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By Sunday Ani
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate in the last February 25 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo has said that receiving funding from foreign agencies by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is one of the factors that undermine elections in Nigeria.
He warned that foreign funding of Nigeria’s election should be discontinued if elections must be free, fair and credible. He noted that the funding was undermining the country and its electoral process as both government institutions and civil rights groups receive such funds he described as a ‘ Father Christmas gift.’
Adebayo made the remark when he featured as a special guest on an online discussion programme anchored by Rudolf Okonkwo, ‘90 Minutes Africa.’
His words: “Nigeria is a collection of foreign agents and that is why the international community will come to supervise our elections. When I addressed a gathering at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, I wanted to know why INEC, after collecting N350b from Nigerians, would still collect money from such foreign bodies as the European Union (EU) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) among others. Almost 90 percent of the civil societies we were interacting with were collecting foreign funding, including the Peace Committee of Bishop Matthew Kukah and General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
“Many political parties, including the ones that claimed they wanted revolution and change, collected money from foreign agents and this is not good for our electoral process.”
Prince Adebayo said the country’s INEC was never designed to conduct free, fair and credible elections but was an instrument set up by the political status-quo to continue to determine the political succession.
He stressed that the electoral body was designed in such a way that only the president appoints the INEC chairman, although subject to the confirmation of the Senate, but lamented that such arrangement cannot produce credible leaders as the tendency to manipulate their operation is not in doubt.
He expressed fear that if the arrangement was not changed, an ex-convict would one day be appointed to head the electoral body and there is nothing anybody can do about that.
He said: “We must be interested in the process all the time. As it is right now, it is Bola Ahmed Tinubu that will choose the next INEC chairman. I can guarantee that the person to be appointed will make you say that the current chairman, Mahmood Yakubu is an angel. We started with Ephraim Akpata, then to Abel Guobadia, Maurice Iwu and Attahiru Jega before the current chairman. Next time, the person they may bring may be a full time ex convict. By our law, if Tinubu goes to the Kuje Prison to bring someone, and the Senate says the person is good, then the person automatically becomes the INEC chairman.”
Responding to those complaining that INEC compromised the 2023 elections, he said: “INEC is not different from every sphere of Nigerian life that is deep-neck in cheating. We have the tendency to cheat. What we are accusing the INEC of doing is the same thing you find with people writing the unified tertiary institutions admission examinations conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation (JAMB), the examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and professional examinations as well as what we do when recruiting people into service. It’s everywhere; that culture of people not wanting to do what is right. We only complain about cheating that doesn’t favour us. We must be interested in the process all the time,” he said.
On old political brigades, which he said would continue to dominate Nigeria’s political landscape for a long time to come, he called on Nigerians to rise to support a coalition or an alliance of young and new political structures to be able to wrest power from them. “Such alliance, together with the support of the masses, will ensure that the old parties and their candidates are consigned to the dustbin of history for good,” he said.
He lamented that the majority of the new political parties and their candidates during the campaign and subsequently the elections were lone rangers; a development he said reduced the collective strength of the young and new entrants.
Dousing fears that the prevailing insecurity in Nigeria might deter foreign investors from investing in the country, Adebayo disagreed, saying, “Investors will come to Nigeria, irrespective of the insecurity, depending on what they are coming to get because ‘we are easy to cheat’. Some oil companies will come because our environmental standards are low, so they make a lot of profit. Not all admirers that come to your house to see you are genuine; some just came to admire your stupidity. Investors are not coming to do you a favour; they are coming to take advantage of you.”
On the notion that Nigerians don’t love one another, he also said it was not true, stressing that Nigerians are just not united in doing good things but united in rigging elections.
“When these people-politicians, businessmen and civil servants come back from an unhappy outcome, they will say Nigeria doesn’t love me. I don’t know of any country where citizens love one another like Nigeria. I see them all the time love one another in the dark corners of the night. Somebody from Borno State for the first time in his life goes to Mbaise in Imo State and they give him their first daughter. If you are my enemy, why would I give you my first daughter? My family is from the United Nations of Nigeria. If you want to know that Nigerians love one another, go to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), you will see the company incorporation that Alhaji Danjuma, Mazi Okonkwo and Otunba Adedipe, are all doing business together. Check when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is charging criminals to court for say N52b fraud, you will see Mazi, Otunba and Mallam there. “We are not just united in doing good things. We are not united to launch satellites into space. We are united in rigging the elections,” he said.
He said ethnicity is not a problem in Nigeria but an instrument that the elite use to deceive Nigerians in order for them to achieve their selfish ends. He said; “The ordinary people do not think about that. But the elite think differently. Give the same elite the opportunity to serve their own people, they will rob them blind and harass them. They will finish the people up, but when they go to the centre, they will be talking about religion and tribe. None of the top people close to Buhari and who are involved in the stealing of our money is from the North West where he comes from. If you go to Borno State, the contractors there are from Anambra and Abia States. If you go to Rivers State Gov Nyesome Wike is giving Rivers money in dollars to the traditional rulers in the North. He sponsored people to Mecca. You heard Dino Melaye saying that the last time he contested for election, it was Wike’s money and jet that he used. Are they from the same ethnicity?”
On fears in some quarters that Nigeria might be heading for a military coup, the prince of Osemawe Kingdom said that would not happen because according to him, the military don’t organise coup except the political class ask them to do so.
“The soldiers are not interested in power. They are just like any other tool used by politicians. If the political class wants to organise a coup, they can use them to do it. But, from what I can see and the feelers I am getting, the political class is happy about what happened in the last election because the power still went back to them. It didn’t go to Sowore; it didn’t come to me, so they are happy,” he said.
