeat of elections are in South-South, South-East and some parts of the North. Added the ANPP flag-bearer: “We had no doubt in our minds that fraud was the most appropriate word that could be used to describe what came out of the elections…We expressed our views, which are universally accepted, that minimum standards are necessary for elections to be accepted to be free, fair, transparent, violence-free and credible. We listed what we considered as those minimum standards for credible elections”
What happened on April 19, asserted Buhari, was a “shameless and massive exercise in allocation of votes’’. Instructively, Buhari affirmed that he would not take his case to the election tribunal, as stipulated in the electoral laws because there was no need for it.
As if Buhari’s insurrectional statement was not enough to heat up the polity and raise the spectre of formless violence, the presidential flag-bearer of an otherwise marginal party, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, declared himself the winner of the presidential election, but stated that he would claim his mandate through non-violent means.
If Ojukwu’s statement were not tragic and laden with a combustible, even if arrant, mischief, it would have been comical. Ojukwu, whose evidence of victory reportedly
was that his party won “in all the South-Eastern states as well as other parts of the federation’’, stated: “I Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, of APGA believe firmly that I won the presidential election, if there was any truth in this country left, if there was any justice left, we should be rejoicing as I match forward to Aso Rock".
In what was ostensibly meant to be a sordid parody of the self-declaration of Chief Moshood Abiola in 1994, after the annulment of the election, which he was widely
acclaimed to have won, Ojukwu added that if his "mandate" could not be realised, then fresh elections must hold, stressing that the last elections - on which
his assumed "mandate" rested -- constituted a "charade" and was therefore “unacceptable”.
In a most reckless mode totally unbefitting of one who is aspiring to lead Nigeria, Ojukwu recalled his role in the Civil War which engulfed Nigeria for 30 months - which the secessionist Biafra lost, with Ojukwu fleeing to safety in Ivory Coast -- adding that he would continue to champion the cause of the Igbo until his last breadth.
Same day in Abuja, the Conference of Nigerian Political parties (CNPP) led by the Chairman of the ANPP, Chief Don Etiebet, and the presidential candidate of the obscure National Action Council (NAC), Primate Olapade Agoro, threatened "mass
revolts" against the Federal Government if President Obasanjo does not relinquish power by May 29. In a statement read by Agoro after a meeting of the Conference, the CNPP
asked Obasanjo to quit as president of Nigeria on May 29 and hand over to an interim government of national unity. The interim government was saddled with the task of reconstituting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) , which will conduct fresh elections within nine months.
In reacting to all these insurrectional and -- what is beginning to look like -- conspiratorial combines, the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Audu
Ogbeh, threatened "fire-for-fire".
He is wrong. The language of fire-for-fire is not the language of law and order; it is the rhetoric of either gangsters or a constituted authority - often the military in power or the police force - that has lost initiative. And this ought not to come from the mouth of a democrat, which Ogbe claims to be, otherwise he would be swapping, the lexicon of
those whose insurrectional conspiracies he was attempting to counter. But, when Ogbe added that “whoever embarks or encourages mass action will be severely dealt with by the appropriate security agents”, he was speaking more like a responsible leader of a party. Yet, he should go further.
We are, however, enamoured that the ANPP has said that it never, at any time, foreclosed the probability of heading for the court to protest the election results. Speaking through its National Chairman, Chief Don Etiebet, the party, Etiebet said, had to allow reason to prevail so as not to be seen as “encouraging electoral gangsterism”. In the same
vein, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais, has named a 180-member election tribunal for the 36 states of the federation. They have since been sworn in.
The matter at stake is as much a law-and-order issue as it is a political issue. The law-and-order aspect is clear and straightforward; only that it might get complicated by the political aspect.
Here is the law-and-order aspect: The threat by Buhari, Etiebet and Agoro, if pursued, will be as inexcusable as it will be criminal. In fact, the very threat of violence calls for the serious attention of the security forces. As a former head of state; Buhari is too familiar with what should be the response of a constituted authority to such a reckless threat to be reminded of it. It is to this aspect of the emerging crisis that Ojo Maduekwe, the Transport Minister, spoke when he addressed the press after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the same day these threats were issued. Stated Maduekwe: "lnciting statements will not be tolerated by this administration... Yes, it is a democratic government but it is not a weak government." Well said.
Maduekwe also spoke vaguely and partly to the political aspect: "There is need for peace to reign. We have stretched our hands of fellowship and hands of solidarity to all those who are involve in the contest."
Reconciliation is key. But before then, the truth has to be established. Beyond the vituperations and threats thrown at the polity, this is what is at the core of the rejection of the results. Were the elections free and fair? Could we as a people, in all honesty, use these elections as a basis of constituting the next government, both at the state and federal levels?
The Nigerian Tribune shares the concern of these dissatisfied politicians. As foreign observers have noted, there were significant irregularities, particularly in the South-South, the South-East and some parts of the North. Indeed, even the Afenifere, which regards itself as the father of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), has noted that there were gross irregularities in the conduct of the elections in South-West. In spite of these, however, the AD, in spite of the irregularities, decided not to contest the results of the elections.
Yet, the ANPP and the other parties in the CNPP, have the right to contest the elections. They, in fact, have a reason, given the reports of the irregularities, to contest the results. That would already appear incontestable. What is questionable is the decision by these groups not to avail themselves of the opportunities for such as laid down in the election laws.
That General Buhari, Chief Ojukwu and the other leaders of the parties, officially trounced in the elections, have resolved that they would not protest alleged widespread rigging in the tribunal, raises doubts about their real motives. We wish to side substantially with the Chairman of the PDP, Ogbe, where he noted that many of these parties never campaigned beyond a few yards of the homes of their presidential candidates. Some avoided particular sections of the country. Until the last three weeks of the elections, some of these parties, even the most visible among them, acted as if they were expecting manna from the heavens. It was only the PDP, truth be told, that actively and vigorously campaigned in all sections of the country. While this would never constitute an excuse for rigging of the elections, we make bold to say that it will disqualify some of the candidates from expectations of victory, at least, in the presidential race.
Additionally, the fact that these parties have raised issues about the areas in which they were victorious would be an argument for the fact that elections were free and fair only in the areas where they won. This will be as ridiculous as making a claim that all regularities were the exclusive preserve of the PDP. At any rate, all of these will remain claims and conjectures - even where valid - unless they are processed through an assigned institution that is empowered by law to make declaration on these. And because the aggrieved have resolved that either their will be done or they would have a recourse to violence, then the incumbent constituted authority has a duty to ensure that criminal tendencies are nipped in the bud.
But beyond this is the political, as we have noted. Some would argue that, if some of these elements and parties were not pursuing ulterior motives, they should have withdrawn from the gubernatorial and presidential elections, so as to strongly register their protest of the “massive rigging” they acclaimed happened during the first round of elections on April 12. But, where there goal was just to capture power at any cost or heat up the system so as to engineer a collapse, which is now threatened, such principled action would not recommend itself.
Whatever the motives of Buhari and his fellow travelers, what the nation confronts now is, what could better be seen as the beginning of nonsense. We have been here before. We should never let it happen again.
And the responsibility for this is much that of those jostling in power as it is that of every citizen.
The Nigerian Tribune affirms that Nigeria today is facing a twin-problem: The creation of a behemoth, PDP -- with a doubted claim to more than eighty percent of total votes cast which is threatening to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, as experienced in the first and second republics and the cult of losers who seem resolved to bring down the democratic edifice, if they cannot take control of it. Both tendencies are dangerous; they are dangerous first to democracy and then to national unity and survival. And it is incumbent on Nigerians to face down the touch-bearers of both tendencies.
Both tendencies, the results of the maximalist politics that has always been the bane of Nigeria's national survival, are almost always displayed by the Nigerian political class which is so attuned to the capture of power yet not seriously committed to social transformation.
Where then do the people go from here?
First, we strongly commend a patriotic spirit to the aggrieved. They must exhaust all the legal and peaceful means to seek redress. If they do not go to the election tribunal, whatever illegal action they take, will bring ruin not only on themselves but the entire system, eventually. They will be deceiving themselves to think that they can come out unscathed in the national disaster they seem eager to provoke.
Second, we also commend a patriotic and generous spirit to the incumbent PDP government. It is untenable to say that Buhari and his cohorts are cavilling.
Their objections to the results resonate with that of impartial observers of the elections. Therefore, there is the urgent need, where they refuse to go to the tribunal - as they have stated - to invite the other key parties to frank discussions, towards setting up a Government of National Unity based on the elections. Anything short of this will be a risk not worth running. All must have a stake in the survival of Nigeria's democracy.
We would also like to commend the American experience of democracy to those politically hurt by the announced results of the election. For over 200 years now, America has dazzled the world with its democratic practice. The country's last presidential election, which threw up the incumbent, President George Bush, as victor was generally adjudged as riddled with irregularities.
To expect a teething democracy as Nigeria's to be infallible is preposterous.
There are no neat solutions in politics. All, virtually all efforts, in human history of creating neat boundaries and neat solutions to political crises have ended up consuming millions of people and even national formations. History records many cases of people fighting bravely even for hopeless causes.
What is abroad is hardly a fight over grand principles; it is hardly a fight over how to build Nigeria, it is a fight over how to share Nigeria. We call on leaders of thought and senior citizens to wade into the simmering crisis before it is too late and save Nigeria from her history of intermittent collapse, orgy of violence and blood and national self-immolation.
© Copyright 2006 nigeriafirst.org
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