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Former presidential aspirant of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prof. Harry Iyorwuese Hagher, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to cancel the Presidential and the National Assembly election conducted last Saturday. In his view, the election was far from credible.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Prof Hagher, a former senator who served twice as a minister and twice as an ambassador, also noted that the electoral umpire has made the BVAS technology look like a project just to frit away the resources of the nation.
What are your views on the Presidential and National Assembly elections held last Saturday across the country?
INEC should cancel the entire Presidential and National Assembly elections because they were not able to substantially comply with the provision of the Electoral Act on the transmission of the results from the polling units. The BVAS has turned out to be a fraud; it didn’t work and political parties began to perpetuate unprecedented rigging and so, there was massive thumb printing as never has been done before. There was corruption of electoral officers, corruption, violence and intimidating of voters and destruction of electoral materials, even though it looked like there was a peaceful election, but there was substantial violence against the Nigerian people in many places.
Could you specifically mention the affected areas?
From the reports we have, the affected states were Lagos, Zamfara, Jigawa, Rivers, parts of Katsina, Ebonyi, Imo, parts of Borno, Kwara and Kano. Those are some of the states where there was massive non-compliance with the regulation. Voters were harassed, intimidated and officials were forced to compromise.
When BVAS was introduced for the conduct of three governorship elections, the outcome was impressive and Nigerians heaved a sign of relief that INEC has started getting it right. So how can you substantiate your allegation that BVAS was a fraud?
At the introduction of BWAS, some Nigerians started perfecting a studious examination of the weakness of its application, and so, they decided to massively put aside the BVAS or in many cases compromise it. INEC itself refused to accept the fact that they didn’t transmit the results from the polling units, which is a substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
So, INEC has the statutory seven days according to the Electoral Act, which authorises a returning officer to review the declaration of the results and the return of candidates from the date of declaration. So they should review that in these ten states or cancel the entire result because the population of those who voted in those states is so substantial and could affect the result and give victory to somebody who doesn’t deserve that victory.
I’m saying this because I have not heard INEC declared anybody a winner. They should simply cancel it and conduct another election.
From what you have said, at what point did we miss it this time around?
It was at the point of desperation of the political leaders, who instead of the BVAS to be uploading from polling units decided to compromise the staff and bypass the use of the machine. Again, you know this is a new technology, so the agents and the ad hoc staff were not trained on how to operate the BVAS. This is technology driven, and you needed a certain level of literacy; you needed a certain level of expertise and acceptability of the technology that we are using. We went too fast and it was certain that at the piecemeal level of a state election that INEC could perform , but at a national level of 36 states, the commission was overwhelmed, and not only were they overwhelmed, I believe that the politicians who started inducement of all kinds, threats and intimidations added to the problem. Look at what was happening in Rivers State; it is most shameful and embarrassing.
But some people are saying that the election was peaceful and applauding INEC for conducting a credible election?
It is expected. If you are the rigger and you belong to the party that rigged and you see your party victorious, you will applaud the election. But do we then do that; do we allow election to be for those who are the most cunning and allow those who want to rig to rig and have their ways, so that whoever that through this untoward process wins becomes our president and governors? If so, then, why do we have elections? Democracy is one man one vote. It must be respected; it is hallowed; there is no need if we cannot allow the process then we are simply not a democratic country per se
With the scenario you have painted, what is its implication of future elections?
There should be no other elections. There should be a redo of these presidential and the national assembly elections with integrity that is accepted by everybody, with INEC doing what the Electoral Act says they should do by uploading all the results from the polling units. Actually there were other rigging devices for the elections, like when the BVAS was configured in such a way that people who came to vote didn’t know that figures had already been imputed into the system. These machines were configured at high intensity and other gimmicks that were used. It was not good at all.
By going ahead to pronounce a winner, it portends that INEC is acting with impunity and if it acts with impunity then, it means that the citizens will be left in a limbo in a country where a semblance of democracy is being foisted on us. It portends that the people in power are not willing to let go of power and they devise all kinds of gimmicks to hang on to power, and INEC is unfortunately legitimising that process.
With the tense situation in the country following the cash crunch and fuel scarcity, will this not aggravate the situation and put Nigeria on the edge?
If the result is announced, which is unacceptable and the people believe that truly that their mandate has been stolen and they believe that there was a substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act, and then anything is possible. Already the judiciary in our country has been overstretched to a breaking point, that the citizens may distract the judiciary, even the politicians and the political process. INEC has everything in its hands to save the situation. It should come out to say that they made a mistake and that they are recalibrating and that they should be given little time to get it right. Nothing to be lost, let them redo the entire election and be more vigilant.
Given the time frame as enshrined in the constitution, do you think that INEC can conduct another election?
I believe that there is certainly a window of opportunity for an election that was wrongly conducted; there must be a window where the right thing ought to be done. If you don’t do the right thing and we cite the constitution, then we would regret not doing the right thing because doing the wrong thing which is the only thing that could be done often leads to chaos. We certainly don’t want chaos.
The time frame for INEC to conduct election is about three months to the hand over of government whether at the state level or at the centre…
Simply delay the election. The governorship election could be delayed, or cancel the entire election.
But you talked about calibrating the BVAS machine. It is not something that you do within a week. It may take weeks or months
I know it takes time, but if it is just to say that because it takes time and it cannot be done, then it will take more time to correct a process that is bad if things go wrong.
What message do you have for the electorate?
They should be patient because I believe that President Muhammadu Buhari would not want to go down in history because one thing he is trying to do right is to give Nigerians a credible election. He can persuade INEC and fix an executive meeting and all agree that this election has been won or lost and the election is cancelled because of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act, and the election is therefore cancelled and rescheduled. Let the electorate be patient and trust President Buhari that has promised to leave a legacy that he would be remembered for.
Do you think that those who have won will agree that it should be cancelled and rescheduled?
If they truly won, they wouldn’t mind if the election is conducted hundred times to prove that they won and they can win again. If their winning cannot be subjected to closer scrutiny, then they didn’t win anything.
Could it be said now that Nigeria is still pregnant and has not delivered the 2023 election?
Nigeria has always been pregnant and it is better that a pregnancy is delivered properly than an abortion.
