President Goodluck Jonathan
OMINIOUS clouds gathering above the country thickened on Saturday night when the Independent National Electoral Commission, bowing to executive and security blackmail, postponed by six weeks the general election earlier scheduled to begin on February 14. To the dismay of Nigerians and the consternation of the international community, the military and the entire security community joined in the conspiratorial schemes of the Presidency and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party to frustrate the electoral process and push Nigeria once more to the brink.
But Nigerians should learn from our inglorious past and take a resolute decision to resist a fresh descent into contrived crises by a decadent cabal.
A collective gasp of disappointment greeted the announcement by a flustered Attahiru Jega, Chairman of INEC, shifting the presidential and National Assembly elections to March 28 and the state governorship and legislative polls to April 11. They had earlier been scheduled for February 14 and 28 respectively.
Jega’s anguish can only be imagined. While he had consistently said that the commission was ready for the polls, the security agencies, led by the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and the service chiefs, forced his hand by writing to INEC to declare emphatically that troops and other security personnel would not be provided if the elections went on as planned. According to them, all military assets would be concentrated, for the next six weeks, on tackling the insurgency in the North-East zone. Though couched under security concerns, the military’s action was, in fact, nothing but mischief.
Everyone saw it coming since the conspirators lacked the subtlety to disguise their intentions. It was the ineffective NSA that first gave official voice to whispers of the sinister moves against the elections when, at a forum organised in London by Chatam House, he suggested the shifting of the polls. Then followed forceful calls for postponement from the PDP, rented crowds of protesters and some “briefcase” political parties. President Goodluck Jonathan revealed his soiled hands when Doyin Okupe, his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, declared that it was “impossible” for security chiefs to guarantee security. Acting out the nefarious script, Edwin Clark, Femi Okurounmu, Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Alex Ekwueme, elders, acting in the name of the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly, bizarrely urged the arrest of Jega.
Worried, American President, Barack Obama, dispatched his Secretary of State, John Kerry, to Jonathan to lend his weight to calls by the opposition and other Nigerians that the polling dates should stay. Hiding behind a finger, Jonathan only made a woolly statement to the American diplomat that the May 29 swearing-in date “is sacrosanct.” Nigerians, who have endlessly been treated to political chicanery in the past, from the subversion of the constitution in the defunct Western Region in the First Republic to the brazen rigging of the 1983 elections and the manoeuvring that culminated in the June 12, 1993 electoral debacle and the brutal Sani Abacha dictatorship that followed, are bracing for another round of crises. They are not deceived.
Insurgency has been raging in the North-East for five years. Under the watch of Sambo and the current service chiefs, our military have become the laughing stock of Africa. They have been taking beating after beating from Boko Haram terrorists in the three affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. But Iraq, even at the height of its raging civil war, held several elections. Afghanistan, when Taliban insurgents controlled some of its territory, held elections back-to-back.
Syria, embroiled in a brutish civil war, successfully held a presidential poll in 2014. With the Crimean peninsula forcibly annexed by Russia and rebels controlling Donetsk and other regions, Ukraine still held, first, a presidential and, months later, parliamentary elections. Using the excuse of fighting insurgency in parts of three states to deny the 36 states of the federation and a federal territory elections as scheduled is fraudulent. In those countries cited, extraordinary security and massive deployment of troops were enough to guarantee credible polling.
In any case, Sambo and the Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, had earlier emphatically assured the nation of adequate security arrangements for the elections. Besides, when he first called for a postponement, Sambo not only re-echoed this assurance, he restricted himself to the need for more time to distribute the 68.83 million permanent voter cards. The security joker he and the service chiefs pulled is widely recognised as a mischievous afterthought. By February 5, said Jega, 45,839,808 PVCs had been collected – about 66.58 per cent of the total – while INEC had extended the collection window to February 13 and many states had declared holidays to enable voters to collect theirs. The Council of State – an advisory body – had also met and recommended sticking to the February 14 date.
Jonathan and the security chiefs are toying with Nigeria’s destiny. We regard the military interference as a deliberate plot hatched with the connivance of the Presidency and the PDP to frustrate the elections. There is a very dangerous convergence between the military and the partisan interests of Jonathan. The actions of the military are provocative and Badeh, the Chief of Army Staff, Kenneth Minimah and others are unwisely enmeshing the security forces in politics. The Army had already allowed itself to be dragged into the certificate affair where it did not mind being used to embarrass one of its own, a former commander-in-chief to boot, Muhammadu Buhari, as it bent to the partisan whims of the ruling party.
One grave implication of the military’s blackmail is that the sole authority invested in INEC by law to conduct elections at a time of its own choosing has been hijacked by the security forces and, by implication, the Presidency, to whom the service chiefs report. All it now takes for the military and the police to annul an election date is to refuse to provide security as they are legally bound to do.
Jonathan’s desperation is leading him to a dangerous zone that neither he nor those egging him on can predict the outcome.
Under him, impunity has become monstrous. We cannot ignore the conspiracy theories flying around if only because the blackmail against INEC has proved unerringly accurate, even to the last detail of the military denying INEC security cover. We strongly advise those plotting to subvert or manipulate the 1999 Constitution in order to rig elections, derail them or arrange tenure elongation as being alleged, to desist forthwith in the interest of this country.
Similar plots and subversion of the popular will by the trio of Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa and Ladoke Akintola (1965/66) in the old Western Region; Ibrahim Babangida (1993), using the infamous Association for Better Nigeria and the courts; and Sani Abacha (1993-1998), using five pseudo parties dismissed by the late Bola Ige as “five leprous fingers” ultimately failed, but plunged the country into prolonged crises, atrophying development and consuming hundreds of Nigerians in blood-soaked turmoil. Jonathan should, for once, demonstrate an awareness of history, avoid ignominy by pulling back from this dangerous track, and allow the electoral process to go on unhindered.
Can the military fix the Boko Haram insurgency in six weeks? What if they still refuse to provide security after this period? In a country where elections are warfare, police and military assistance is crucial, more so in the North-East where terrorists are reported to have captured 130 villages and towns.
Also worrisome is the implication of having elections close to the constitutional swearing-in date of May 29. The ingenuity of INEC and the parliament in fixing elections early to allow enough time for any hitches and litigation is now threatened. It returns us to the days when an election rigger could be sworn in and, thereafter, deployed state resources to defend the stolen mandate. Allegations of military partisanship in the recent Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections raise fresh fears of the abuse and misuse of the instruments of coercion.
Nigerians should not be deceived; we are in the grip of a ruthless, power-hungry and infinitely corrupt cabal that appears ready to do anything to have its way. The June 12 struggle may be a child’s play compared to the unfolding sinister manoeuvres. Jonathan is so enamoured of power that he fails to see the danger of excessive exposure to politics by a military that usurped power for 28 of the 55 years of Nigerian independence.
But in this modern world, the people are not helpless. The lessons from Tunisia, Egypt, Ukraine and Thailand are that citizens can peacefully assert their sovereignty and insist on having a say in how they are governed. We are paying a very high price for our complacency and impunity has run riot.
All stakeholders should raise their voices against the insidious military encroachment on INEC’s remit with the active connivance of the authorities that cannot weigh the consequences of their desperate ambitions. Civil society groups – those that have not been bought over – should wake up from their slumber, while every Nigerian should demand accountability, free and fair elections and a professional, non-partisan military.
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