The Nation Newspaper

Tag: crying wolf

  • APC convention: PDP crying wolf, says APC

    •Ndoma-Egba urges opposition party to go to court

    THE All Progressives Congress (APC) said yesterday that the allegation of improper conduct of its just-concluded national convention by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was like a prostitute preaching morality.

    It said the main opposition was afraid of the emergence of Adams Oshiomhole as its national chairman.

    A statement issued by the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said the party was wondering which position the PDP leaders contested for at the ruling party’s convention, which entitles them to take it upon themselves to challenge the process that produced APC leaders.

    Also, the APC National Convention Committee asked the PDP to go to court or write a petition to the Elections Appeals Committee of the party, which is presently sitting if they are not satisfied with the process.

    Responding to a statement credited to the PDP asking the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to nullify Oshiomhole’s election as it violates the provisions of the Electoral Act, the APC said the PDP was displaying a gross misunderstanding of the provisions of the law.

    The statement reads: “We read with dismay, but without surprise, the statement released by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to annul the results of the highly-successful National Convention of our party held last Saturday June 23.

    “We imagine the utter shock and disappointment the dying opposition party must have felt to see that their prediction of collapse for our party ahead of the convention did not come to pass. Unable to recover from the shock, they now indulge in ignorant whimper, calling on INEC to help them do what they are best at doing; annulling elections.

    “It is quite distressing to see that a party that held power for 16 years did not know that INEC has no role in internal elections of a political party. We also wonder which position the PDP contested for at our convention which entitles them to take it upon themselves to challenge the process.

    “If the PDP now sees itself as an interested party in our internal elections, we would encourage them to send their petitions to the Convention Appeals Committee of our party. We, however, do not expect them to understand this process of internal democracy.

    “It is clear to everyone that having been kicked out of power, the PDP still has no idea what to do three years after. However, playing the busybody and so openly advertising their ignorance of basic electoral rules will make it even more difficult for Nigerians to grant them the forgiveness that they have begged for.

    “What is PDP’s grouse? That INEC should not recognise the new APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, as his emergence by affirmation is according to the PDP in violation of democratic requirements of direct voting by delegates.

    “Our election guidelines provide that all party posts prescribed by the party constitution can be filled by democratically conducted elections or by Consensus, provided that where a candidate has emerged by Consensus for an elective position, a vote of “Yes” or “No” is called to ensure that it was not an imposition.

    “This was clearly adhered to in many positions, including the National Chairmanship position which was unopposed. But we understand PDP’s problem. They are terrified by Comrade Adams Oshiomole.”

    Speaking with reporters on the outcome of the convention, Secretary to the Convention Planning Committee Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba said: “Their response is a response of somebody who got an outcome that they did not anticipate. The opposition party was expecting an implosion, which did not happen. So, they are now looking at shrubs.

    “The party’s constitution is very clear and the Electoral Act is very clear. When the national chairman was announced unopposed, the question was put to the convention and so, we believe that we satisfied every legal requirement.”

    On the position of the Electoral Act on the elections, he said the Act provides that “you can vote or you can affirm and the APC constitution also said that”.

    Reminded that the provision of the Electoral Act stipulates that there must be a ballot of yes or no, he said: “That is not my understanding of that provision. But I don’t want us to get into legal argument here. Anyone who has any issue should go to court.”

  • Crying wolf

    Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty. And so, it is welcome when stakeholders in any project raise the red flag – even if presumptuously – on any concern they suspect could shortchange an objective outcome desired from the project. Doing this helps to deflect insidious schemes that could be contemplated, or perhaps already under way, to compromise the integrity of the said project. But such red flags must be fact or evidence based to be truly helpful.

    The impending 2019 general election in Nigeria is doubtless a major national project that requires diligent stake-in by everyone to ensure its success. And lately, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum mounted an advocacy about alleged duplicity in the national register of voters, which the group accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of midwifing and for which it canvassed a change in the body’s leadership.

    According to the forum, INEC has been registering foreigners, especially from Niger Republic, under its ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR). And that, for the group, isn’t to mention a suspicion that the voter register already is shot through with underage registrants as revealed by visuals from the Kano State local government election held in February, this year. In short, the voter register, in the group’s view, could already be discredited beyond any stretch of makeover.

    The regional leaders also accused the electoral commission of short-shrifting with public disclosure on its investigation of the Kano council poll debacle, hence they proposed an independent interrogation of the national voter register during which INEC Chairman Professor Mahmoud Yakubu would stay off the helm at the commission.

    In a communiqué following its meeting in Lagos penultimate weekend, the forum stated: “Five clear months after the promise (of a probe) and prompt conclusion of the assignment by the team he set up, the INEC chairman has refused to release the report, which would have necessitated a nationwide interrogation of the voter register.”

    The group made demands it considered remedial, one of which is: “Interrogation of the voter register by a judicial commission with representatives from international and local election observers, to check cases of underage voters and foreign mercenaries before 2019 elections.” It added: “This is necessary as INEC cannot be a judge in its own case…The suspension of the INEC chair while the investigation is on is to prevent intervention with the probe.”

    Barely a week earlier, the leaders forum had alleged nepotistic designs by President Muhammadu Buhari in Yakubu’s appointment as INEC helmsman, among others. “Our fear that the current INEC chairman may not be able to discharge his functions impartially because he hails from the same region as the President is not unfounded,” its spokesman had said after a meeting of the group in Abuja.

    Let’s make it clear upfront that the professed mission of the leaders forum, namely to champion broad interests of regions represented by its members, can by no means be faulted – especially with the eminence and elderly status of the leading lights. In other words, the group’s exertions are substantially beneficial to the regions represented. All we seek to do here therefore, with due respect, is interrogate the rationale of its electoral advocacy.

    For a start, it requires no special knack of patriotism to know that the voter register is a national asset that should be treasured and collectively watched over by stakeholders against corruption by ineligible registrants. And so, when threats to its credibility are being red-flagged, especially by reputable interests, it is expected that this will be substantially evidential.

    When the leaders forum cited Intel reports that foreigners are being registered under the CVR, for instance, it invariably begs the question of how this is being done. Is the electoral commission taking direct data capture machines over Nigeria’s borders to register aliens in their countries, in which case it would be a culpable protagonist of the alleged violation; or are the purported mercenaries being bused into this country by partisans with possible collusion of Immigration officials, whereby INEC is only a hapless victim needing all the help it can get from an alert public to block the subversion of its statutory processes? Convention and common logic readily advise that it is highly unlikely the electoral commission is taking its data equipment for use across Nigeria’s borders. And if foreigners are being brought into our country for the CVR, the commission needs the public’s help rather than condemnation to checkmate the invasion. Only that the leaders forum did not give scant evidence of either way being the case.

    The grouse of the leaders forum with INEC over the Kano underage voter scandal could as well be interrogated. The group is totally on point in its observation that it is five months clear since the electoral body concluded its probe of the scandal, with no consequential publication of the probe report. But it helps, perhaps, not to lose sight that the said inquiry was conducted by an in-house INEC panel that submitted its report, as expected, for the commission’s internal consumption and action.

    If memory serves us well, the INEC chair issued a position paper to the public from the probe report in which he disclosed the finding that Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KSIEC) did not deploy the voter register provided it by INEC for the conduct of the council poll. I do not recall KSIEC refuting that claim. And the obvious implication is that the visuals of underage voters taken from the council poll were not indicative of what really exists on the national register. The INEC chief nonetheless outlined measures that have been put in place for continual cleaning of the register and solicited the public’s support as needful.

    I make bold to say the propriety of publishing the in-house probe report is moot, because it really is an internal document just like any other. But it is also a document of which the public already has a fair idea of the high points. A summary was made of the findings by the INEC chairman and issued to the public, and no other member of the commission or indeed the probe panel has headed up a claim that the publicised summary in comparison to the very report fails the accuracy test. So, it is all much ado about publishing the in-house probe report.

    The leaders forum argued, of course, that publication of the probe report “would have necessitated a nationwide interrogation of the voter register.” But there are clear provisions in the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) on processes for such undertaking, part of which the electoral body can’t but implement on a continual basis. That is the reason it always makes the voter register available to political parties ahead of elections, so they can probe and flag as the deem warranted. Actually, there is also a provision for eligible persons or groups to request the voter register from INEC, and the commission is obliged to make it available upon payment by the requestor of prescribed fees.

    Under our electoral law, interrogation of the voter register can’t be by way of intervention from “a judicial commission with representatives from international and local election observers” as proposed by the leaders forum. Much less so is INEC abdicating while the process is being undertaken, just so that it will not be a judge in its own case. What the law prescribes is for the electoral body to display the updated register within a stipulated time for claims and objections by the public, which the commission is bound to address in updating the register.

    A credible register is fundamental to staging credible elections, and INEC should by all means be constantly called to account on its responsibilities. But care must be exercised that demands on the electoral body is not reduced to crying wolf.

    Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • Crying wolf?

    Dr. Bukola Saraki, president of the Senate, has outed with a sensational allegation, that Ibrahim Idris, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), is plotting to rope him into cases of cult-killer investigations.

    Sensationally, he announced at a Senate plenary that his host governor, Kwara’s Abdulfatah Ahmed, gave him vital intelligence that the Police were about to set both up — Saraki, with the state government  — on cases of allegedly aiding and abetting cult murders.

    Proof?  The police authorities have transferred cases being investigated in Ilorin, Kwara State, and the suspects involved, to Abuja, the federal capital territory.  With the case safely there and the suspects in the police pen, then it would be incrimination without end, to paint Saraki and disciples even blacker that the devil!

    These are serious allegations, not by the weight of the charges but by the self-imposed lightness of those making the allegations — president of Senate and a state government.But what is the Police response to the allegations?  “The statement by the Senate President could dissuade and discourage living victims/deceased families who must have been killed … from coming forward to give evidence against them [the alleged cultist killer gang].”

    Even if the IGP is bluffing here — and he could well be — the Senate’s attempt to intimidate the IGP, over the Dino Melaye case, does not help giving the Senate the benefit of the doubt,  as an unfazed institutional bully, which could subvert due process, if it had its way.

    Might the Police then be suggesting Nigeria’s president of Senate and the Kwara government could be linked to alleged cultists?  Hardball shudders!

    To Hardball, however, the news is not the allegations flying around.  It is rather the chamber those allegations are flying from.  How can an IGP even think of “framing” Nigeria’s Senate president?  How does that even sound?  Would it even have been conceivable if the Saraki Senate had not, most times, abandoned its lofty heights to splash in the sewers?

    Would that have even occurred if the Senate had not engaged the Police in a naked war, summoning the IGP to come explain why Dino Melaye should be arrested and charged for alleged criminality?  Would it have happened if Dr. Saraki had not shielded Melaye from arrest, by allegedly ignoring police invitation to Melaye, allegedly sent to him?

    In other words, would such have been conceivable, had the Senate stuck to its dignified self, and not tried to tailor laws and even motions at plenary to its members’ selfish needs, thus giving the populace the unflattering impression that it is nothing but a conclave of hustlers?

    The authorities should dispassionately investigate the Saraki allegations, and do justice to both sides.  But whatever happens, that the high Senate should tangle with IGP, only a security appointee of the president, over allegations as base as cultist killings, just shows the nadir the Senate, under Saraki, has sunk.

    Does the Julius Caesar quip, that Caesar’s wife must not only be above board, it should be seen to be so, mean anything to this 8th Senate?

    Without prejudice to Saraki and the Kwara Government getting relief from from false accusations, it’s high time this Senate refocused, concentrate on why it was elected, and leave salacious allegations to the sewers they belong.

    Crying wolf here, even if there is one, is more than damaging to Saraki’s personal image and the Senate’s institutional integrity.  It’s high time the Senate worked hard at regaining its dignity.

     

     

  • Akpabio and crying wolf: A rejoinder

    SIR: In Olakunle Abimbola’s write-up on the antics of our esteemed Senator Godswill Akpabio, on page 21 of The Nation of Tuesday, August 11, 2015, he forgot to add the axiom that those whom the gods want to destroy, they first make mad. Akpabio is a child of providence, who happened on his state at the threshold of ceding oil wells, hitherto property of Cross River, to Akwa Ibom State. Finding himself awash with petro-naira, he quickly fell victim to the aura and lure of power.

    To achieve conquest, he invested his first term in massive and gigantic infrastructural and social development, and erected the building blocks and efforts at self-glorification. That done, Akpabio spent much of his second term at total transformation to a deity who can do no wrong. So, calling him Akpabio the infallible is apt.

    The effort to play god led him into collision with most of his predecessors and other prominent sons of his state. With billions in federal allocations pouring into his state, Akpabio ventured into the national arena and became the darling of the PDP; and, I think, its major financier.

    As a child of event/opportunity, Akpabio also found favour at Aso Rock, the citadel of federal might in Nigeria. Its occupant, our South South son, GEJ, another person who rode to power on the wings of divine luck and the doctrine of necessity, needed support to prosecute his second-term ambition. Godswill Akpabio and Nyeson Wike, among others, got drafted as generalissimos to muscle and compromise everything, laws, institutions, security agencies, indeed Nigeria, to retain GEJ at the Villa to complete “our term”.

    Then it was time for the 2015 general elections.  GEJ was unrelenting in telling us that his second-term ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian, yet under his watch, the South South zone had the most election-related violence. Local and foreign observers had easy consensus that Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Bayelsa states posted for the world a canvas of blood, broken limbs and demolished or burnt houses, all for Jonathan.

    To confirm that our son Akpabio has really arrived, he is now a distinguished senator and regardless of ranking, minority leader of our 8th Senate and leader of the PDP. On that platform he addressed aggrieved workers at the PDP National Secretariat in the company of Secundus, their interim Chairman. To demonstrate that those gods want to destroy, they first make mad, Akpabio spoke rather recklessly. He spoke before thinking.  Hear him: “We can no longer run to the Villa for cash, so we don’t have the wherewithal to maintain that large number of Secretariat workers”. The Itse Saga Advisory Committee on anti-corruption does not need to look far to know where the alleged Jonathan-approved $1billion withdrawal from the ECA, can be found.

    Akpabios rant about the activities of the DSS in Rivers and Akwa Ibom states demonstrates in bold relief the surfeit of educated illiterates in our lawmaking chambers. Having lost the Presidency, their cash cow as confessed, the PDP resolved to capture Rivers and Akwa Ibom states, by all means. They reasoned that these oil rich states and their petro-naira are crucial to their 2019 calculations, if the PDP is to ever regain relevance. So they threw caution to the wind in the Governorship and House of Assembly elections.  But in the exercise of impunity and execution of the urge to win, the PDP and its candidates forgot to cover their several indiscretions and the malfeasance that gave them ‘victories’.

    Aware and afraid that these indiscretions will not stand judicial scrutiny at the Election Petition Tribunals, the PDP and INEC officials in these states resorted to violence, complicity and defiance of the Electoral Act, among others. This scenario of brazen breach, contempt and violence necessitated the transfer of the Tribunals for Rivers and Akwa Ibom states to Abuja. Also in the interest of the rule of law and peace enforcement, the DSS was invited to the two states to enforce compliance with lawful orders, within the ambit of the law and due process. Having gotten used to the illegal application of our security agencies, like in the Ekitigate scandal, Akpabio is in difficulty to wean himself from our sordid past. Akpabio’s crocodile tears and crying wolf need our pity.

     

    • Pat O. Ubi mni 

    08037010550