By Chukwudi Nweje
Martin Onovo, the presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in 2015 has said that the just concluded off-season governorship elections in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states were a celebration of ‘crime’. He noted that the Supreme Court judgement on the 2023 presidential election emboldened election riggers to escalate their acts of lawlessness and impunity. He also spoke on other national issues.
How do you rate the off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states?
There were no elections in Kogi and Imo states. What we saw was a celebration of crime, criminality, lawlessness and impunity. We saw the abuse of security forces in Imo and Kogi states; we saw some Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) personnel with result sheets completed before their arrival at some polling stations in Kogi State. We saw the violent assault of Labour Party collation agents in Imo State. We saw a Senior Advocate of Nigeria go to a polling station with security operatives to assault INEC officials and hijack election materials in Imo State. We cannot ascertain yet if the security operatives are fake or authentic. We will presume that they are authentic until it is confirmed otherwise. After the presidential elections and the Supreme Court judgement, it was inconsistent to participate in any election conducted by an INEC that is led by Prof Mahmood Yakubu. We support those that have launched the #EndINEC campaign.
Are you saying that the elections in the three states were a further degeneration from what we saw during the last general election in February and March?
In the last general elections, INEC corruptly bypassed its own technology systems that it installed to ensure transparency in the elections and thereby enabled its officers to develop fraudulent results in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Jagaban Bola Tinubu. In the case of these off-cycle elections, the ruling party was emboldened by the judgement of the Supreme Court to heighten their crime, criminality, lawlessness and impunity.
You have consistently insisted that President Bola Tinubu did not win the February 25, 2023 election; what do you say now that both the Presidential Election Petition Court and the Supreme Court have affirmed that Tinubu indeed won the election?
According to pan Yoruba socio-political organisation Afenifere, the Supreme Court ratified brigandage. We agree with Afenifere’s assertion. According to Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, it is a judicial enthronement of criminality, we also agree with her. According to Dr. Olu Fasan, Ph. D (Law@LSE), the Nigerian judiciary is corrupt and dysfunctional, we agree with him. According to Hon. Justice Dattijo Muhammed, JSC, ‘It has been in the public space that court officials and judges are easily bribed by litigants to obviate delays and or obtain favourable judgements.’ The majority of Nigerians know the facts, a dysfunctional judiciary cannot change the facts. Jagaban Tinubu was not qualified to participate in the election ab initio and he lost the election woefully. He was a very distant third. Jagaban Tinubu himself knows this. Both local and international observers reported the fraud. The international community knows this and international news organisations have published these widely. Even the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) did a report on the fraudulent results in Rivers State.
It is our considered opinion that the Supreme Court panel was unlawful and so lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The panel clearly violated the constitutional Federal Character requirement. It is beyond doubt that Bola Tinubu was not qualified to participate in the election on several grounds. These grounds include perjury, forgery, dual citizenship, forfeiture of $460,000 proceeds of narcotics trafficking in Chicago, USA. We are not surprised at the judgement of the Supreme Court, because, we previously saw the judgement of the same Supreme Court on the 2020 Imo State governorship election and the 2023 Ahmed Lawan senatorial nomination. In these cases, the Supreme Court disregarded the facts and the laws and delivered scandalous judgements. Therefore, we knew that we could not trust the Supreme Court as presently constituted to consistently deliver justice. It is not acceptable to us that the Supreme Court will use technical jargons to reject the facts, disregard the spirit and letter of the Constitution and destroy the foundation of Nigeria. From the composition of the PEPC and the Supreme Court panel, it was clear that the leadership of the Nigerian judiciary had violated the Constitution and skewed the panel to favour the party in power.
Nigeria has been rightly classified as a failed state. The next step is complete collapse and the Supreme Court has initiated the complete collapse of Nigeria. The members of the Supreme Court must accept responsibility for this.
How can we, as a people improve on the electoral process as Nigerians complain after every electoral cycle that the process was flawed; even the Electoral Act 2022 that we thought would do the magic appears to have failed, so what do you think is the problem?
Stop please, it is not the process that is flawed, it is Alhaji Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and his officials that are the problem. The process was violated. Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and IReV system was sabotaged. The 2023 Rivers State presidential results were collated by an impostor that impersonated the State Collation Officer. BBC did a report on that. The IReV results for Rivers State show that Labour Party won with a large margin but Alhaji Yakubu published that the ruling party won.
The APC seems to be consolidating its grip on Nigeria, what is your advice to the opposition parties ahead of the next general election in 2027?
Jagaban Tinubu was selected undemocratically. The authentic opposition parties must either boycott any elections organized by INEC or prepare super-adequate anti-violence and anti-fraud schemes to confront the ruling party and INEC at every polling unit in Nigeria.
There are concerns in some quarters that the Labour Party has not lived up to the expectation of Nigerians judging from the euphoria of pre 2023 election “Obidient” movement, what do you think looking at the behaviour of Labour Party legislators in the National Assembly?
The concerns cannot be justified. Labour Party is in minority in the National Assembly and so cannot do anything democratically. The strategy is to unite all opposition parties in the National Assembly. Though they will still be a minority, they will be a more significant minority and can align with other APC factions to get a majority on some issues.
What is your take on the N2.18tn supplementary budget approved by the National Assembly?
It is very wasteful and unpatriotic. The false pretence associated with the presidential yacht, the provision to support INEC charades and the scandalous cash transfer provisions, the N4bn to “renovate” Aso Rock Presidential Villa after the Presidential Transitional Council spent N14B ‘renovating’ the same Aso Rock Presidential Villa this same year. This year alone, the ruling party has spent N18B “renovating” Aso rock. Using the AfDB median rate for road construction, N18B can complete 120 kilometres new roads. The N400 billion for the Ministry of Defence may vanish like previous appropriations. The N200 billion for the scandalous cash transfer can complete over 1,330 kilometres of new roads. Remember, the distance from Port Harcourt to Sokoto is only 1,275 kilometres. All these confirm that the Tinubu administration is unpatriotic, prodigal, incompetent and against the Nigerian people.
The president has also made a request of $7.8 billion dollars and €100million euros as part of his 2022-2024 borrowing plan, which would raise the debt portfolio to about $51 billion, what are the consequences?
You forgot the $3bn that NNPC wishes to borrow on behalf of the Tinubu government. Please note that Lagos is the richest state in Nigeria and yet is the most indebted state! Jagaban Tinubu is the over-lord of Lagos State!! Currently, over 96per cent of total federal revenue is applied to debt-servicing only. Practically, it means that Nigeria has almost zero revenue left after debt servicing. So, with this additional reckless and unpatriotic borrowing and associated increase in debt obligations, the country will definitely become completely bankrupt with this Tinubu administration. Note that national investments and future oil and gas revenues are being mortgaged for these loans. So, our children are also being enslaved to the lenders. All their future efforts will be to repay loans wasted by the ruling party. This is a very destructive agenda that guarantees the collapse of Nigeria if we do not take corrective actions immediately. Nigeria needs a hard reset. Jagaban Tinubu needs to resign together with Alhaji Kashim Shettima for the Senate President to lead a transitional government that will conduct democratic elections. This is necessary to halt this slide to the abyss.