The former presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday said the 2015 election may not be free and fair – unless the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is disbanded.
Besides, said Gen. Buhari, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – Federal Government has emasculated the Judiciary since 2003 to the extent that the court cannot protect the ballot.
He blamed the international community for turning a blind eye to electoral fraud in Nigeria since 2003.
Gen. Buhari, who spoke at the Africa Diaspora Conference in London , said the Judiciary had lost its reputation to protect the sanctity of the ballot.
He said tackling corruption was beyond the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
His words: “All the present indications are that INEC as it is presently constituted would be unable to deliver any meaningful elections in 2015. I have gone to some lengths earlier in my talk to describe INEC’s conduct in the last decade. The electoral body has developed a very cozy relationship with the Executive and Judicial arms of government that its impartiality is totally lost.
“In the run-up to the last elections, INEC requested (and received with indecent haste) in excess of N80 billion (about £340m), a hefty sum by any standards, so that it could conduct the elections, including organising bio-metric voters data specifically for the 2011 elections.
“But when opposition parties challenged the patently dishonest figures it announced and subpoenaed the bio-metric data in court, INEC refused to divulge them on the laughable excuse of “National Security”.
“INEC’s top echelon is immersed deep in corruption and only wholesale changes at the top could begin to cure its malaise. What is required is a group of independent-minded people, patriotic, incorruptible but with the capacity to handle such a strenuous assignment of conducting elections in Nigeria.
“It is not difficult to find such people, but whether the Government and the National Assembly have the inclination to do so, I am not so sure. The only way I and many more experienced politicians than myself expect the 2015 elections to be remotely free and fair is for the opposition to be so strong that they can effectively prevent INEC from rigging.
“I would like, here, Mr. Chairman, to repeat what I have said time and time again at home in Nigeria with regards to the election aftermath. Some commentators and public figures have wrongly pointed accusing fingers at me for inciting post-election violence. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
“I have been a public servant all my adult life: a soldier, a federal minister, a state governor and the head of state. My duty is to Nigeria first and foremost. Post-election violence was triggered by the grossest injustice of election rigging and accompanying state high-handedness.”
Gen. Buhari expressed regrets that elections had not been free and fair since 2003 in Nigeria with the connivance of the Judiciary.
He said: “Central and critical to democracy is adherence to the rule of law. That is to say, no individual, institution, not even government itself can act outside the confines of the law without facing sanctions. Executive arbitrariness can only be checked where there is respect for the law.
“Other desirable conditions of democracy, such as freedom of speech and association, can only flourish in an atmosphere where the law allows a level playing field. In the absence of the rule of law, free and fair elections and an independent judiciary cannot exist.
“As a result of the virtual absence of the rule of law, elections in Nigeria since 2003 have not been free and fair. As a participant, I can relate to this audience my experiences during the 2003, 2007 and 2011 presidential elections. Hundreds of candidates have similar experiences in state, federal legislature and gubernatorial elections.
“Under Nigerian law, these elections are governed by the 1999 constitution, the Electoral Law and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Acts of 2002, 2006 and 2010. Ordinarily, an election is an occasion where contestants will join the electorate in celebration of freedom, because the will of the majority has prevailed. Winners and losers alike come together to work in the interest of their country. But this happens only if the elections were deemed free and fair.
“In 2003, INEC tabled results in court which were plainly dishonest. We challenged them to produce evidence for the figures. They refused. The judges supported them by saying, in effect, failure to produce the result does not negate the elections!
“In a show of unprecedented dishonesty and un-professionalism, the President of the Court of Appeal read out INEC’s figures (which they refused to come to court to prove or defend) as the result accepted by the court. The Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, said this was okay.
“In 2007, the violations of electoral rules were so numerous that most lawyers connected with the case firmly believed that the elections would be nullified. I will refer to just two such violations. The Electoral Act of 2006 stipulated that ballot papers SHALL be serially numbered and voters result sheets must also be tallied on serially numbered papers. INEC produced ballot papers with NO serial numbers and also used blank sheets, thereby making it well near impossible to have an audit trail.
“At all events, at the final collation centre, the chief electoral officer, after 11 (eleven) states (out of 36) were tallied excused himself from the room – apparently on a toilet break – and announced the ‘final results’ to waiting journalists. He had the ‘results’ in his pocket. At the time, several states had not completed transmission of their tallies.
“As in 2003, the courts rubber-stamped this gross transgression of the rules. Some election returns confirmed by INEC stamps included, 28th April, two (2) days before the election, 29th April, a day before the election and astonishingly, 31st April a date which does not exist on the calendar, illustrating the farcical nature of the election. The
Supreme Court split 4-3 in favour of the Government.
“In 2011, all pretences at legality and propriety were cast aside. In the South-South and South-Eastern States , turn-out of voters was recorded by INEC at between 85% – 95% even though in the morning of the election, the media reported sparse attendance at polling booths.
“The rest of the country where opposition parties were able to guard and monitor the conduct of the Presidential election turn-out averaged about 46%. In many constituencies in the South-South and South-East, votes cast far exceeded registered figures.
“Which brings us to the need for an impartial judiciary in a democratic setting. The judicial arm of the government, properly speaking, should be the interpreter and arbiter of executive and legislative actions, but the Nigerian government, since 1999, has successfully emasculated the judiciary and turned it into a yes-man.
“An independent and impartial judiciary would have overturned all the presidential elections since 2003. In addition, hundreds of cases of judicial misconduct have marred elections to Local Government, State and Federal Legislatures. The judiciary has run its reputation down completely since 2003.”
Gen. Buhari blamed the international community for turning blind eye to electoral malpractice in Nigeria.
He said: “Here, I would like to say a few words about the international observers. In 1999, the greatly revered former US President, Jimmy Carter, walked off in a huff at the conduct of that year’s presidential election. But, compared to what took place afterwards, the 1999 election was a model of propriety.
“I am sure many Nigerians like me feel gratitude to the international community, notably the Catholic Secretariat which deployed over 1,000 observers in 2003 and the National Democratic Institute in Washington for their work in Nigeria.
“In 2003 and 2007, all the international observer teams, along with domestic observers concluded that those two elections fell far short of acceptable standards. The Nigerian government, along with the international community, ignored those critical reports.
“Some members of this audience may recall the trenchant criticisms by the UK and US governments on the Zimbabwean elections held about the same time as Nigeria’s. Now the Zimbabwean elections were very much better conducted than the Nigerian elections as the opposition party in Zimbabwe actually was declared to have won the parliamentary elections.
“Yet, Western Governments turned a blind eye to Nigerian elections and an eagle eye on Zimbabwe’s and its supposed shortcomings. No better illustration of double-standards can be cited. Accordingly, in 2011, the international observers, having seen their painstaking work in earlier years completely ignored, took the line of least resistance and concluded after cursory examinations that the elections were okay.
Gen. Buhari accused the Federal Government of allegedly frittering away the Execss Crude Account (ECA).
“Instead of using the so-called excess crude account which in other countries goes by the name of Sovereign Wealth Fund to develop major domestic infrastructure, such as power, railways, road development, the account has been frittered away and applied to current consumption.
“There is no magic, no short-cut to economic development. We must start from first principles – by developing agriculture and industries.”
On corruption, the politician said it had “shot through all facets of government and economic life” in Nigeria.
He added: “Until serious efforts are made to tackle corruption, which is beyond the capacity of this government, economic growth and stability will elude us. On corruption, don’t just take my word for it.
“The Chairman of one of the bodies charged with the task of fighting corruption in Nigeria, Mr. Ekpo Nta of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), was quoted by the Daily Trust newspaper of 14th February, 2013, as saying that there was no political will to fight corruption in Nigeria .”
On administrative structure for the country, Gen. Buhari expressed regrets that state, had become dysfunctional.
He said: “We have tried regions and this was deemed lopsided and a trap to minorities. We tried 12, 19 and now 36 states and there is clamour for more.
“I firmly believe that state creation has now become dysfunctional, as disproportionate amounts of our meager resources go to over-heads at the expense of basic social services and infrastructural development.
“Moreover, I also believe that Nigeria ’s problem is not so much the structure but the process. Nevertheless, I believe a careful and civil conversation should be held to look closely at the structure.”
