Institutions for poll conduct have become partisan, says Onaiyekan (2)

CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY

Militarisation of elections

I AM one of those who believe that there is no need for the massive deployment of security apparatus that we get at elections, which practically turns the whole nation into a battlefield that in itself is already violence; it is silent but effective violence. 

  You don’t talk of violence only when someone throws a bomb or shoots a gun; you also talk of violence when the police oppress you. Even though right now, our laws and the Constitution have not taken adequate care of the neutrality of these institutions, we can still do a lot within the limits that are with us now. 

  Let’s face it frankly; the INEC is an agency of government and the government is not neutral when it comes to elections. The question is; how do you balance being a government that is for all of us and a government that is also a candidate in a competitive election? 

  How does Jonathan, between now and the election, perform as my president to whom I owe allegiance and at the same time, a candidate like Buhari? 

  Other countries have ways and means of bridging this gap and there is no other way to do it but to make sure that the electoral institutions are clearly neutral such that even the president cannot control them. 

  I am afraid in Nigeria we cannot say that the president cannot control what happens. In fact, when Mr. President keeps saying, “I will do all in my power to ensure a free, fair and violence-free election,” I would like to know what it means. Is he saying that we should trust him; that he will use his power in a neutral way? 

  In that case, he is asking you to make an act of faith, which, perhaps, not everybody is ready to make. Is he going to put some things on ground between now and February 14th (when the first election were to hold) that will clearly demonstrate to all, and to the opposition that we are on a level-playing ground? 

  If you notice, whatever is done that seems to be shifting ground in favour of government and against the opposition is immediately picked up by the opposition. 

  We have reached a stage of awareness, and many politicians have seen through all these matters; many Nigerians have seen through it and we Nigerians, who are not politicians, are more that 99 per cent of the country; the politicians are not up to one per cent of this country. 

  So, I keep saying you political elite, whatever you do; if you are not going to help us, don’t disorganise the rest of us. In other words, all these questions of violence, why should there be violence that engulfs everybody when the people who are competing are very few? 

  Unfortunately, the people, who are competing, have a way of keeping themselves out of the frontline of the battle; it is poor people who get killed and maimed. I think it is not fair at all. 

  As a church leader, I keep telling young people not to be stupid or allow anybody to deceive them; that the big political heavyweights that are distributing money to create small militias have their own young sons who are studying in Oxford, Cambridge and Stafford and you are there stupidly going there. 

  When next they call you, ask them to bring their sons back and that if their sons are ready to lead then you follow; otherwise, you are stupid because those children will come back to lord it over you later. 

  We have reached that stage where we should be alert. Luckily, young people in Nigeria are not ignorant. It is a bad thing that we have the whole army of unemployed graduates, but it is also a good thing that we have the whole army of graduates, who know what is happening, who are angry at what is happening; they are angry because they are hungry but are not likely to just sit down if things really go wrong. 

  We have a great responsibility; we pray but prayer is not enough. The role of religious leaders is to pray and to preach but at some point, you wonder if that is all we can do. You pray; that means you leave it to God; you preach; that means you just give advice. 

  Supposing nobody listens to you and then things go wrong, what do you do? Can we prevent things going wrong or should we wait for things to collapse and then we start running around, cleaning wounds and healing?

On the DSS claimed foiled plans by the APC to hack into INEC’s database

  The intervention of the DSS into the offices of the opposition is not a good thing. Have they gone to look into the offices of the PDP? That is why I said that they know the right thing. 

  As a bishop, I pray that they will realise that it is in the interest of all of us to do things properly, but people think that doing things wrongly may be a way of being smatter and successful. 

  If all they are thinking about is to win the election — people do all kinds of things to win the election but if you win the election by hook and crook, the result is always not good for all of us. 

  At times, we see some security personnel in mask; we want to know why they are masked. I see masked security agents only when they are going to face terrorists, maybe they are afraid they may be recognised by the terrorists, who will then come after them later. That seems to make sense. 

  But if you look at what the French government did while trying to clamp down on those terrorists that killed about 12 people, the security agencies swooped into action but they were not masked. 

  There is need for transparency; everything should be done openly and there should be nothing secret. We should know everything as regards this election because it is for all of us. Let no one say it is security secret; in whose favour are you keeping the secret? 

  Especially in this election where we have clearly two major parties; I think it should give us an opportunity to see a real decent, civil and civilised contest. The bigger responsibility lies with the government in power.

  The problem with Africa is that we don’t believe in democracy. By this I mean you wait for people to put you in power. 

  People, once they get into power, don’t want to come down; they refuse to lose election either by organising everything such that the results are predetermined through the way they do the registration, the rules they put in place or the way they distribute the polling units. 

  Very often, that predetermines the results of the election; it’s either they do that or they ignore the rules that they themselves have put in place. 

  Several things happen during elections, which are certainly contrary to the rules and they tell you to go to court. When you get to the court, the case lingers for a long time.

The role of Judiciary in ensuring credible electoral process

  The French have a much better judicial system — they never swear-in any public officer until all the litigation has been dispensed.

  It is possible to set a deadline and say that after the election, you have one month to clear all litigation. If we make it part of the law, they will do it because there is a long time and especially as the work of the judge is so much easier when it is close to the event than when the judge is going to be judging on an election that took place two years ago. 

  One of the problems we have with litigation is that sometimes, even the judge has his hands tied because judges only make pronouncements based on the evidence that is put before them. 

  If INEC, either from the top or even because of the selfish interest of some lower-level INEC officials that are in charge of elections, they decide to do things wrongly and then you go to court and you are asked to produce evidence, and the evidence is in the hands of INEC; are you asking INEC to present evidence that will incriminate them? 

  How come we allow this kind of system to continue? Clear cases where you will start asking where are the votes; bring us the papers and it is INEC that has custody of all these sensitive materials that are supposed to be used as evidence. 

  And if the problem has been on the part of INEC at whatever level and that one electoral officer has collected a couple of million dollars to make sure that he turns the papers round, he will make sure that everything is according to the papers. 

  At the end of the day, Nigerians should know that once we have agreed that our government should be democratic, then, we must do good elections. The question then is: have we agreed that our government should be democratic? 

  There are many people in politics, who don’t believe in democracy, and are not waiting for anybody to vote for them. Instead, they are scheming and doing things not according to the rules of democracy; their objective is that we must stay in power. And as you know in Nigeria, to be in power also means having access to resources. 

  If we agree that we want democracy, then we must agree that we need a free and fair election and if there is a free and fair election, there will be little or no cause for violence.

Mr. President’s visit to Maiduguri and the war against insurgency

  He would have gone long ago; there is no way Mr. President can tell us that his visit to Maiduguri, a few weeks to the elections, has nothing to do with the elections. 

  There is nothing wrong in going to Maiduguri to campaign for election but what is wrong is that for two years, that place had been in need of serious attention and Mr. President did not show up. 

  At the time Mr. President was expected show up after the kidnap of the Chibok girls — and it was even announced that he was going to visit Chibok — that is what other Heads of State do: they present themselves at the site of the crisis and relate with the people who are in need, to know that your government, your president cares about them. 

  Instead of the visit, what we saw was that the First Lady invited the principal (of the school) and others for interrogation. 

  There is also an aspect of international pressure, especially with the stories we are hearing about Baga — that 2,000 human beings were killed. Our government said it’s only 150 that were killed but even 150 are too many. How many were killed in Paris and the whole of Paris came out? Seven people were killed in Paris and the whole of Paris and more than 20 Heads of State joined with President Hollande. 

  One of my colleagues was reported to have complained that the West has gone en-masse to support the French President but they did nothing to support our president. 

  My own reaction to that is, yes, they went to support the decisive action of the French President; there is nothing to support in Nigeria. Who is going to support what? 

  In my language, if you want people to help you put a load on your head, you must bend down first and start carrying it before someone can help you to put it on your head; you don’t just stand with your hands crossed and say, please, put this load on my head. 

  I am sure that if our government were seriously working to deal with Boko Haram in a way that is credible, there would be no difficulty. And we were actually told that the Western governments, which originally said they were going to help us and even sent people here, gave up because they said we were not serious.

TO BE CONCLUDED