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•INEC destroyed whatever legacy Buhari promised to leave for Nigerians
•Tinubu must begin to act like a neutral person
Elder statesman, Chief Mike Ahamba SAN, has asserted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has destroyed whatever legacy President of Muhammadu Buhari promised to leave behind by the time his tenure expires in May this year.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the former associate of Buhari condemned the last Saturday’s Presidential and the National Assembly election, describing it as a huge embarrassment to a great nation like Nigeria.
What is your view on the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections?
In a nutshell, it was a huge embarrassment to a great nation like Nigeria.
How and at what point?
At the point when everybody thought that we were going to get it right, we started getting it wrong. The issue is not who was declared elected, but I’m talking about the process. Every newspaper got an advert before the election from the INEC; every radio station did , likewise every television house, and the advert was that BVAS was going to be used to conduct the election; that once you vote and at the end of the exercise that the result would be transmitted to the INEC server. Everybody bought into that, but only to go to the election and after voting had ended, the BVAS was bypassed. I don’t think it was right. I know the party may want to do what they want, but it was an invalid election.
What is the implication of INEC going ahead to declare a winner when other candidates and some others had called for the cancellation of the election?
They will cry, but it would not solve anybody’s problem. Let them do something about it other than violence, let them take their legal team and decide on what to do. The parties with their lawyers should hold a meeting among themselves and decide on what to do. Since nobody has sought my views, I don’t think it is for me to start telling them on what to do. What I ask them not to do is to create violence; they must avoid it because anarchy is nobody’s friend.
Nigeria is already tensed up with the cash crunch, fuel scarcity and other developments fuelling anger. Are you worried that we might have social or political crisis on our hands?
I know the whole place is tensed and you don’t solve problem by doing what may look like adding petrol to an existing fire because everybody was already sad and tensed up and you are imposing the same group of people who created that situation on them. Nigerians, like Butrus Butrus Ghali said after he finished his tenure as UN secretary general, can absorb anything.
If there was a legacy President Muhammadu Buhari was hammering on bequeathing for Nigerians, it was organising a credible and transparent election. Has he lived up to that based on what you have experienced?
Let him be told that INEC has denied him that legacy; let him take notice that INEC as at this moment has denied him that legacy.
Some people trekked long distances to vote because of the enthusiasm that the process was going to be okay, especially with the introduction of the BVAS. From what has happened, do you think people will be so eager to vote in subsequent elections?
In spite of that, there was low voter turn-out in this last election, and if you do another one it would be less. I know what most of us did at the local level to convince people that their votes would count, and that they should come out and vote. Now, somebody will ask you, last time you told me to vote that my vote would count; what has happened? I repeat what I have said that Buhari should take notice that INEC is trying to destroy the legacy he promised to give to himself.
Some political giants were demystified in the past election. What political lesson can we learn from this?
The simple lesson is that, there is no condition that is permanent. That is the major lesson for the individuals, particularly the G5. There is no condition that is permanent. Like we always say in my place, that nobody should take something alone, you leave some here and you leave some there. Those who will finish with governorship and want to go on leave or retirement to the Senate have now been told that they cannot. Most of them who go to the senate, I don’t hear their voices; it is only a retirement place for them, which shouldn’t be. The Senate is an active body; very active in other countries, but in our own case I don’t know how active we are. It is just a retirement post for former governors.
With what happened, would you say the G5 governors have learnt their lessons?
It is not a question of whether they have learnt their lessons, it is for them to realise that a lesson has been given to them which they ought to learn, and I hope they do learn that whatever you do, you should know that the masses constitute the power. If you constitute yourself into symbiotic insurgency in any circumstances, which is a most dishonourable thing for anybody to be – that is to be a symbiotic insurgent. They were all symbiotic insurgents in the PDP and they have been thought a lesson, and I hope they would learn.
What do you think happened in Kaduna, where Governor Nasir el-Rufai’s party also lost? Was it that the people were not with him?
If his worshippers have all abandoned his shrine, what do you want me to say? You can answer that on my behalf.
What would you say about the performance of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, who was referred to by some people as a social media candidate?
It is a new development which is positive. I’m not of the LP, but Obi did a great job and let’s acknowledge it.
Some have also said Obi was the hero of the 2023 election. Do you agree with them?
He is. Whether he wins or not, he is the hero of the election. It has taught Nigerians that they can pick a candidate and vote for him in spite of his party. All the same, the system for which all of them have emerged and howsoever they have emerged, was a faulty process. Maybe, one when we look at the results from BVAS, then we may know exactly what was the outcome.
INEC has promised to do better in the next election; can you take its assurance home?
Don’t wait for them for the next election. Whoever that is not satisfied with what happened should move forward and cite what happened. Don’t wait for 2024 when there will be another chance, go and give the Supreme Court another chance to redeem its image. The most peaceful avenue for complaint is the court. I repeat, the process was faulty.
The constitutional provision that a winner must also score 25 per cent votes in 24 states and the Federal Capital Territory is getting different and divergent interpretations from lawyers, who seem to be divided on the matter. What do you think?
If the constitution says 25 per cent in 24 states and Abuja, then Abuja is included. Abuja is a conglomeration of local governments and not a state. It is not part of the 36 states, unless it is expressly added in that section.
What does that section say?
You can look at Section 134 (1b). If you look at that subsection, you find out that when you are calculating those numbers, Abuja is counted as a state because it says, ‘and the Federal Capital Territory.’ That is all the states in the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. So the figure is now 37. I hope we don’t go back to the problem we had in 1979, when there 19 states of the federation.
So if it is counted as 37 states, it would be two thirds of 37 states and not two thirds of 36 states, and not Abuja as separate?
The definition makes it two thirds of 36 states plus Abuja.
So Abuja is now a state?
That is the implication. If you look at Section 299(a), it says, ‘all the legislative powers, the executive powers and the judicial powers vested in the House of Assembly, the governor of a state and in the courts of state shall be respectively vested in the National Assembly, the president of the federation and in the courts and by virtue of the forgoing positions are cause to establish the Federal Capital Territory.
‘The provisions of the constitution shall apply to the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, as if it were one of the states of the federation and accordingly.’
So, when you now look at the whole thing, you find out that for that purpose it is there. Abuja cannot be called a state because a state cannot be orgainsed and controlled by the Federal Capital Territory, so, it remains a special area.
Could it be said that the constitution is somehow ambiguous over the definition of Abuja?
We may have a repeat of 12 two thirds from here. There was the problem of how to get 12 two thirds of 19 states and this time it may be how to get 12 two thirds of 37 states
Nigeria is polarised along ethnic and religious lines. This election has pitted friends and families against one another. Now that a President-Elect has been declared, what do you expect of him to begin to do?
He should be a neutral person and follow the law as a neutral person because the president of Nigeria must belong somewhere. And the moment you are elected, you come out from where you belonged and move to the centre stage.
