What INEC Did Right
By Tobs Agbaegbu
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Maurice Iwu, chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, last week, at a public lecture at the University of Ibadan, spoke of the many battles the commission fought in order to conduct the election that produced current leaders
Maurice Iwu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, stunned his audience at public lecture at the University of Ibadan last week when he said some international observers who wrote adverse reports on the 2007 election were bribed by Nigerians to do so.
Iwu did not specifically mention names of the foreign observers who collected the bribes and the amount they were paid, but said the bribes were offered by some notable politicians who knew they would fail in the election and wanted to discredit the system. "Even beyond our borders, elaborate arrangements were made to gain the confidence of foreign missions and international agencies way ahead of the 2007 elections and unsuspecting foreigners were recruited as agencies to be used at a later date to discredit the election, the electoral management body and the nation," he said.
Iwu particularly singled out and described as "rubbish" the report by the European Union, EU, in August, last year that the electoral process was "not credible" and fell "far short of basic international standards." The INEC chairman said the EU report was in itself highly unreliable as there was a disclaimer in the introduction to the report that it did not represent the views of the EU.
He also gave an insight into how the electoral body discovered and handled subversive plans by the same group of politicians to cause ethnic tension and unleash bloodshed in the country, using the general election. Iwu explained that the plan involved creation of handicaps and unfavourable atmosphere which would have made INEC to postpone the election. "We got information early enough of plans to disrupt the election and we knew the consequences. There would have been mayhem and bloodletting across the country if the presidential election did not hold. They would say that President Olusegun Obasanjo had conspired with Professor Maurice Iwu to stop the North from taking over power. We thank God and modern technology that we held the election and successfully transited from one civilian to another civilian government," he said.
Iwu spoke while providing insight into how INEC was able to overcome many difficulties it encountered in the process of conducting the general elections last year. The public lecture was organised by the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, April 15. The INEC chairman's lecture was titled: "The April 2007 Elections in Nigeria: What went right."
The lecture lasted for about 90 minutes and the audience included members of the university community, INEC resident electoral commissioners in Oyo, Lagos, Osun, Ogun and Ekiti states, and representatives of the army, police, immigration and customs in the state. Intermittently, however, the audience, clapped, as Iwu marshalled points and dished out facts to show that INEC triumphed in its task, against man-made odds and institutional obstacles.
Before he spoke, Iwu who was ushered into the lecture theatre amidst ovation from the crowd which had sat patiently for over one hour before he arrived at about 2:15 p.m, thanked the University for the opportunity granted him. Said he: "I know this to be a community that places premium on rigorous inquiry on why things are the way they are and also on how things can be better than the way they are at present. I very much want to believe, men and women still listen to, and reason with one another; they ask questions about things they do not understand and they are sober and sincere enough to accept that the social and political matrix out of which public policies of a society emerge do not always yield outcomes that approximate the idealistic construct of our fancies."
He used the opportunity of the lecture to reply to the many criticism of the electoral body. The commission had been accused of failing to produce a transparent, free and fair electoral result. Many had described what took place as an electoral fraud.
But Iwu said that much of what has been hurled out on the 2007 elections, in terms of public assessment and comments, have been more heat than light, Quoting Cornel West, an African American scholar, he said: "Instead of critical dialogue and respectful exchange, we have witnessed several bouts of vulgar name-calling and self righteous finger- pointing.
Iwu approached his discourse from three angles. First was a consideration of what went wrong with Nigeria's elections in the past, then he expressed views on why the successful conduct of the 2007 elections was not negotiable and then moved to "what the definition of success is for the 2007 elections."
Looking at the history of elections in the past, Iwu said it had not always been easy and smooth, conducting national elections in Nigeria and expressed a disappointment that the situation had worsened over the years. He blamed these difficulties on the existence of a political class that exhibited a high level of indiscipline and disorder. "It is a fact, for instance, that the demise of the various earlier republics; the First Republic; the Second Republic and the partly formed Third Republic stemmed incontrovertibly from lack of restraint as well as unholy initiatives within the political class as a result of struggle for power .Till this very day as with those other times, the mentality within the political class seemed to be; if you cannot win power, smash the system."
Iwu listed things INEC did right about the April 2007 elections to include the use of customised ballot papers for each electoral constituency, meant to minimise ballot-box stuffing, and the establishment of The Electoral Institute, TEI, in two satellite campuses, as well as in UI, University of Nigeria, UNN and the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU.
He was glad that the commission was able to grapple with a number of unusual developments in the polity which posed great impediments to a free and fair elections. These included a strategy adopted by the political parties to circumvent the 2006 Electoral Act by substituting the real winners of party primaries. Iwu blamed the underhand tactics adopted by parties in the primaries in selecting and substituting candidates as the real reason behind the current increase in the reversal of election outcomes at the tribunals.
One state where the wrong substitutions case took place was in Rivers state where the actual winner, Rotimi Amaechi was replaced by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with Celestine Omehia. The Supreme Court upturned this and Amaechi was sworn in as governor without having to contest an election.
INEC said it was also able to grapple with "The most unusual and unprecedented" internal party crisis involving Obasanjo and former Vice president Atiku Abubakar. With Atiku standing up to lead opposition against a move by Obasanjo to take a third term tenure, the party and the nation witnessed an unusual battle for power and supremacy between a president and his deputy.
INEC washed its hands off the issue of disqualification of Abubakar and other candidates which took place soon after Obasanjo saw Abubakar as the arrowhead of opposition to third term. Iwu said INEC's hands were tied by the directive to disqualify issued in writing by Bayo Ojo, the attorney-general and minister of Justice, then with the support of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions, EFCC. "While the commission was still engaged in the process of verifying the credentials of aspirants as they submitted them to the commission, the attorney-general of the federation officially reminded the commission in more than one communication of the constitutional stipulation of categories of individuals who were not eligible to contest in the elections.
There was also the EFCC. Though not assigned by the constitution to disqualify anyone from contesting for public office, the agency had enormous powers to investigate into activities and transactions of individuals and corporate entities in the country," he said.
Against the many obstacles that INEC had to contend with in conducting the April elections last year, Iwu adjudged the electoral body as having performed creditably well. He said even if all the criticisms levelled against the electoral body were true, "the historic mark that the 2007 elections finally lifted Nigeria over a 47-year jinx of not managing to transit from one elected government to another will always stand." He said the reality of the transition process which produced president Umaru Yar'Adua, the 36 governors and legislators in all states and FCT Abuja, is indeed an illustration of what went right for the 2007 elections.
Bayo Okunade, head of Political Science Department, organisers of the lecture spoke glowingly about the quality of the lecture and personality of Iwu but explained that the forum was not meant to launder INEC's image. He explained also that it was not funded by INEC although he admitted that the department got five computers for use in its new degree programme on election matters. He asked INEC to consider building a lecture block for the department.
Olufemi Bamiro, vice-chancellor, who was represented at the occasion by the deputy VC (Academic) also spoke well of Iwu. The VC said the University gave approval for the lecture to hold because "U. I. is committed to academic freedom, ventilation of ideas and dissemination of ideas, "irrespective of how palatable such ideas may be."
Ajebon Chukwuma, a student who gave the vote of thanks also congratulated Iwu for giving a well- researched lecture. "Your lecture was thought-provoking and we are well-educated now about what happened," Chukwuma said.
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