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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
HAVING held political positions like the chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and Secretary of Coalition of United Political Parties
(CUPP), Peter Ameh has built himself to becoming a political heavyweight.
In this interview with Sunday Sun he spoke on wide range of issues, including the chances of the All Progressives Congress (APC) retaining power in the forthcoming November 11 Kogi State governorship election, his disappointment against the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the alleged certificate scandal against President Bola Tinubu. Excerpt:
What are your fears in next
month’s Kogi State governor-
ship electron?
My fear is that there are so many
issues coming up with the election.
The governor has chosen the can-
didate from his side. In democracy,
there is always the majority, which
will have their way and the minor-
ity that will have their say. And if
the minority, in the context of our
democracy, now wants to have their
own way or rule over the majority,
there will be some challenges and it
will lead to some level of applica-
tion of force and use of violence to
be able to get that done. That is my
own calculation because Governor
Yahaya Bello belongs to the APC,
about spending eight years, he is
from Kogi Central. There is Kogi
East and West and if you want to
talk politics of rotation, it must be
something agreeable between the
three major ethnic groups in the
state, even though there are other
ethnic groups, rarely mentioned,
that will query how they came up
with the rotation. So, if it is not
properly discussed, and it is left
open-ended then it will be a bat-
tle between the majority and the
minority class. I believe that with
this going against the natural state
of things Yahaya Bello will be more
determined to prove himself in de-
ciding the outcome of the election.
And that will lead to his supporters
becoming much more forceful that
will heighten violence. I am very
sure of that.
Will APC retain the gov-
ernorship seat in a peaceful
election in Kogi?
It will be very difficult for APC
to retain the position if there is
peaceful election. If there is no
manipulation it will be difficult
for APC in this election. As I
always say that manipulation of
the people’s will is the reason for
voter apathy in Nigeria’s elections.
That is why we have violence and
mudslinging in our elections. We
are vulnerable during elections. If
elections are transparent, free, and
fair, then there will be less of all these problems. With the introduc-
tion of BVAS and IReV, we hope that
the Nigerian electoral system would
have been cleaned up, but it was also
truncated by those that introduced it.
That was why we were brought back
to ground zero, which I am afraid of
what will happen. APC is not really
popular in Kogi right now because
it has lost so many grounds. The
civil servants are the only thing they
have in Kogi State. The governor
has always been interested in FAC
allocation, not in bringing investors.
Kogi is bordered by nine or 10 states.
And if Kogi has this kind of advan-
tage, we should have governors who
can develop our resources so that its
internally generated revenue should
be competing with places like Lagos.
But they are not interested. They are
only interested in federal allocation,
the feeding bottle arrangement where
money from the Federal Government
is sliced into security votes, paying
salaries, and then the rest disappear-
ing. That is why local government is
not working because the mistake that
was made by the constitution to put
local government joint account with
state account which the governors
have hijacked. So, it is a big problem
and Kogi is suffering more from that
problem.
In which areas have your gov- ernor, Yahaya Bello, failed?
He has failed in all facets of gov- ernance. And people are not happy.
There are no good roads in Kogi, no
infrastructure. Governors misunder- stand building cottage hospitals with
small money that philanthropists can
build as individuals as achievements.
I remodeled schools for my people.
If a governor does what an individual
can do, as a philanthropic gesture,
why should they celebrate it? I think
our nation is becoming more embar-
rassing by those in government doing
very little and celebrating it. I grew
up in Lagos; no government is talk-
ing about pipe-borne water project
anymore. There is borehole every-
where. It is the same even in Abuja.
Since the military left and probably
the one el-Rufai did one of those
dams, there is no integrated pipe water system in the satellite towns in the
FCT, the seat of power. Kogi is beau-
tiful. If a governor does a bridge from
Idah to Agenebode, it will reduce, by
four hours, the time of people coming
from South-south, Southeast going to
Abuja. But there is no plan for such
big project because they don’t want
to spend so much money on a project
their predecessor will not complete.
They rather go for short projects they
can just start and finish and put their
names on it. They forgot that govern-
ment is a continuum. Most gover-
nors are failing because they want
something they can engrave their
names on. Governance in Nigerian
has become almost like a joke and a
family affair. They make their broth-
ers SAs and Commissioners, because
the citizens have been weakened to a
point that they no longer have a say
because there are no credible election
to use to punish the erring elected
political leaders.
Have you given up on INEC
for using the expression that it
introduced BVAS and IReV and
truncated it?
We worked with INEC believing
that we can overcome the return to
the days of the state of nature which
according Thomas Hobbes life was
short, brutish, and nasty. But when
you didn’t break that process of
carrying physical result from EC8A
from pulling units, transporting them
with vehicles to collation centres
where these people will stop it, take
it by force and write new result. If we
stop that by allowing transmission of
results from the pulling units since
no party have the capacity during
an election to monitor pulling units
and at the same time stop the rigging
no matter how strongly you want to
create balance. I have not given up
on INEC because it is an institution,
but I have given up on the current
leadership of INEC. They have
said one thing from one side of the
mouth, captured on camera, in print
and electronic media broadcasts and
even contained in the guidelines and
regulations for the conduct of 2023
elections. If a man can go so far as to
document something, print and make it gospel on national television and
internationally, including even going
to Chatham House to confirm it and
give encouragement to participants in
the electoral process, critical stake-
holders like the political parties and
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs),
then reverse that same decision and
came to the Tribunal to say that the
Electoral Act is superior to what we
have done. What kind of hope and
encouragement are you expecting me
to have? We have worked so many
years to ensure that elections can
be transparent, so that a child born
in Masaka, Nyanya can have the
same opportunity as a child born in
Maitama. If we have fought so much
to get to where we are, we should
also be able to soften the platform so
that other people can come on board
and the future generation will not suf-
fer what we went through. But, that
was truncated by INEC specifically.
If INEC had postponed the election,
heaven would not fall. It postponed
elections previously in 2015 and
2019 and would have done so when
it discovered that there will not be
a level playing field for the partici- pants, no matter the toll it will take
on the economy. Yes, it would have
been better to spend more money to
restart the process, but it would have
been better than taking away the
credibility of the electoral process.
Election is better postponed than
forced into calamity that will ensure
it does not have credibility and trans- parency. It is important to let those
elected have legitimacy because ma- nipulated elections lead to voter apa- thy. If there is no transparency, there
will be no trust and if there is no trust
there is no legitimacy. I am certainly
among the Nigerians disappointed
with INEC for promising so much,
but delivering so little. I am one of
those who feel that INEC betrayed
the trust and confidence of most Ni-
gerians. Look at the energy that went
into the 2023 election. Nigerians
bought into the agenda to make the
government their own because of the
promises INEC made.
INEC chairman, Mahmood
Yakubu, is your friend, what will you tell him if you meet him
one on one?
I have made enemies speaking the
truth because they like praise sing-
ers. They like those who can sing the
Hallelujah chorus for their friends,
misinforming them that they are
doing very well even when they are
not. I will tell Mahmood Yakubu that
he has not written his name well. He
is the first INEC chairman to have
a second chance to be in the office.
But he has not only disappointed, but
also performed below standard and
below expectations. You don’t lift
people’s hope so high and then crash
the hopes.
Do you support Atiku’s ac- tion to authenticate President
Tinubu’s academic record?
My anger with Atiku is on two
fronts. He should not do things in
trying to build Nigeria from the
angle of friendship. There was a time
when a magazine published by Atiku
wanted to do something on this same
certificate forgery, but he allegedly
killed the investigative story when he
was reached out to. If you want to do
something, do it for posterity’s sake.
If he had allowed it to flow, maybe
he would have stopped him, but like
they said, it is better late than never.
He is now fighting to unearth one
of the worst forgeries in the world.
There are too many discrepancies
in Tinubu’s results. There are too
many things that did not just tally.
I believe that if I am an alumnus of
Chicago State University (CSU), and
I become president of a country, my
old boys will celebrate me. It is a big
deal for a person from the university
to have become a senator in 1993,
governor in 1999, and become presi-
dent in 2023. It would have been a
model to tell students of CSU that
they have a wonderful and brilliant
person who is a President, but I can’t
see that celebration going on, there
has been more confusion from CSU
struggling to defend whether that
name attended that university. I feel
that those around Tinubu are not
intelligent, otherwise why should
they continue to submit controver-
sial certificates that they don’t even
need? You are already experienced
and if he can get a technical driving
school certificate and then go to the
Federal Minister of Labour to secure
a trade test that can be enough to
qualify him to be president because
the constitution says and its equiva-
lent. I don’t know why he needs to
go through that process. But the truth is that this scandal is not good for
the reputation of Nigeria and what
Atiku is doing is good. Let us come
to a logical conclusion on what kind
of certificate our president is really
parading.
Is it becoming a distraction
to the President or are you im-
pressed with what Tinubu has
done so far?
Of course, it is not a distraction
because you cannot govern without
truth. Opposition political parties
and their leaders are not supposed to
be spoon-licking or spoon-feeding
the president. Their work is to look
at the negative things the president
is not projecting the image of the
country. What Atiku is doing is one
of them. If he had come out clear
that he really attended the schools,
it would have cleared our present
image internationally. And if he
bounces back then they would have
seen him as somebody who likes to
fight for truth. People have made
their name by fighting for truth.
Gani and Festus Keyamo fought this
matter. It is something that we must
come to the end and know what is
really inside this news. Atiku has
taken the long road to freedom. We
should see the end regardless of
what the Supreme Court rules at the
end. It might be the end for academ-
ic and legal purposes.
Where has Tinubu im-
pressed you so far?
This is a very difficult question.
He has not really impressed me
because he has made more mis- takes and made the lives of Nigeria
harder. Nigerians are suffering. I
don’t know why people don’t want
to say this, maybe because they
still have small money they are us- ing to eat or the resilient Nigerian
spirit of it will soon be good. He
came, without policy and plans, and
removed fuel subsidy by just mere
emotions. There was no policy and
execution plan only to realise that
they couldn’t sustain it. They have
gone back to the politics of pallia- tive. I don’t understand what they
see in it even when it has become
a drainpipe to loot our money. By
February 2020 or thereabout, the
Humanitarian Ministry announced
that it had spent N1.3 trillion. Do
you know what that money can do
to our educational system and to
our roads? One of the ease of doing
business, apart from the bureaucratic
bottleneck created in our ministry, is
the ability of people to move from
Nnewi to my town Ogugu on good
roads. They can move their crops and
their equipment. That is one of the
ease of doing business. We have no
good road anywhere in Nigeria yet
we spent N1.3 trillion on e-feeding
and making our young people lazy.
Tinubu thought he was doing favour
to the Buhari regime by not setting a
board of inquiry to look into this and
put people in prison because money
was and is stolen through palliatives.
They have put the money into real
estate, property, and hotels. They
live larger than life at the expense of
the ordinary Nigerian on the street.
Tinubu should set up a board of in-
quiry to investigate the stolen money,
including the phantom Nigeria Air
brought into the country and returned
to the owner thereafter. There must
be investigation and consequences
for doing wrong or evil will persist in
our society. We can grow a country
like this.
What has happened to your
House of Reps tickets?
I was a victim of the questionable
election conducted by INEC. The
IReV is saying one thing; the result
announced was saying another differ-
ent thing. I went through war. Guns
were pointed at me at night. I con-
tested because we thought the elec-
toral system had changed. But there
were guns everywhere at the colla-
tion centre. I complained to the DPO
about the guns, but he could not do
anything. I can boldly say that I won
the election because my people love
me. They love me for who I am, and
for speaking the truth all the time.
I thought we would have changed
things in the rural area I come from.
It is a very deep forest and 60 per
cent of my local government is in the
bush. I couldn’t leave my village for
two weeks after the election because
people were in serious distress. I
will forever remain grateful for
the kindness they have shown me
and whether it was stolen or not, I
leave that to God. My mission was
to go there and shed more light on
the fraud perpetrated by the elected
through constituency projects. I am
very concerned that my people can-
not ask questions. They are not really
exposed to demand their stewardship
of four years.
Did you go to court?
I started the legal action, but didn’t
eventually continue because there
were challenges. I just decided to
leave it and see how we can plan for
the next one. I collected documents,
paid my lawyers, but there was no
confidence that anything would come
out of it. We won in almost all my
local government except in only
about 15 polling units in my local
government, but as we were at the
collation centre throughout the night,
the results were changed; there was
intimidation with all sorts of things.
Have you seen what you are
looking for by joining LP?
Labour has been a friendly party
to me. The late Abdulsalam, the
chairman, was my best friend. I have
always told him that if I was not in
my party, I would have been in his
party. I love Labour for what it is and
the labours of our heroes shall never
be in vain. I joined Labour before
Peter Obi came to the party. But he
made it more of a beautiful bride and
made me still remain with the party
because of what he has done with
the movement and in our democratic
space. The change and reality is that
a party can come from obscurity to
the limelight and be respected so
much in the scheme of things.
Can Labour maintain this mo-
mentum?
If we go to social media, we find
out that people are still determined to
stand by LP, especially if Peter Obi
remains with the party. We are still
hopeful that our stolen mandate will
be returned to us so that a new Nige- ria can emerge from the rubble.
What is your worst fear for
Nigeria’s future?
It is really becoming a bleak
future in the country. Insecurity has
escalated, unemployment and un-
deremployment, serious economic
distress. My greatest fear is that I
don’t want to wake up one morning
and find tyres burning on the roads
in Zamfara, Lagos, Enugu, Osun,
everywhere because the young
people can no longer bear the pains
of suffering and begging to eat. I
don’t want Nigeria to start to go up
in flames. There is serious poverty
and infrastructural decay in the
land.
