Appointment of INEC Chairman by President Tinubu is repeat

By Dickson Okafor

Hon. Uchenna Okonkwo-Okom, former Chief Whip of the Anambra State House of Assembly has described the appointment of Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan as the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a repeat of past mistakes which according him poses great challenges to the electoral body to conduct transparent elections. He spoke on this and Nigeria at 65 among other issues.

Excerpts:

When you look at where Nigeria is in terms of socio-economic development after 65 years, how do you feel?

No reasonable citizen of Nigeria will tell you that he or she is happy with where Nigeria is today, after 65 years of self-rule. It is taken that colonial powers were out to exploit and plunder the resources of their colonial territories for the development of their home countries but when it becomes arguable whether Nigeria fared better under colonial administration or under self-rule, it becomes easy to appreciate how badly Nigeria has performed as a self-governing entity. Nigerians are leaving Nigeria in droves in search of greener pastures abroad, and when you see some of the countries of destination of these emigrating Nigerians, the picture will strike home. Some of these countries were countries that depended on Nigeria for one form of support and assistance or the other in the past. Today, Nigerians are going through all manners of humiliation and mistreatment including deportations and xenophobic attacks in those places.

Some of those countries came to Nigeria to collect seedlings of crops that have become the mainstay of their very advanced economies today, while Nigeria is still wallowing in underdevelopment. Some depended on Nigeria during their Independence struggles for handouts to fund their national budgets, some bought electricity from us. Nigeria threw her military might in liberation, security and peacekeeping supports to some of them. There was a particular country which was so poor that, at a point, their citizens were massively deported from Nigeria on a scale that gave rise to some new words in our lexicon in Nigeria. A particular receptacle with which they evacuated their miserable belongings on their way home still bears the evidence of that history by the name it assumed in Nigeria since 1983. Talking about Ghana-Must-Go bags!

Today, a country that exported power could no longer generate enough power for herself. Nigeria that defended others militarily in the past is today is devastated by insecurity and could not defend herself against ragtag insurgency. After 65 years, Nigeria could not even boast of credible electoral infrastructure to elect her leaders. We are still wombling and fumbling in our democratic practice, the self-same value that drove our demand for self-governance from colonial powers. We are today even importing products of seeds taken from our country from the countries that borrowed them from us. To answer your question, I am not just disappointed with where we are today as a country but to put it mildly, I am ashamed.

Insecurity in the food basket states of Nigeria has hampered cultivation of the country’s vast arable land. Do you share the view that the time is ripe to allow communities to mobilise to defend themselves with automatic weapons?

I will consider such measure a bit on the extreme going by the state of our national cohesion, or lack of it, at this point in time. I have no doubt that the security challenges facing Nigeria today can be easily and perfectly addressed by any nationalist-oriented administration that treats the welfare and national interests of Nigeria as paramount. I should dutifully concede that if eventually it proves impossible to produce patriotic leaders with nationalist outlook, there would be nothing wrong with borrowing the American model of internal security which establishes, arms and equips the police at the Cities, Local Governments and States’ levels to take charge of the security in their domains. Afterall, our Constitution and system of government are borrowed American models. It will be perfectly in order if we take the borrowing one or two more steps further in response to the imperatives of the times.

In December, massive number of people from South-South and South-East will pass through Benin in Edo to their states to celebrate the yuletide. If you were to meet Minister of Works, David Umahi, what will you tell him about the terrible and deplorable state of Benin bypass and the inward/outward bound roads?

I will tell him nothing. I cannot pretend to know about the conditions of Nigeria roads better that Engineer Dave Umahi. Did you hear him recently describe himself as a “Professor in practice” on road infrastructure development? It all boil down to sincerity of purpose and dedication to the best interests of Nigerians by our governments at various levels which are lacking abysmally in Nigeria’s national life. Who can vouch that the various white elephant road projects including the coastal road project that has been turned into a tool for the witch-hunt of patriotic investors in that axis were undertaken altruistically in the interest of corporate Nigeria? Who told you that the Honourable Minister and his employer do not know how far the money they are pouring into the coastal road and other so-called legacy road projects can go in remediating the current horrible conditions of existing Nigerian roads? Unfortunately, they prefer to undertake fresh road projects when the existing ones are not motorable for reasons best known to them, but certainly not in Nigeria’s national interests.

The Condition of the Benin Bye-Pass down to Niger Bridge, Asaba, as well as the conditions of scores of our federal roads across Nigeria are a national embarrassment. Shameful.

Recently, well known terrorists and bandits came heavily armed to attend a negotiation meeting with Katsina State Government representatives. They were welcomed and entertained. But IPOB members without arms are hounded and hunted by security forces in South-East. How do you feel about this?

I would not allow myself to be drawn into owning and defending any criminal as “our criminal”. A criminal is a criminal anywhere. They hardly discriminate in the selection of their targets and victims unless you do not have what they are looking for, whether in the North or in the South. If our leaders in the North deem it good to protect these bandits or treat them with kid gloves, good luck to them. I would not advocate similar treatment for common criminals, kidnappers and gunmen in the South-East or elsewhere whether they are carrying out such criminalities under the subterfuge of freedom fighting or liberation struggles or not. I won’t endorse it just because the North is allegedly doing so. Evil is evil no matter where it is found. The victims of such criminalities invariably are people of the regions where they operate. Would you in truth affirm that ESN, the military wing of IPOB is not armed?

Last December, Anambra State deployed security arrangement that made it possible for the indigenes to come home for the Yuletide. What needs to be done now to guarantee mass return in December?

The Governor, Professor Soludo has done exceedingly well in the fight against insecurity. Today, a reasonable measure of calm has been restored in Anambra State at a level not witnessed in the state in the past ten years. The battle has been taken to the dens of these bandits in various locations in the state in a sustainable way. Their camps are being destroyed and taken over by security forces. I can only enjoin the governor to sustain the tempo. If the present onslaught is sustained as is happening now, there will be no cause for concern for the coming yuletide. Our people are majorly a diaspora people. We don’t joke with Christmas/New Year holiday season as that is when our people touch base with their roots and fraternise with family and friends including collaborations for community development. The governor is a thoroughbred Igbo man. The significance of the season to our people is not lost on him. Meanwhile, the current Commissioner of Police in Anambra State, Dr Ikioye Orutugu and his men are doing a marvellous job in the state with the active support of the state government. Let the good work just continue.

What is your take on the new INEC Chairman that was recently appointed to replace Prof. Mahmood Yakubu?

I see the challenges to transparent elections in Nigeria persisting. You don’t do the same thing the same way always and yet be expecting a different result. There was so much problem of credibility with the 2023 polls. Nigerians, in response, demanded for electoral reforms to ensure, among other things, the independence of the electoral umpire. The recent single-handed appointment of the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) by the President is an anathema to free and fair elections. INEC cannot be truly independent as its name implies where this is the case. The Government of President Tinuba, a major beneficiary of the tainted 2023 elections has turned deaf ears to the clamour for electoral reforms by Nigerians. He has now appointed another individual to head INEC in defiance of the demand for reforms. So, nothing has changed.