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By Boma Da Silver
As part of their familiar game of musical chairs, the authors of the raging discourse on Interim National Government (ING), which the Yoruba derisively call ijoba fidihe, may have reasoned naively that their scheme will be easily embraced by all those aggrieved with the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. Those who thought the ING was rested with its head, Ernest Shonekan, must be amused with our immense capacity for “archeological retrieval,” apologies to renowned sociology scholar, Prof. Omafume Onome. A close friend who could hardly fathom the renewed agitation simply dismissed it as an “interim disorder.”
Our political actors are masters in thinking up all sorts of abracadabra, including bringing down the roof when elections do not go their way. Interestingly, while they have celebrated their victories and spoils in the same INEC-conducted election with champagne, they’ve taken the cudgels to work around their losses and possibly make shreds of the country’s political future. I think we do have a historic duty to prevent them from railroading the country on this ruinous path.
Apart from counsel by some legal luminaries that the concept of ING is repugnant to the 1999 Constitution, I’m sure the affirmation particularly by the military that they are committed to the process of handing over to the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, may have come as some bile.
Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj-Gen. Musa Danmadami, said that those calling for an interim government were just trying to be mischievous, adding that the Constitution did not provide for an ING.
“On the issue of the interim government, it is rather unfortunate. An election has been conducted and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that is mandated has announced a President-elect.
He said: “It is not our responsibility to speak on that issue but I know that several calls have been made from the Presidency that there is nothing like an interim national government.
“So, I think people were just trying to be mischievous. It is unconstitutional and all of us know that.
“The Constitution does not provide for an interim national government and that is the point the Presidency has been hammering on and that is our stand.
“It is unconstitutional, so anything unconstitutional, as far as I am concerned, is not applicable.”
Learned silk and former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, who added his voice to this seeming agitation, says it is “hogwash” since the Constitution does not provide for the interim government in Nigeria. Agbakoba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), also called for serious punishment for those behind the plans to scuttle the nation’s democratic process through an interim government arrangement.
In a statement, he said that Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution has no interim government arrangement and those harbouring such plans as disclosed recently by the Department of State Security (DSS) should be “severely resisted and punished.”
It was a terse reaction to those political actors the DSS accused of plots to stop the inauguration of Tinubu, scheduled for May 29. President Muhammadu Buhari also said those pushing for it are “daydreaming.”
The whole scenarios smell of some antics to make fiddlesticks of our hard-earned democracy. Why the sudden clamour for an ING in a country where we’ve had an election and the All Progressives Congress candidate, Tinubu, has emerged as President-elect? Is it not intriguing that the banners of ING are being raised in a clime that has witnessed seamless succession between one government and another in the last 24 years? It’s really something of an enigma. But welcome to Nigeria, the world’s biggest black country where mischievous politicians are never tired of insidious schemes. It is clear that artful dodgers are lurking in the dark corners resolved to make a mess of whatever advances the nation has made over the years.
These politicians who lost out in the 2023 elections cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that we have long passed Egypt on this matter. We are neither in the era of the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida that was greatly troubled by the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, adjudged as the fairest ever held nor on the throes of any emergency that will necessitate setting up an interim government.
The political class who are obviously the problems of the country should desist from opting for an ambush. The election was successfully conducted, although we concede that its conduct was not perfect, but the winners cut across several parties, APC, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Young People’s Party (YPP), setting the stage for the most politically diverse National Assembly in the history of our dear country.
While we endorse the rights of the presidential candidates of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, LP’s Peter Obi and others to seek redress in court, it must be done in a manner that does not impair our democratic experiment. These political actors should be patient to await the judgment of the courts. They can’t be in court and at the same be goading their key officials and supporters to be engaged in acts that threaten the political survival of the country. We must make bold to tell them that their antics have gone beyond the bar. We definitely need to avoid musings of interim disorder, which is not healthy for our dear country.
• Da Silver is a political analyst based in Port Harcourt
