Category: Politics

Emmanuel Liambee Jime is former Speaker, Benue State House of Assembly and currently represents Makurdi/Guma Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives Abuja. Jime, who is aspiring to the office of governor of Benue State come 2015 had an interaction with journalist in Makurdi, where he spoke on the need for paradigm shift in leadership, zoning and other sundry issues. Uja Emmanuel was there.

On his role in the well publicized exchange of fisticuffs in the House of Representatives

I am a full blooded Tiv man and coming from where I am coming from, there is need for respect for your fellow man. I always try very much to listen to my fellow man in any conversation.

Now being a human being, I want to appeal that there are limits human beings can take which is what sometimes makes us behave as if we are animals in the bush.

Except for a particular event where fisticuffs were exchanged in the whole of my six years in the House of Representatives, I have never raised my voice to the hearing of someone outside the chambers of the National Assembly. And I apologised for even that one event; I seriously apologised to the people who have invested a lot of trust and confidence in me and who certainly I have let down over that conduct. Except that I have always also tried to urge people to try and take a look at the video of that event before we can be judgemental about what happened.

I don’t understand how someone with full blood flowing in his veins will sit somewhere and your colleague, whom you have no personal issue with, stands up in the course of a discussion and then is knocking you on your head. No matter the level of civility, that to me was an assault and we are taught something in law about self defence and I was actually responding in self defence.

That gentleman was knocking me from behind and if you take a look at that video, that’s exactly what happened. So, why people will take a look at me and feel that that is Jime all the time, I am a bit surprised and confused.

The truth of the matter is that I was assaulted and there was aggression in the assault because it was not only one knock. If it were only one knock, I would have kept quiet but he continuously knocked me for about three times and he was standing on top of me. So, I turned and faced him after the third knock and I decided that was enough. And since that incidence, I can’t remember raising my voice again in the House of Representatives.

But because I am vying for a higher office, in the future, even if somebody knocks me over three times, I keep quiet.

On Fulani/ Tiv crisis and grazing areas

I recall that soon after the election of Hon. Aminu Tambuwal as the Speaker of House of Representatives, the very next day, the business of the House, the very first person that raised his hand on the floor on a matter of urgent national importance was me. And that issue I was raising hand on was this Fulani crisis in our area. And don’t be surprised that though I was raising a motion concerning the Fulani people with Tambuwal sitting as Speaker and a Fulani man, that was the motion that was received with a thunderous ovation and everybody passed it without objection.

As a lawmaker, there is pretty little a lawmaker can do. I raised a motion on this issue and the House in plenary constituted a committee of the House under the leadership of Samson Osagie, the Minority Whip of the House and that committee came to Benue State. I was not a member of that committee but I followed that committee and we visited every single area where this crisis have occurred -from Guma, Makurdi and even Gwer-West, which has nothing to do with my constituency. The House in plenary, after receiving the report from the committee, took far reaching decisions one of which was the issue of grazing areas that you raised. So, it is a resolution of the House of Representatives that grazing areas should be re-established. It is in the record of the House and it was on this strength of this motion that I moved on this issue.

On zoning

I have always said this without apologies and will continue to say it, I have argued against zoning for a very, very long time because I believe strongly that zoning actually circumscribe the space and make political contestation very uninteresting. What is really the problem of leadership in this country: is it zoning? I don’t think so.

The issues of the problem of leadership of this country are already outlined. Are our leaders sincere? Are we honest to our people? Are we doing justice? Are we doing equity? I truly believe that if you have somebody in Government House Makurdi and the Idoma man gets what is due to him and Minda man also gets what is due to him, then we are not likely to have this discussion anymore. The reason we are having this conversation is because right now, people believe that unless and until your own man is in office, you are not likely to get the benefit of the office; that’s the belief.

And to me, you are talking about trust deficit. So, let’s address the trust deficit and then see how is it that people who are honest will not lead the people in the right way?

Let me tell you my story and when I say this quite a lot of people are not happy even from my own area that I come from. I was born in a Police Barracks in Keffi. The first time I first came to Makurdi, I was already 11 years and that was when I was coming for secondary school. I didn’t even know how to speak Tiv. I grew up in the barracks where every manner of language is spoken and everybody is considered to be his brother’s keeper.

I grew up knowing no difference between a Tiv man, an Idoma man or an Ibo man. I just know people to be Nigerians and I am sorry that that is the spirit I have imbibed and to me, it will not be negative as we discuss Benue politics and I am hoping that one day in the future, it may become an asset.

I am sure a lot of you know that my wife is Idoma. So, I am just wondering as an Idoma, we have an Idoma woman you have Tiv man and is it possible that what belongs to the Idoma nation will not go to them when you have Idoma person sitting in Government House. I think this is the paradigm shift I am referring to all the time. Let’s begin now to develop a consciousness in our people that tell us that we are Benue people and we can take our destinies in our hands.

The crises that are happening all over our borders now are teaching us a few lessons. When the Fulanis attack, I don’t think they come looking for an Idoma man or a Tiv man and that’s why they go to Agatu. If they are specific to the Tiv nation, I don’t think the Fulanis would have gone to Agatu. Now, shouldn’t the Agatu person and the Tiv man be thinking about how we should solve this Fulani crisis together because it is a problem that confronts us as a people?

So, zoning must have its merit because in a society where there is a lot of injustice, there is inequity, people are bound to be holding clannishly to certain things that make them comfortable in a union. I don’t deny the existence of such a scenario, but I am just saying that my position on the issue is let us be above the sphere.

We can elevate political discussion so that we are no longer rooted and fixated on those issues that divide us. Let us focus on the issues that unite us because in unity, so much can be gained for our people.

His plans for Benue State

As I said the tutelage I have received as former speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly at age 31, already exposed me to see Benue State as a constituency. I am now serving Benue State at the national level and I don’t regard my service only for the people of Makurdi and Guma and that explains why most of the things that we are doing, including our scholarships, spread all over the state.

So, already, we have built in ourselves, a clear understanding that the problems that affect a Tiv man in the rural area are not different from those that affect an Idoma man, an Igede man or an Etulo person in the rural area. So, if you solve the problem of infrastructure and you do it with a sincere mind because where I am now in Abuja, I have seen a number of things that I think we can do differently.

There is hardly any contract that is awarded in this country that a certain percentage is not set aside for some things to be done under hand. I am aware of these things and I am saying that no, we can stop these things.

So, when you ask me about what I will do as governor, to me, I just want to be able to leave the office of governor a lot better than all those who were there before me left it.

On godfathers and kickbacks

My approach to the issue of godfathers and kickback is that you have to first of all understand what the dynamic is. I believe that when you conceive a contract, first you have to earn the trust and believe in the electorates. In earning that trust, you have to lead by example. You cannot tell people that you are not going to allow kick backs to be taken and then you are building mansions all over the places, you are allowing your brothers and cronies to build mansions all over the choice places.

So, when you do that, the people are looking at your body language and your attitude as well. So there is need for clear appreciation of these points. If you are not corrupt and you are not ready to encourage corruption, then you have to prove that by showing example because people in this country are ready to follow very good examples. So, I think that is the area of trust deficit that I have been alluding to.

So, in other words, we need to also have that conductivity leading into a relationship between the government and the governed so that we are able to earn the trust of the people. Unless and until we earn the people’s trust, then truly there is no way that progress that we require in the third world democracy such as ours should be achieved.

On the man Jime

I have the privilege of getting elected into the Benue State House of Assembly in 1992 under the platform of SDP. And barely six months or so, my colleagues found me worthy of service and elected me to the office of speaker in 1993 when I was just 31 years of age.

That period of democracy was short lived because Abacha came in and I went back to legal practice. By the way, before I came into the Benue State House of Assembly, I had been in legal practice for seven years. Soon after the military took over, I went back to legal practice. So, all my life I am always moving from private legal practice to public office and back to private legal practice. I think I am a professional politics.

When we had the return to civil rule in 1999, I came back here and sought to be elected into the senate. Of course, I didn’t get elected into the senate and I am sure if I were elected into senate in 1999, probably I would have understood that election to mean that was too much but actually it was being done because I was some super human.

There is nothing that gives you to the level possible like a human being than contesting in an election and losing in an election. It tells you that yes power truly belongs to the people and that you are not a super human when you get elected. In 2003, I ran again, this time for the House of Representatives. A lot of people tell me that I won but the truth of the matter is that I didn’t go to the House of Representatives in 2003.

In 2007 of course, as at that time, I think Makurdi/Guma Federal Constituency was ready for a different kind of politics and I had the privilege of being elected to the House of Representatives in 2007 and then I, got re-elected in 2011. I have gone through all the rudiments and now I chair the House Committee of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

“Morality is not really the doctrine of how to make ourselves happy, but of how we are to be worthy of happiness.” – Immanuel Kant, German Philosopher (1724-1804), in Critique of Practical Reason.

This year, 2014, will be among the most politically active in Nigeria’s modern history. Expectations are high in the Nigerian polity and beyond, justifiably so, because the year will feature a cluster of activities leading up to the 2015 General Elections. These elections, obviously, will be keenly contested. Ideally, the election season should be a political celebration of sorts – a celebration of the Nigerian democracy in the manner that Americans describe their election season as ‘a celebration of American democracy’. But the reality we live with is a political environment unduly charged by the desperation of partisan gladiators. This need not be so.

It is quite possible for the electorate to take charge of setting the tone for the political climate in 2014 and up to the 2015 elections. This, however, will require the public being much more conscious and positively involved politically. For instance, rather than being potential tools for fomenting political violence and abuses of the electoral process by desperate partisans, the electorate could stand up to demand compliance with civilised ethics of political participation from the partisans. Really, a dispassionate and informed citizenry could hold all role players, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to account on what is required to make the Nigerian electoral process more efficient and in conformity with global best practices. After all, credible elections are not a function of what INEC alone does or fails to do; but more a function of the commitment of all stakeholders to make positive and scrupulous contributions to the system.

Information is essential to the electorate’s ability to perform such oversight role; and so, it is necessary to know what INEC itself is doing to discharge its mandate as an election management body to satisfy the yearnings of Nigerians for free, fair and credible elections. There is no denying the considerable cynicism presently in the polity regarding the capacity of the Commission to do just that, especially in view of the unfortunate challenges encountered in recent elections it conducted. But the present leadership of INEC has always taken such challenges as lessons necessitating additional policy measures to further insulate the electoral system against potential breaches. The Professor Attahiru Jega-led Commission is leaving nothing to chance in its planning to make the 2015 elections the best in this country’s history. And the elections really could be if other stakeholders, including the electorate, also play their roles in making things work.

The 2015 elections will be characterised by some innovations being introduced to fortify the system against abuse by partisan desperadoes. But the foundations of these innovations will be laid in 2014, and INEC needs the full cooperation of Nigerians to make the most of these. For instance, elections henceforth will be conducted strictly with the biometric Register of Voters. The Addendum List, which is susceptible to abuse, is being eliminated. This list was generated for the 2011 elections from the Manual Register to accommodate persons who did come out to register during the general exercise early that year, but whose data were lost along the line and thus are not captured on the biometric register. INEC will in 2014 roll out the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise nationwide, towards updating the biometric Register of Voters. Basically, the exercise is targeted at persons who turned 18 years since the last registration and have thus not been biometrically captured; as well as those who, though were 18 years and above during the last exercise, did not come out to register.

But there is a third category for whom the CVR is also important: persons whose names are on the Addendum List. Before the exercise takes off, there will be a display of the biometric register as presently composed at the various polling units; and it is imperative that every registered person – even while in possession of a Temporary Voter Card (TVC) – go out to verify that their name is on the displayed register. (Such display was done before the Anambra State governorship election in November 2013, but many residents, unfortunately, didn’t take advantage of it.) Whoever can’t find his/her name when the biometric register is displayed is required to come out during the CVR to get their data recaptured, because such person must have voted in the 2011 elections on the Addendum List. Failure to come out to get recaptured during the CVR will amount to self-disenfranchisement in 2015 because the Addendum List will no longer be used for elections.

Now, a caveat: it is strongly advised that everyone avoids multiple registration. Multiple registration by itself is a punishable electoral offence. But also, the Advanced Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) software being used by INEC for de-duplication of voters’ consolidated data automatedly retains only one instance of an individual’s data and eliminates the extras. Some of the persons who accused INEC of disenfranchising them because they could not find their names in the biometric register during the Anambra election were really multiple registrants who on Election Day happened to have gone to polling units where the extras had been eliminated. For avoidance of doubt, a multiple registrant who on Election Day goes to the polling unit where the extra data had been eliminated will not find his/her name on the biometric register and will not be able to vote. Such a person cannot legitimately accuse INEC of having disenfranchised him/her.

Another activity related to the CVR is the impending issuance of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to all voters who have been properly captured on the biometric Register of Voters. The distribution of these cards will commence soon at the same polling units where people registered as voters. One ready value that these PVCs will add to the system is that anyone who fails to get his/her card (and who had not taken advantage of the display of the present register preceding the CVR) would instantly know that he/she is not captured on the biometric register and, hopefully, would do the needful before Election Day. That way, the challenge of ‘missing names’ on Election Day will be effectively averted. But more importantly, the use of the PVC will check the tendency by unscrupulous persons to engage in multiple voting during elections. With the use of card readers that will also be deployed, the PVC will allow for 100 per cent verification and authentication of anyone showing up at the polling unit before he/she is allowed to vote. In other words, the tendency in our electoral experience whereby partisans buy up the voter cards of other people will no longer be of any effect – well, other that denying those who choose to ‘sell’ their voter cards the opportunity to vote. One point to note is: the card readers are programmed to decline verifying anyone who presents a PVC not belonging to him/her, thus making such a person ineligible to vote. INEC will need the collaboration of voters at the polling units to monitor the process for possible human attempts to override this mechanical safety catch.

Before now, the Commission had reinforced the security features on sensitive electoral materials like ballot papers, result sheets and ballot boxes by customising them to polling centres. Much as cynics and partisans have been reluctant to acknowledge the fact, this factor, coupled with the effective cover provided by security agencies, has helped to discourage age-long tendencies in our electoral process such as ballot stuffing and ballot box snatching. The fact is, any ballot box snatched under the present system, for instance, is simply eliminated from the collation equation. Now, these security features are being further tightened towards 2015 such that attempts at infringements will all the more be futile. Actually, many of these features will be in place for the Ekiti and Osun state governorship elections coming up mid-year. And the challenge of logistical hitches that accounted for late arrival of materials at some polling units in the past is also being squarely addressed.

INEC will, in the course of 2014, further its programme for re-delimitation of electoral constituencies, towards enhancing equal weighting of votes. But the final authority on this matter will be the National Assembly, which has the constitutional power to give legal effect to new constituency boundaries that INEC will propose. However that goes, the Commission is, this year, certain to create new polling units, with the aim of easing the access of voters to the ballot box in 2015. But the challenge of low voter turnout in past elections is one that must be collectively tackled by all stakeholders in the Nigerian project. With the creation of more polling units, INEC hopes to address one of the potential factors that may have discouraged voter turnout on election day. It will help for party activists, civil society organisations and other civic groups to also reinforce their efforts on ‘get-the-voter-out’ drive. Political partisans have the greatest responsibility in this regard because voters will be casting the ballots for them. In any event, they manage to mobilise huge crowds to their political rallies in the build-up to elections; so, where are these huge numbers on election day?

The point must be made that elections are being planned for all the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as the Commission hopes the security challenges presently being experienced in some North-East states will be resolved. INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, did not foreclose elections in these states as was reported recently in the media. At the Senate Forum where he spoke late in 2013, Professor Jega expressed the optimism as stated above; because it is common sense, anyway, that a state of emergency isn’t the best circumstance under which credible elections can be conducted. INEC is determined to make the 2015 elections and, indeed, the governorship as well as other elections to be conducted this year showpieces of Nigeria’s conformity with global best standards. But the Commission needs the cooperation of every stakeholder, especially the political class, to make this aspiration a reality.

– Idowu is the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.