Aliyu U. Tilde 9:11am Apr 29
Labaru sun zo mana kan irin murnar da wasu mutane ke yi a Kano ta cin zaben Kwankwaso ta hanyoyin da ya ke nuna suna maraba da shi don zai kau da Shari'a. Wannan zai sa in kura ta lafa mu yi dogon tattaunawa kan tarbiyyar al'umma a tsarin demokradiya na wannan zamanin.
Su wadanan da ke murna ta hanyar yin wadannan abubuwa, kar mu dauka da addini su ke ja. Hasali ma, sau da yawa in aka wa addininsu kalubale, ko da a gidan giya ne, to wallahi kaca-kaca ake da su. Sai su tashi su pasa kwalba, su yi ashar, su ce za su kara da duk wanda ya baci addininsu.
Wancan satin a kauyenmu, Tilde, akwai 'yan wiwi da ke busa sigarinsu a bayan gidana, da unguwata da nake shugabanta, da kuma makarantar firamare da ke kusa da ni. Mutane sun aza sun addabemu. Nakan ce mu rika hakuri da su. Suma akwai ranarsu. Don ina da sanin amfaninsu a fadan zangon kataf da sharia a Kaduna. Ile kuwa. Wancan satin, da aka ce ga kabilu can sun kawowa Tilde hari daga duwatsu, su wadannan yan wiwin su ne kan gaba wajen kare garin. Kowa sai sa musu albarka ya ke. Akwai yara da suka rika yawo suna barna suna kona gidajen kirista bayan an ce Buhari ya fadi zabe. Ko mutanen gari sun musu magana, ba sa saurarensu. Amma da zarar sun hango 'yan wiwin nan, sai su ruga, su bar wurin. To, shege ma da ranarsa!
Watau, dan Adam yana da wuyar sha'ani. In ya yi wani abu yakamata mu nazarce shi, mu gano dalilansa. Akasari sai ka ga ba abun da muke tsammani ba ne. Zai yiyu, mun tsananta wajen gudanar da sharia ta yadda ta saba da asalinta ko da zamaninmu. Zan ba da misalin shan giya.
In ka duba batun shan giya, ni a raayina an zafafa. Ko a Madinar Manzon Allah ana sai da barasa a wasu unguwanni har zamanin khalifofinsa. Haka kuma a manyan biranen musulunci irin su Damascus, da Bagadaza, da Kufa, da Seville, da Cordoba, da Alkahira. Ban taba jin inda aka yi dokar hana sai da ita ba tamaman tunda a ko yaushe, saboda sassaucin muslumci, akwai wadanda ba musulmi ba tattare da musulmi. Kai! Har a kasar Hausa, su Shehu Usumanu basu damu da su yi doka da zata hana samar da giya ba kwata-kwata. Shi ya sa kusan ake da bauda a daukacin kasar Hausa, birni da kauye. Amma tanadin sharia shi ne duk musulmin da aka kama ya sha, to a masa bulala 80. Shike nan. Akwai wanda Umar ya sa aka wa bulala don an same shi a bauda, duk da cewa an tabbatar ba giyar ya ke sha Ba. Umar ya ce to me ya kaishi zama a inda ake shanta? Wannan, a maimakon Umar ya yii dokar hana sai da giya ba.
Kuma burin sharia ba wai ta maida mutane mala'iku ba ne da za su zam ba sa laifi kwata-kwata. Sam. Allah ya fi son ya gansu a 'yan Adam dinsu, masu laifi lokaci-lokaci, amma kuma masu reman gafararsa a kullum. Ina jin akwai ingantaccen hadisi qudusi a kan wannan. Malamai suna iya binciko mana. In burinsa marasa laifi ne, ai yana da mala'iku da ba sa sabama umarninsa, suna masa tasbihi ba dare ba rana.
Don haka, yana da wuya a kauda dan Adam daga wannan dabi'ar da aka halicceshi a kanta, dabi'ar laifi da zunubi. Dama shi mai sabone asalan. Aikin addini shi ne ya kira shi ga alheri, in ya amsa sai ya ribanta da kyautata sabon nan da aikin alheri da hali nagari, kamar yadda za a hana shi mummunan aiki ta hanyar da ta dace da lokacinsa da abunda nassi ya kawo na wa'azi da ladabtarwa yadda ya fi dacewa.
Hakanan kan abubuwa da yawa wanda harkar film na cikinsu. Fasaha bata wanzuwa sai cikin 'yanci da walwala. Ai ido ba mudu ba ne amma ya san kima. Da yakamata a duba yanayin kasarmu, da matsayin tarbiyyarmu, a fara da sassauci hatta kan abubuwan da musulunci ya tsananta, kuma a yi sassauci har abada kan abunda bai tsananta ba...a bimu sannu sannu har mu fahimta, mu daidaita sahu.
Don haka, a takaice, wadannan 'yan'uwa namu ban yi tsammani wai yaki da addini suke yi ba. Hanyar da muka bi wajen d'abbaka shariar ce kila bai dace da zamaninsu ba ko d'abi'arsu. Kila mun gaggauta wasu abubuwan, mun tsananta a wasu. Don haka suka nuna bijirewarsu ga tsarin amma ba ga addinin ba.
In an tuna ai a zamanin Kwankwaso aka fara shariar, irinta wannan zamanin. Ina tuna lokacin da mataimakinsa, Ganduje, da Malamina, Aminuddeen Abubakar, suke yawo otel otel suna farautar kilakai a cikinsu. Don haka ba bakinta ba ne. Kwankwaso na da nasa malaman. Ba ni da haufin za su bari ya goyawa abunda zai maida musulunci baya.
Kamar yadda na fada jiya, sabon gwamnan sai ya gina kan abunda Malam Shekarau ya yi;ya yi gyara inda ake bukatar gyara; ya cigaba da duk abu mai kyau; ya kuma jingine, bisa shawara, abunda yake ganin kuskure ne. Amma kashedi kashedinsa, kar ya bibiye ma ashararai da za su kai shi su baro. Shekara hudu kamar gobe ne.
Haza wasalam.
Aliyu
Showing posts with label 2011 elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2011 elections. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday, September 24, 2010
Discourse 304 Amending Electoral Act 2010
Discourse 304
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Amending Electoral Law, 2010
Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, must be among the most worried people in Nigeria today. He honestly admitted that he never knew that his new job is so complicated. We remain hopeful because, unlike Obasanjo, he did not say free and fair election is impossible. Yet, it is now clear to everyone that there are a number of formidable hurdles to cross, some taller than the Eiffel Tower, before we arrive at the Promised Land! The confident Jega who few weeks ago said his team could deliver credible elections once N87billion is approved has given way to a more cautious one.
INEC has realised that there is not sufficient time to procure the Data Capturing Machines (DCMs) and register voters with them within the time frame of two to three months. The earlier arithmetic of 120,000 people working for 8 hours daily for two weeks to produce a credible register would be hard to realise for a number of reasons. So it went public about the need to shift the elections to March or April, as is done earlier. What we will only miss when the nation acquiesces to INEC’s demand is the chance to acquit itself of all litigations before the swearing in date of May 29. In any case, anyone that practices law knows that it would be difficult to dispense with hundreds of litigations in three months or so. At least some judges at the court of appeal have said this much, albeit secretly.
INEC has easily covered sufficient ground in canvassing for the support it needs to obtain a shift in the election date. It reached the decision at a retreat last week; then successfully sold the idea at meeting with of all political parties earlier this week; yesterday, Jega met the President on the matter; and the House of Representatives is recalling its members from their recess to discuss the matter. It appears that everyone is ready to sacrifice the January date for a more credible outcome. My argument in this article is that Nigerians must not be satisfied with something more credible. In granting INEC its wishes, all stakeholders – but particularly the Presidency and the National Assembly – must not stop at approving anything that will limit the credibility of the elections ab initio. Such clauses in the Electoral Act that tied the hands of INEC must be expunged. INEC must seize the opportunity of a review of the Act and demand for more flexible provisions that will allow it enough room to use the right equipment, employ the appropriate personnel and adopt the best strategies to deliver credible elections to the nation.
Regarding time, details of a timetable should be avoided as much as possible. This is what has caused the present mess. Now many weeks will be spent amending the Act which would have been avoided if the task of scheduling the election was left to INEC to decide based on the prevailing circumstances. There is also very little wisdom in staggering the elections. It only gives the ruling party an upper hand in that it alone would have the capacity to meet the financial demands of effectively partaking in three consecutive elections, no thanks to its access to the deep pocket of the treasury. Let us cast our votes all in a day or in a maximum of two days. If such details were avoided, all that INEC needed to do now would have been to inform the nation that it is shifting the elections to April. Any student of law will tell you that a good legislation must not include details, otherwise it will encumber. So let INEC in its demand restrict the legislators only to upholding the sanctity of May 29 and leave the rest, as much as possible, for the body to decide.
That is why a room for subsidiary legislation is created in drafting any law. In the case of elections, however, the stakes are higher, given that a success at the polls for a senator, for example, would fetch a salary and allowances bigger than those of the American President! Bereft of popular support, the politicians use detailed legislation that would guarantee them sufficient room for rigging.
The aspect that would be more difficult for the legislature to allow much room for INEC and on which I believe both the organ and the nation must remain stubborn in their demand is the type of equipment INEC should employ during elections. They permitted the DCMs and even approved for INEC a colossal N87billion to purchase them without raising much eyebrow precisely because they know that a voters’ register cannot stop them from rigging elections. In the electoral law, however, they did not take chances. As if the presidency and the legislators were discountenancing the frightening fidelity of the electronic voting machine once hinted by Maurice Iwu, they plainly and boldly said in Section 52 (b) of the Electoral Act, 2010 that “the use of electronic voting machine for the time being is prohibited.” Why did they single out the use of the electronic voting machine for their axe? So beyond registration and, may be, accreditation, anything can happen to your vote. For example, the polling station can be raided by thugs who will scare every voter away, thumbprint the whole ballot papers and get away with it especially when they are aided with unrepentant INEC officials and corrupt law enforcement agents as it has happened time and again before.
The clause limiting INEC’s choice to deploy any equipment should be expunged in the upcoming amended Electoral Law. I would like to illustrate the folly of the legislation this way. It is like you sending a messenger to Lagos from Maiduguri to return with a written message within 24 hours but prohibit him from using any form of transport except a lorry; otherwise you will fire him. Then a friend told you that the written message could be delivered electronically through email. Yet, you insisted that the driver has to travel by truck and bring the message manually. It would be clear to anyone that you intended the driver to fail.
If the President and the legislators do not intend INEC to fail, they must allow it the free hand to employ any equipment it deems necessary in the delivery of its promise. Otherwise, the President and the national assembly should be ready to shoulder the burden of any failure arising from their poor legislation. Nobody is saying that there is a perfect machine that will rid the election of any form of failure. But what other nations do is to introduce machines that would reduce human factor in determining the process to the barest minimum.
So far the excuses used to discount the suitability of electronic voting or fingerprint screeners are unfounded. We are told that our population is largely illiterate. GSM has disproved that. Baba Danladi here at Tilden Fulani is approaching 100 years; yet he owns and uses a GSM despite his inability to read to read English or Hausa. On election day, nothing will prevent him to identify the symbol of the party he supports. Or what actually prevents him and his type from going to the polling booth with his educated son to guide him? They said the machines could be manipulated. Again GSM debunked that. When the scratch card was introduced, it was widely predicted that Nigerians would soon produce fake ones and render the service providers bankrupt. To date, that has remained a fiction. No one has achieved it even with online loading facilities. And so on.
There would be difficulties of course, as I discussed in an earlier article in 2008, but they are simply challenges for which Jega and his reputable team are selected to stand up to in the first place. Problems are encountered with voting machines even in the United States, but that did not make America to resort to riding a donkey in an information age. No outsider like me can suggest any specific brand of electronic equipment for INEC because we are not privileged to know the complexity of the election process as does INEC. In view of our ignorance, what the nation expects INEC to do given the ample seven months it has before April is to study the situation and come up with the best electronic equipment to employ in order to deliver credible elections. The use of electronic counters to verify the validity of votes cast after the closure of voting, for example, will automatically wipe out any stuffing that was done earlier in the day. Even the accreditation of voters that is electronically done and uploaded into a server and simultaneously copied into the account of each political party will check over-voting. So many things are possible, if INEC and the National Assembly are ready to go beyond the doctrine of voters register.
The roadmap to a healthy 2011 is very clear. Sitting back and watching the government playing all sorts of tricks only to cry foul immediately the elections are conducted smacks of an afterthought, cowardice and lack of intelligence. If there would be any mass mobilization against future rigged elections, it has to be now. Right now. Period. Let us see all concerned from ex-military officers, ex-judges, politicians, academicians and members of the civil society sign up to a memo demanding the complete freedom of INEC from all encumbrances. The present claim by government that it has not restrained the body is dubious, as we have seen above. Let all the political parties also protest in unison by submitting a document to INEC and the National Assembly that they will not partake in the elections unless so and so conditions are met. The aspirants to the elective positions, however, should show the greatest zeal. They have called the masses to protest before and nothing came out of it. They must register their protest now collectively. Individual declarations in newspaper interviews will have no effect. INEC will simply brand the candidate as a “frustrated person”, as Maurice Iwu once called Buhari.
Jega and his team, on their part, must demonstrate more courage and refuse to be intimidated by the possibility of failure. Let them venture into the previously unexplored seabed. Pearls may be waiting for them there. There must always be a first chance, which only the audacious would take it. Armed with that conviction, they must demand their total freedom from government. Otherwise, they can step aside and allow the Presidency or the National Assembly to run the elections themselves.
If all these stakeholders would fail to do anything, the ordinary citizens, let it be known, would also owe this nation nothing other than grumble or at best write a castigating essay on a Friday that would follow the elections.
Tilde,
24 September 2010
Previous articles by the same author can be reached at http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com . New ones are published there every weekend.
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Amending Electoral Law, 2010
Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, must be among the most worried people in Nigeria today. He honestly admitted that he never knew that his new job is so complicated. We remain hopeful because, unlike Obasanjo, he did not say free and fair election is impossible. Yet, it is now clear to everyone that there are a number of formidable hurdles to cross, some taller than the Eiffel Tower, before we arrive at the Promised Land! The confident Jega who few weeks ago said his team could deliver credible elections once N87billion is approved has given way to a more cautious one.
INEC has realised that there is not sufficient time to procure the Data Capturing Machines (DCMs) and register voters with them within the time frame of two to three months. The earlier arithmetic of 120,000 people working for 8 hours daily for two weeks to produce a credible register would be hard to realise for a number of reasons. So it went public about the need to shift the elections to March or April, as is done earlier. What we will only miss when the nation acquiesces to INEC’s demand is the chance to acquit itself of all litigations before the swearing in date of May 29. In any case, anyone that practices law knows that it would be difficult to dispense with hundreds of litigations in three months or so. At least some judges at the court of appeal have said this much, albeit secretly.
INEC has easily covered sufficient ground in canvassing for the support it needs to obtain a shift in the election date. It reached the decision at a retreat last week; then successfully sold the idea at meeting with of all political parties earlier this week; yesterday, Jega met the President on the matter; and the House of Representatives is recalling its members from their recess to discuss the matter. It appears that everyone is ready to sacrifice the January date for a more credible outcome. My argument in this article is that Nigerians must not be satisfied with something more credible. In granting INEC its wishes, all stakeholders – but particularly the Presidency and the National Assembly – must not stop at approving anything that will limit the credibility of the elections ab initio. Such clauses in the Electoral Act that tied the hands of INEC must be expunged. INEC must seize the opportunity of a review of the Act and demand for more flexible provisions that will allow it enough room to use the right equipment, employ the appropriate personnel and adopt the best strategies to deliver credible elections to the nation.
Regarding time, details of a timetable should be avoided as much as possible. This is what has caused the present mess. Now many weeks will be spent amending the Act which would have been avoided if the task of scheduling the election was left to INEC to decide based on the prevailing circumstances. There is also very little wisdom in staggering the elections. It only gives the ruling party an upper hand in that it alone would have the capacity to meet the financial demands of effectively partaking in three consecutive elections, no thanks to its access to the deep pocket of the treasury. Let us cast our votes all in a day or in a maximum of two days. If such details were avoided, all that INEC needed to do now would have been to inform the nation that it is shifting the elections to April. Any student of law will tell you that a good legislation must not include details, otherwise it will encumber. So let INEC in its demand restrict the legislators only to upholding the sanctity of May 29 and leave the rest, as much as possible, for the body to decide.
That is why a room for subsidiary legislation is created in drafting any law. In the case of elections, however, the stakes are higher, given that a success at the polls for a senator, for example, would fetch a salary and allowances bigger than those of the American President! Bereft of popular support, the politicians use detailed legislation that would guarantee them sufficient room for rigging.
The aspect that would be more difficult for the legislature to allow much room for INEC and on which I believe both the organ and the nation must remain stubborn in their demand is the type of equipment INEC should employ during elections. They permitted the DCMs and even approved for INEC a colossal N87billion to purchase them without raising much eyebrow precisely because they know that a voters’ register cannot stop them from rigging elections. In the electoral law, however, they did not take chances. As if the presidency and the legislators were discountenancing the frightening fidelity of the electronic voting machine once hinted by Maurice Iwu, they plainly and boldly said in Section 52 (b) of the Electoral Act, 2010 that “the use of electronic voting machine for the time being is prohibited.” Why did they single out the use of the electronic voting machine for their axe? So beyond registration and, may be, accreditation, anything can happen to your vote. For example, the polling station can be raided by thugs who will scare every voter away, thumbprint the whole ballot papers and get away with it especially when they are aided with unrepentant INEC officials and corrupt law enforcement agents as it has happened time and again before.
The clause limiting INEC’s choice to deploy any equipment should be expunged in the upcoming amended Electoral Law. I would like to illustrate the folly of the legislation this way. It is like you sending a messenger to Lagos from Maiduguri to return with a written message within 24 hours but prohibit him from using any form of transport except a lorry; otherwise you will fire him. Then a friend told you that the written message could be delivered electronically through email. Yet, you insisted that the driver has to travel by truck and bring the message manually. It would be clear to anyone that you intended the driver to fail.
If the President and the legislators do not intend INEC to fail, they must allow it the free hand to employ any equipment it deems necessary in the delivery of its promise. Otherwise, the President and the national assembly should be ready to shoulder the burden of any failure arising from their poor legislation. Nobody is saying that there is a perfect machine that will rid the election of any form of failure. But what other nations do is to introduce machines that would reduce human factor in determining the process to the barest minimum.
So far the excuses used to discount the suitability of electronic voting or fingerprint screeners are unfounded. We are told that our population is largely illiterate. GSM has disproved that. Baba Danladi here at Tilden Fulani is approaching 100 years; yet he owns and uses a GSM despite his inability to read to read English or Hausa. On election day, nothing will prevent him to identify the symbol of the party he supports. Or what actually prevents him and his type from going to the polling booth with his educated son to guide him? They said the machines could be manipulated. Again GSM debunked that. When the scratch card was introduced, it was widely predicted that Nigerians would soon produce fake ones and render the service providers bankrupt. To date, that has remained a fiction. No one has achieved it even with online loading facilities. And so on.
There would be difficulties of course, as I discussed in an earlier article in 2008, but they are simply challenges for which Jega and his reputable team are selected to stand up to in the first place. Problems are encountered with voting machines even in the United States, but that did not make America to resort to riding a donkey in an information age. No outsider like me can suggest any specific brand of electronic equipment for INEC because we are not privileged to know the complexity of the election process as does INEC. In view of our ignorance, what the nation expects INEC to do given the ample seven months it has before April is to study the situation and come up with the best electronic equipment to employ in order to deliver credible elections. The use of electronic counters to verify the validity of votes cast after the closure of voting, for example, will automatically wipe out any stuffing that was done earlier in the day. Even the accreditation of voters that is electronically done and uploaded into a server and simultaneously copied into the account of each political party will check over-voting. So many things are possible, if INEC and the National Assembly are ready to go beyond the doctrine of voters register.
The roadmap to a healthy 2011 is very clear. Sitting back and watching the government playing all sorts of tricks only to cry foul immediately the elections are conducted smacks of an afterthought, cowardice and lack of intelligence. If there would be any mass mobilization against future rigged elections, it has to be now. Right now. Period. Let us see all concerned from ex-military officers, ex-judges, politicians, academicians and members of the civil society sign up to a memo demanding the complete freedom of INEC from all encumbrances. The present claim by government that it has not restrained the body is dubious, as we have seen above. Let all the political parties also protest in unison by submitting a document to INEC and the National Assembly that they will not partake in the elections unless so and so conditions are met. The aspirants to the elective positions, however, should show the greatest zeal. They have called the masses to protest before and nothing came out of it. They must register their protest now collectively. Individual declarations in newspaper interviews will have no effect. INEC will simply brand the candidate as a “frustrated person”, as Maurice Iwu once called Buhari.
Jega and his team, on their part, must demonstrate more courage and refuse to be intimidated by the possibility of failure. Let them venture into the previously unexplored seabed. Pearls may be waiting for them there. There must always be a first chance, which only the audacious would take it. Armed with that conviction, they must demand their total freedom from government. Otherwise, they can step aside and allow the Presidency or the National Assembly to run the elections themselves.
If all these stakeholders would fail to do anything, the ordinary citizens, let it be known, would also owe this nation nothing other than grumble or at best write a castigating essay on a Friday that would follow the elections.
Tilde,
24 September 2010
Previous articles by the same author can be reached at http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com . New ones are published there every weekend.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Discourse 295 Good Luck, Mr. Goodluck
Discourse 295
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com
Good Luck, Mr. Goodluck
Nigerians are pitching their hope for a better democracy in the appointment of new members of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The body has in the past distinguished itself with election malpractices in favour of incumbent governments, particularly those belonging to the ruling party. INEC officials have on many occasions announced election results even before voting or collation was completed. Its immediate past chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, publicly abused opposition candidates and violated court orders with impunity. Just think of any electoral malpractice under the sun and I will assure you that INEC, through many of its officials, has contemplated, invented, practised, condoned, supervised, rewarded, justified, aided or abetted it. All it only needed to do during any election was to announce the winner, by hook or crook, and the rest is left to the corrupt Nigerian courts to approve it with the stamp of legal authority. And the opposition candidate returns home helpless.
The opposition at various levels and from different parties, including the ruling party candidates in states that are controlled by minority parties, like Borno and Yobe states, must have felt helpless several times since 1999. However, generally speaking, in elections conducted by INEC, the ruling party, PDP, has continued to gain more and more executive and legislative seats at both state and national levels at the peril of others. Today, with the unholy spirit of INEC, Nigeria is effectively at the eve of becoming a one party state unless the national elections of next year prove to be free and fair.
The world has been witness to this perfidy that nearly truncated democracy in 2007 if not for the promise of electoral reforms that the then declared ‘winner’ of the presidential election, late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, made to the world. Though many Nigerians became sceptical of Yar’adua’s commitment to his words since he strongly defended his decision to retain the power of appointing the INEC chairman and his failure to deliver on other promises too, the world was ready to give him another chance in 2011. And with Obama’s threat to isolate any African government that would come through flouted electoral process, the pressure has reached a threshold that is forcing the Nigerian government to cave in.
Thus, there has not been a more daunting task ahead of the new President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, than holding free and fair elections in 2011. To that effect he gave his words to himself, to his county, to America and to the rest of the world. And neither the Americans nor his countrymen are relenting in their pressure because they know that promises are easier made that kept. If he will hold free and fair elections, America and many Nigerians have expressed their readiness to accept his candidature, doing away with the zoning precept of the ruling party that does not favour him. Jonathan on his part has tactfully kept the question of his candidature open while doing whatever is possible to convince the doubting Thomases that he will keep his promise of free and fair elections in 2011. If he will not contest, many observers say, Jonathan has a better chance of fulfilling the promise than if he chooses to run because he is likely to be persuaded by self-interest to hearken to the calls that advise him to break it.
And the pressure of that advice is already mounting from his political godfather, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is renowned for breaking promises and who is so convinced of the inevitability of self-interest that he bluntly declared some weeks ago that “not even Jesus Christ could hold free and fair elections.” Subhanallah! This blasphemous pronouncement, coming from a person who is also Chairman, Board of Trustees of the ruling PDP, eloquently captures the mindset of the party as regards 2011 elections. Most commentators believe that under no circumstance will the PDP commit this political suicide. Obasanjo therefore was only being less hypocritical than others. I know there are millions of Nigerians, including most candidates and leaders of the 56 other political parties, who will walk every inch to frustrate the conduct of free and fair elections. So, Jonathan should be ready to go it alone, deserted and subverted by his party.
The big question here is whether Jonathan has the capacity to weather such a Category-5 hurricane that will surely hit his noble intention. I think he is right when he said the problem does not lie with the electoral laws as much as it does with our attitude. The election day in Nigeria is the day when hell is let loose. With every policeman partaking in managing the elections, there is no instrument left to enforce law and order. You can correctly declare it as national day of lawlessness, a good specimen of anarchy. Everybody is left to the prudence of his conscience and the liberty of his devices. And the conscience of Nigerian politicians is callously imprudent while their devises are amazingly unsophisticated. Aware of the importance of that day to the continuity of their lavish lifestyle, they launch whatever is in their capacity of money, thugs, and weapons into the battlefield of electoral contest. Governors and ministers will loot billions of naira from public treasury and businessmen and politicians will invest several other billions in bribing election officials to allow, aid or commit various malpractices. Billions of naira will be spent on hiring soldiers, policemen and unemployed youths who will scare, beat and, where necessary, kill voters and opposition candidates or snatch ballot papers and boxes. Poor Jonathan will remain in the Presidential villa, waiting for Nigerians and the world to attest that the elections were free and fair. Unless he can do something to change this attitude, his promise of free and fair elections will remain unfulfilled.
In his attempt to change that attitude and find some company in his lonely journey, the President is putting his eggs in the basket of credible INEC officials. Jonathan has promised to appoint people whom he believes are trustworthy, impartial and competent. To prove his loyalty to his promise, the President asked the former INEC chairman to leave before his tenure ended. Then people started bombarding him with lists of ‘credible’ people. Obasanjo, who believes that every INEC position must be occupied by a bonafide member of the ruling PDP, read the mindset of the President, combed the party and came up with the name of Dr. Dora Akunyili, the present Minister of Information despite the fact that Obasanjo himself did not give the courageous woman that seat during his tenure. But in what could be translated as a manifestation of rebellion, Jonathan quietly disobeyed the doctrine of Obasanjo, rejected the prescriptions of other equally powerful politicians and discounted our speculations. Last week he told the world that he has chosen a person whom he has never met to chair INEC, someone who is also not a member of any party. It is also expected that he will use the same yardstick in appointing other members of the commission and its state electoral commissioners.
Of course, appointing credible people will go a long way in solving the attitudinal problem especially if it is done thoroughly down to the local government level and if they are given the necessary free hand and resources to perform creditably. What remains is changing the attitude of the police, from the Inspector General down to the constable, to the extent that will enable them to side with the law whenever they are confronted by an Everest of bribe money. The police must arrest whoever breaks the law, including military officers who are increasingly collecting huge sums to meddle with election, while INEC should cancel any result that is obtained dubiously.
Beyond the police will be the judiciary that needs to be freed from executive interference and the glitter of wealth. I support that the elections be held in January because it will guarantee the judiciary the freedom they need to pass impartial judgements on election appeals before Jonathan leaves office. Otherwise, I just cannot see how a President, even a Jonathan President, who will, after sworn in as a result of flout elections, allow the courts to turndown the results that brought him and his colleagues to power. We have seen this in the case of late President Yar’adua and his in-law governor. Jonathan must defy his predecessor in this and in plenty other respects.
Finally, I do not think the politicians will change any bit. You cannot teach an old dog a new trick. But a way of checking them is for the President to mobilize the masses against anyone intending to pervert their choice. Once the masses are sufficiently mobilised and emboldened through media campaigns to guard their rights and they are assured that they will not be punished for doing so, experience has shown that the politicians will become immobilized. Sarkin yawa ya fi sarkin karfi.
To achieve the above, Jonathan and his co-travellers will require four things: commitment of the President, resources, time and the understanding of fellow Nigerians. While there is no basis so far to question the commitment of the President or doubt the availability of the resources required, given that this year’s independence celebration alone will consume as much as N10 billion, there is every need to work against time. So much time is required to plan an election that is free of violence and fair to all contestants in a country of 150 million people with 57 political parties. Above all, it is doubtful that in less than a year the police and the judiciary will understand, let alone to imbibe, the civic duty of conducting a free and fair election.
Finally, asking and getting the understanding and cooperation of Nigerians is herculean. We have passed through thick forests of deceit so much that it is difficult to trust our leaders anymore. Yet, if Jonathan will remain transparent regarding his promise, he will definitely gain our understanding and cooperative. We will celebrate his success and overlook his shortcomings. If, being Mr. Goodluck, he succeeds even at the peril of his seat and the hegemony of his party, he will remain celebrated as one of the foremost champions of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. If he fails, history will still attest to his goodwill and accord him a position commensurate with his good intention and acknowledge the impossibility of his circumstance. For me, all I can now say is good luck, Mr. Goodluck.
Tilde,
4 June 2010
For copies of previous articles, please visit my blog at http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com, or google Discourse with Dr. Tilde. To receive new articles directly into your email box please send your email address to aliyutilde@yahoo.com. Readers are free to share the articles with many friends including publishing them on their websites, facebook and blogs.
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com
Good Luck, Mr. Goodluck
Nigerians are pitching their hope for a better democracy in the appointment of new members of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The body has in the past distinguished itself with election malpractices in favour of incumbent governments, particularly those belonging to the ruling party. INEC officials have on many occasions announced election results even before voting or collation was completed. Its immediate past chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, publicly abused opposition candidates and violated court orders with impunity. Just think of any electoral malpractice under the sun and I will assure you that INEC, through many of its officials, has contemplated, invented, practised, condoned, supervised, rewarded, justified, aided or abetted it. All it only needed to do during any election was to announce the winner, by hook or crook, and the rest is left to the corrupt Nigerian courts to approve it with the stamp of legal authority. And the opposition candidate returns home helpless.
The opposition at various levels and from different parties, including the ruling party candidates in states that are controlled by minority parties, like Borno and Yobe states, must have felt helpless several times since 1999. However, generally speaking, in elections conducted by INEC, the ruling party, PDP, has continued to gain more and more executive and legislative seats at both state and national levels at the peril of others. Today, with the unholy spirit of INEC, Nigeria is effectively at the eve of becoming a one party state unless the national elections of next year prove to be free and fair.
The world has been witness to this perfidy that nearly truncated democracy in 2007 if not for the promise of electoral reforms that the then declared ‘winner’ of the presidential election, late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, made to the world. Though many Nigerians became sceptical of Yar’adua’s commitment to his words since he strongly defended his decision to retain the power of appointing the INEC chairman and his failure to deliver on other promises too, the world was ready to give him another chance in 2011. And with Obama’s threat to isolate any African government that would come through flouted electoral process, the pressure has reached a threshold that is forcing the Nigerian government to cave in.
Thus, there has not been a more daunting task ahead of the new President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, than holding free and fair elections in 2011. To that effect he gave his words to himself, to his county, to America and to the rest of the world. And neither the Americans nor his countrymen are relenting in their pressure because they know that promises are easier made that kept. If he will hold free and fair elections, America and many Nigerians have expressed their readiness to accept his candidature, doing away with the zoning precept of the ruling party that does not favour him. Jonathan on his part has tactfully kept the question of his candidature open while doing whatever is possible to convince the doubting Thomases that he will keep his promise of free and fair elections in 2011. If he will not contest, many observers say, Jonathan has a better chance of fulfilling the promise than if he chooses to run because he is likely to be persuaded by self-interest to hearken to the calls that advise him to break it.
And the pressure of that advice is already mounting from his political godfather, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is renowned for breaking promises and who is so convinced of the inevitability of self-interest that he bluntly declared some weeks ago that “not even Jesus Christ could hold free and fair elections.” Subhanallah! This blasphemous pronouncement, coming from a person who is also Chairman, Board of Trustees of the ruling PDP, eloquently captures the mindset of the party as regards 2011 elections. Most commentators believe that under no circumstance will the PDP commit this political suicide. Obasanjo therefore was only being less hypocritical than others. I know there are millions of Nigerians, including most candidates and leaders of the 56 other political parties, who will walk every inch to frustrate the conduct of free and fair elections. So, Jonathan should be ready to go it alone, deserted and subverted by his party.
The big question here is whether Jonathan has the capacity to weather such a Category-5 hurricane that will surely hit his noble intention. I think he is right when he said the problem does not lie with the electoral laws as much as it does with our attitude. The election day in Nigeria is the day when hell is let loose. With every policeman partaking in managing the elections, there is no instrument left to enforce law and order. You can correctly declare it as national day of lawlessness, a good specimen of anarchy. Everybody is left to the prudence of his conscience and the liberty of his devices. And the conscience of Nigerian politicians is callously imprudent while their devises are amazingly unsophisticated. Aware of the importance of that day to the continuity of their lavish lifestyle, they launch whatever is in their capacity of money, thugs, and weapons into the battlefield of electoral contest. Governors and ministers will loot billions of naira from public treasury and businessmen and politicians will invest several other billions in bribing election officials to allow, aid or commit various malpractices. Billions of naira will be spent on hiring soldiers, policemen and unemployed youths who will scare, beat and, where necessary, kill voters and opposition candidates or snatch ballot papers and boxes. Poor Jonathan will remain in the Presidential villa, waiting for Nigerians and the world to attest that the elections were free and fair. Unless he can do something to change this attitude, his promise of free and fair elections will remain unfulfilled.
In his attempt to change that attitude and find some company in his lonely journey, the President is putting his eggs in the basket of credible INEC officials. Jonathan has promised to appoint people whom he believes are trustworthy, impartial and competent. To prove his loyalty to his promise, the President asked the former INEC chairman to leave before his tenure ended. Then people started bombarding him with lists of ‘credible’ people. Obasanjo, who believes that every INEC position must be occupied by a bonafide member of the ruling PDP, read the mindset of the President, combed the party and came up with the name of Dr. Dora Akunyili, the present Minister of Information despite the fact that Obasanjo himself did not give the courageous woman that seat during his tenure. But in what could be translated as a manifestation of rebellion, Jonathan quietly disobeyed the doctrine of Obasanjo, rejected the prescriptions of other equally powerful politicians and discounted our speculations. Last week he told the world that he has chosen a person whom he has never met to chair INEC, someone who is also not a member of any party. It is also expected that he will use the same yardstick in appointing other members of the commission and its state electoral commissioners.
Of course, appointing credible people will go a long way in solving the attitudinal problem especially if it is done thoroughly down to the local government level and if they are given the necessary free hand and resources to perform creditably. What remains is changing the attitude of the police, from the Inspector General down to the constable, to the extent that will enable them to side with the law whenever they are confronted by an Everest of bribe money. The police must arrest whoever breaks the law, including military officers who are increasingly collecting huge sums to meddle with election, while INEC should cancel any result that is obtained dubiously.
Beyond the police will be the judiciary that needs to be freed from executive interference and the glitter of wealth. I support that the elections be held in January because it will guarantee the judiciary the freedom they need to pass impartial judgements on election appeals before Jonathan leaves office. Otherwise, I just cannot see how a President, even a Jonathan President, who will, after sworn in as a result of flout elections, allow the courts to turndown the results that brought him and his colleagues to power. We have seen this in the case of late President Yar’adua and his in-law governor. Jonathan must defy his predecessor in this and in plenty other respects.
Finally, I do not think the politicians will change any bit. You cannot teach an old dog a new trick. But a way of checking them is for the President to mobilize the masses against anyone intending to pervert their choice. Once the masses are sufficiently mobilised and emboldened through media campaigns to guard their rights and they are assured that they will not be punished for doing so, experience has shown that the politicians will become immobilized. Sarkin yawa ya fi sarkin karfi.
To achieve the above, Jonathan and his co-travellers will require four things: commitment of the President, resources, time and the understanding of fellow Nigerians. While there is no basis so far to question the commitment of the President or doubt the availability of the resources required, given that this year’s independence celebration alone will consume as much as N10 billion, there is every need to work against time. So much time is required to plan an election that is free of violence and fair to all contestants in a country of 150 million people with 57 political parties. Above all, it is doubtful that in less than a year the police and the judiciary will understand, let alone to imbibe, the civic duty of conducting a free and fair election.
Finally, asking and getting the understanding and cooperation of Nigerians is herculean. We have passed through thick forests of deceit so much that it is difficult to trust our leaders anymore. Yet, if Jonathan will remain transparent regarding his promise, he will definitely gain our understanding and cooperative. We will celebrate his success and overlook his shortcomings. If, being Mr. Goodluck, he succeeds even at the peril of his seat and the hegemony of his party, he will remain celebrated as one of the foremost champions of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. If he fails, history will still attest to his goodwill and accord him a position commensurate with his good intention and acknowledge the impossibility of his circumstance. For me, all I can now say is good luck, Mr. Goodluck.
Tilde,
4 June 2010
For copies of previous articles, please visit my blog at http://fridaydiscourse.blogspot.com, or google Discourse with Dr. Tilde. To receive new articles directly into your email box please send your email address to aliyutilde@yahoo.com. Readers are free to share the articles with many friends including publishing them on their websites, facebook and blogs.
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