There is no justifiable reason for postponing elections, says Aboyade

Even though the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and President Goodluck Jonathan have denied the allegation of plotting to postpone the February 14 presidential election, both the proponents and opponents won’t give up on their positions. The consequence is that both camps are overheating the polity with the controversy it is now generating. In this interview with Joseph Onyekwere, a Lagos based Senior Advcate of Nigeria, Funke Aboyade, examines the issues. She also expressed strong views on other topical national issues. 

SOME are calling for the postponement of the election. The National Security Adviser (NSA) reportedly made such call. Even though the President has assured it would not be postponed, what is the implication of such postponement?

I believe that what the president assured was sacrosanct was the hand over date. That said, it is now apparent the NSA flew a kite. Since his call, there have been increasingly strident and apparently well coordinated calls for the postponement of the elections. Only this morning, a national newspaper carried an advert by a body, the Goodluck Lagos Grassroots Project, titled ‘Déjà vu’ urging a postponement.

True, the Constitution and Electoral Act give INEC some leeway – some room to maneuver concerning the fixing of the dates but there’s little room now even if there is a postponement. In any event, INEC has not complained about its state of preparedness; rather, and interestingly enough, it has kept assuring that it is prepared to go on. It is tempting to conclude that the various calls are self-serving and might have other underlying factors. The collection or non-collection thereof of PVCs does not seem to me to fall under the category of situations, where INEC is empowered by the Electoral Act to postpone the elections. Our recent history, viz the attempt in 1993 to stop the elections, can also not be ignored. Of course, I’m not unmindful of S.135(3) of the Constitution wherein the president if he considers it impractical to hold elections – and the National Assembly so resolves – is empowered to extend his tenure as much as six months at a stretch if we are at war and our physical territory involved.

I’m also not unmindful of S. 26(4) which provides that if INEC is satisfied that the result of the election will not be affected by the voting in these areas it may make a return, notwithstanding the lack of voting in those areas. However, the insurgency has been on and escalating for over five years and we cannot just be waking up to that fact. In fact, the president has said at different fora that it’s a global phenomenon and that we’d be best advised to live with it as we could well be facing this for the next 20 odd years. Are we to keep postponing the elections till then? There is no justifiable reason for postponing the elections. It is too late in the day to be discussing postponment when Nigerians are mobilised and ready to vote on February 14 and 28. Vigilance is required all round to ensure that our democracy is not truncated by stealth.

Do you believe INEC is fully prepared for the elections? Some have argued that the electoral umpire appears unprepared and hinged their call for the postponement on that basis. 

INEC could certainly have been better prepared than it currently is, having had four years to prepare for this moment. I’m not sure what they could now do, were the elections to be postponed that they couldn’t have done in those four years. The truth is, generally our critical governmental agencies and bodies are very poor implementers of plans even when they have good plans on paper. The process involved in either registering as a fresh voter or collecting PVCs with TVCs has been unnecessarily stressful, with some either disenfranchised or giving up rather than subject themselves to the stress. INEC has assured Nigerians that PVCs will be continue to be distributed as late as the day before the election. What may be better is to allow voters who are unable to obtain their PVCs to use their TVCs instead. It may be convincingly argued that Professor Jega is way out of his league on this one but he’s what we have to work with and postponing the elections will neither resolve the challenges nor wish them away.

The demand that the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Muhammadu Buhari should provide his O’level certificate is generating so much controversy. What’s your view on this?

I think it is a needless, if contrived, distraction. The Constitution is quite clear on the qualifications required to run for the office of president. Sections 131 and 318 do not require a rocket scientist to understand. Unfortunately, an uncritical media and perhaps a lazy citizenry did not at the initial stages of the so-called controversy bother to do a simple check of these requirements. Nowhere in the Constitution is a presidential candidate required to have school certificate, only education up to that level. The Constitution further defines that to include Primary Six School Leaving Certificate or its equivalent, along with acceptable service in the public or private sector for 10 years, attendance at courses or trainings and the ability to communicate in English. One then wonders what informed the media hype and frenzy on this simple issue. Under those parameters, Buhari qualifies to run as a candidate. In any event, Buhari’s old school has now provided evidence that he indeed took the exam and obtained a result. The continued attempts by the party of Buhari’s main challenger to rubbish the certificate are truth be told, pathetic. They have merely succeeded in turning off many undecided voters and losing their candidate precious votes. With the elections just about two weeks away voters, and indeed the media, must be encouraged to stay focused on the important electoral issues and robustly interrogate the parties and candidates so they can come to an informed decision on whom to vote for.

Soldiers recently barricaded the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium in Port Harcourt three days after Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, said the facility couldn’t be used for President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign. What does this kind of scenario portend?

It is a worrisome development when the awesome powers of the federal government, which let’s not forget is in total control of the nation’s security apparatuses, are deployed in a partisan way and with impunity.  I have always maintained that our nation’s police, armed forces and state security service be encouraged to target their boundless enthusiasm where they are badly needed – Boko Haram, kidnappings, armed robberies and other serious crimes. Unleashing on a helpless state government the institutions of the federal government to further private political objectives is abuse of power, moreso when resort can be made to the courts of law. We are either living in a jungle or we are not obeying the rule of law. The same powers were unleashed in full measure on Governor Amaechi when he was stopped by troops on his way to visit his counterpart in Ekiti State just before last year’s gubernatorial elections there. Those troops looked the other way as the ruling party’s men were allowed unrestricted access to the same state. We operate a federal, not unitary system of government. The state governor exercised executive powers bestowed on him by S.5 (2) of our Constitution.  The Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium is a facility owned and operated by the Rivers State Government. If the PDP is dissatisfied with the refusal of permission to use it, the proper step is to seek redress in court and not resort to illegal and unconstitutional self-help. 

Similar to threats in the past that the state would be made ungovernable for a particular candidate if he wins, some ex-Niger Delta militants have started to threaten violence should Jonathan lose. Even PDP governorship candidate in Lagos, Jimi Agbaje echoed such sentiments recently. What’s your take on this?

I’ll start with the latter. I felt let down by candidate Jimi Agbaje’s mindless re-echoing of such pedestrian and base scaremongering. I was one of those who voted for him when he first contested as gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State all those years ago. I later became a Fashola convert but had fully intended to vote for Agbaje again in 2015. Not anymore. I had assumed he would be above such scare tactics and expected him to face the issues which matter most to Lagosians. Rather, in an effort to canvass votes for President Jonathan he has been committing some serious gaffes. He scored no brownie points with me. To get back to your main question. It should leave every Nigerian wondering where our Department of State Services is when these sorts of threats to wage war against the Nigerian state are issued. Particularly when they are up and doing quibbling at minutiae from the opposition? I would certainly like to be educated on this extreme disparity in approach to law enforcement. S.1(2) of our Constitution prevents any person or group from taking control of the government save in accordance with the Constitution. S.1 of the Terrorism Act defines intention to seriously intimidate a population and seriously destabilise the country’s structures as acts of terrorism. S.3 prescribes the punishment. S.37 of the Criminal Procedure Act provides that conspiring to levy war against Nigeria is treason and prescribes the penalty. The DSS is spoilt for choice really.

It is a matter of regret that the president did not immediately, and has yet to, distance himself from those threats. He is the president of Nigeria, not the president of the Niger Delta. Too bad this import is lost on him. Well, this is not about the sensibilities of our president; it’s about Nigeria. The federal government is duty-bound to ward off this threat.

As for the militants’, perhaps one should ask them: what then is the essence of these, or any elections. We are either operating a democracy or we are not. If the president wins in a fair and square contest all well and good; if he loses fair and square, all well and good too. The will of the people must be respected. If he has done well, the people will reward him with their votes; if he hasn’t, they won’t. It’s as simple as that.

Whether or not he wins these elections, President Jonathan has broken for all time the myth that a person who does not hail from any of the three major ethnic groups cannot achieve power. The Niger Delta militants should be proud of this achievement and the sense of belonging it has given not only the Niger Delta people, but all other minority groups in the country, and leverage on it rather than engage in unhelpful sabre rattling.

What is your view about the allegation by the State Security Services that APC is cloning INEC data?

Strange! Given that INEC has come out to say that its data base was neither hacked nor under any threat of being hacked and given that they have also confirmed it is impossible to clone their PVCs. APC has also stoutly denied this accusation. Only the DSS it seems has run with this notion.

APC has alleged that National Communications Commission (NCC) had stopped its SMS donation platform and threatened to go to court. What do you think about this?

It does appear to be a partisan action on the part of NCC and an overreach of its powers. NCC asserts that it is merely preventing TELCOs from disseminating political messages, but this explanation cannot justify its interruption of the APC’s SMS donation platform, which in any event is not used to disseminate any political messages and is not directly operated by any of the TELCOs. APC has pointed out that PDP also used the same medium as a donation platform during the 2011 elections. This looks to me like selective or discriminatory application of the law. Of course I add the caveat that there may be other facts we’re not aware of which may sustain NCC’s position, but for now I’d say APC is justified in seeking legal redress. That is what the courts are there for, and as a senior member of the bar I fully support it.