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By Judex Okoro, Calabar
In this interview, Dr Sam Eno, the Senatorial candidate of the New Nigeria peoples Party (NNPP), Cross River State central senatorial district, took a swipe at the outcome of the general elections, saying “the BVAS wasn’t the game changer Nigerians expected in 2023 polls.”
He blamed INEC’s inability to deploy BVAS as contributing to the dissatisfaction being expressed by Nigerians, suggesting total modification of the machine to capture votes and thumbs and send straight to server.
The retired technocrat also spoke on engaging in anti-party, saying “I and my supporters threw our weight behind the APC’s governorship candidate and because we believed and fought for equity, fairness and justice.”
Your party, NNPP, has been having some internal crisis in Cross River. What efforts are the leaders like you putting in place to resolve it and get everybody on board?
Well, as a new party, it is expected but we as leaders are doing everything possible to resolve it. You can see a meeting was summoned at the instance of chapter chairmen and ward chairmen too were invited by the party to review the processes of the last elections and find out why we failed woefully in the state. These are some of the processes of rebuilding and re-positioning the party for better delivery in the next polls. No doubt, we have some internal issues bordering on leadership. We still have politics in the future so we need to take stock of why we did so badly.
And because of the leadership problem, our party performed woefully in the state. I think the leadership in the state was clueless. They didn’t know what they were doing. Our party chairman was not up to the task. The job overwhelmed him. So, he did not know how to manage the party in the state. Our governorship candidate was also part of the problem. The candidate was not recognised as his name was not on the INEC list but he went ahead to campaign just though belatedly. How can you want to be a governor and start campaigning five days to the elections? So, these are the issues that led to some of the crisis we have here in the party. For me, I am not satisfied with the outcome in the elections in the state. But we have learned our lessons. And I am still a member of NNPP. We are the first party coming back to see how we can do things differently. But nationally, we have done well. It is not easy to take Kano. NNPP has created awareness. We are presenting something different in subsequent elections. I can assure you that NNPP would do better. We are having a meeting to re-position the party.
It is alleged that you did anti-party during the governorship and house of assembly elections. Thus, your alleged suspension. So, what is your reaction?
When I saw that we don’t have a gubernatorial candidate, I tried to look at the qualities of those contesting to know who can lead Cross River between the major contending candidates of PDP and APC. I tried to get to the PDP candidate, I couldn’t. I tried the APC candidate and he invited me and I was able to interface with the APC candidate. At one of the meetings, the APC candidate, Sen. Bassey Otu, was able to convince me that he has what it takes. It was then I knew he was the right person to lead Cross River State. Besides, there was the issue for equity, fairness and justice that power should return to South. I was part of that argument. So, I threw my weight behind Otu and asked my supporters to vote for him, even though I was in NNPP. I collapsed all my structures for him, not because I want anything from him, but for the good of Cross River State. Again, when I knew we did not have a governorship candidate, I asked my supporters in the central to support Otu. It was not the whole party, but I did it as a senatorial candidate.
Some Nigerians raised the alarm over the conduct of the general elections by INEC. What’s your impression about the outcome of the polls?
We cannot expect to have it 100 per cent every time we conduct general elections. There will be people who will be satisfied and dissatisfied. In the last elections, a lot of people felt INEC should have done some things differently. I feel we are still in the learning process. I believe that in future, we will conduct better elections. Certainly, BVAS was supposed to be a game changer that Nigerians had expected in the polls. I thought it was going to be wholly electronic. But you still have to go and use ballot papers and they will still count the ballot papers.
There’s a disconnect and I wish they had made it strictly an electronic room. They have to be something that will capture your vote the moment you thumbprint to the central server that’s the only way out. I discovered that during voting, the party agents were monitoring to see who people voted. The agents were terrible. BVAS did not meet the expectations, it did not satisfy or work up to the expectations of everybody and to that extent, did not give us 100% results we had wanted. It was just 65 percent. I suggest there should be a modification and make provision for the BVAS to capture votes in the electronic board straight to server immediately you thumbprint or you’re captured rather than to go through ballot papers process. Ballot papers may not be working in sync with the BVAS efficiently. The BVAS itself should be used as ballot papers and capturing machine and thumbprint. All the same, we are on the move. One day, we get our electoral processes right.
