Yar Adua

Yar Adua’s Electoral Reform Proposition , Let Us Have A Referendum

Dr. Wumi Akintide

As an administrator in the Federal Public Service for 25 years of my prime, I know that a White Paper does not necessarily have to embrace all the recommendations coming from the report it is issued on. But only a fool would ignore or sweep under the carpet the most pertinent recommendations from a body that has had more time and more resources to study the full ramifications of the subject than the so-called Executive Council called upon to ratify and implement the report. Justice Uwais and his team have done their part. It is now up to President to do his own in good faith. I believe he has not done that. If the White Paper his Executive Council has crafted is the best he can offer our nation. I strongly believe he has failed and must be ready to turn over the decision to a referendum.

I have had the rare privilege of serving my pupilage under some of the best Permanent Secretaries of my era which included a few I cannot help but mention in this write-up. I am talking about late Grey Eronmosele Longe and Francesca Yetunde Emanuel under whom I served in the Federal Ministry of Establishments, Ahmed Joda in Education, Philip Asiodu and (Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji) and Ogbuefi Gilbert Chikelu in the Ministry of National Planning, late Abdul Azeez Atta in Finance and late Yusuf Gobir in Defense and Oluyemi Falae in the Manpower Department of the Ministry of Establishment, Apart from these eminent Nigerians I have to pay special tribute some distinguished Federal Commissioners like the late Obafemi Awolowo under whom I served in Finance, and late Yusuf Eke under whom I worked in Education These individuals and their Permanent Secretaries were task masters who knew their job well and would not sponsor a memo to Council without covering all the basics

There were also a few Heads of State among them but the one I would never forget was Murtala Mohammed. Most of the Executive Councils meetings presided over by Murtala, as I recall, were the best in Nigeria. Murtala sought power to change the status quo and not to play games. That was why he challenged the whole nation to hold him accountable. The way Murtala Mohammed showed leadership was a far cry from what obtains today under Yar Adua. It is true that Murtala was a military man and Yar Adua is is not. I fully understand that. In Murtala we had a leader who was ready and prepared to lead. You cannot say the same thing of Yar Adua who was handpicked and forced on the nation by a President who wanted a yes man he can push around. You don’t send a memo to a Council presided over by Murtala, if you have not thoroughly done your homework. Murtala was always looking for superior argument. I cannot for the life of me understand why and how Yar Adua could justify the retention of the Obasanjo’s status quo that election verdicts could wait for 3 or four years while the illegal incumbents loot the treasury of their States before they are forced out. .

In the case of Obafemi Awolowo in particular, you have got to diligently and thoroughly do your homework if you were assigned the duty of preparing the first draft, because you know Awolowo drove himself three times as hard as he drove his subordinates. He probably knew more about the subject than the Committee that submitted the report. I have personally served under Murtala and Awo and I knew, first hand, how they both operated. The Public Service of today is no longer what it used to be. I can tell you that. .

Obafemi Awolowo came to Council fully prepared to defend his memo with facts and figures and statistics. You therefore could not pull a fast one on him, and get away with it.. Murtala Mohammed as Head of State unlike Awolowo did not have the patience to go thru the picayune details, but he knew with precision what he wanted to achieve and he would make sure the prayers in the white paper truly reflect his priorities and the changes he wanted to see.. I just think that Yar Adua is a very weak and lazy President who probably does not have the slightest idea that Democracy can never thrive and succeed in Nigeria without a fundamental reform of our electoral process.

Murtala Mohammed would not have sat there and allow some crack heads in his Executive Council to overrule him on what he considered to be his fundamental reasons for setting up the EFC, to begin with. The Electoral Reform Committee headed by Justice Uwais was set up following the controversies arising from the conduct of the 2007 elections, which were widely condemned in Nigeria and by international observers all over the world. The goal of the reform was to avoid a reoccurrence of injustice done to individuals whose mandates were blatantly stolen due to manipulations and fraud presided over by Professor Maurice Iwu who was merely carrying out the orders of the then Head of State, Obasanjo to declare the PDP the winner, by all means, even in States where nobody voted for them. You can judge by the numbers of Governors and legislators already sent parking by the Appeal Court that the 2007 election was an expensive joke..

Yar Adua himself was declared the winner by a split decision of the judges of the Appeal Court, because nullifying his election would probably have been too much of an embarrassment to the country, her security and her image around the world. Murtala Mohammed would have totally outlawed the provision in the white paper that upholds the status quo that no winner can be sworn in until all pending petitions from the aggrieved had been disposed off, even if took 3 or 4 years. The Obasanjo’s status quo which allows Governors Oni of Ekiti and Agagu of Ondo to illegally remain in office for nearly 2 years, awarding contracts and looting their State treasury.

The two pretenders should not have been allowed to keep a mandate that was never given to them. It was a travesty of Justice, which has only helped the PDP and nobody else. If Yar Adua is the honest broker he professes, he should never have allowed that to happen. It is very clear to any objective observer that Yar Adua’s so-called Electoral Reform was anything but a reform in the true sense of the word. It therefore must not be allowed to stand.

As eloquently argued by Reuben Abati, the Electoral Commission ought not to be subject to the direction or control of any person in authority like Ghana has done. The composition of INEC should be divorced completely from any trace of partisanship. The ERC’s recommendation that election disputes be concluded within six months of the conduct of the elections is good for a “better dispensation of justice to the aggrieved’ as forcefully argued by Reuben Abati.

The abolition of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SEICs) was the most egregious of the recommendations in the Yar Adua White Paper. In a Federal system like ours, it makes no sense at all for Yar Adua to pretend that only the Federal level is competent to conduct a fair and free election. I totally agree with Mr. Abati that what the SIECs need is reform, along the same lines recommended for INEC. The ultimate goal is to make them truly independent.

The Yar Adua’s White Paper, if sustained, cannot be the solution that Nigeria is looking for. It must be redrafted and many of the obnoxious provisions in it expunged in the best interest of Nigeria. If that is the best that our first Master level President and his Ph.D Vice President can come up with, one has to wonder about their motivation for setting up the Electoral Reform Committee, to begin with.. If they do not know what to do, the President should go borrow a leave from our next-door neighbor, Ghana that has just conducted a flawless election where the opposition was able to edge out the so-called ruling party because their INEC had done a far superior job than their Nigerian counterpart. If Yar Adua doubts the validity of what we are saying, he should let the nation hold a referendum which will prove that the President is totally out of touch with reality.

I rest my case.

Dr. Wumi Akintide