Front Pix
The (Re) Election Of Prof Iwu …As The Umpire Scrambles For Votes
William E. D.D Bois
(To His Newborn Great-Grandson)
By June, this year, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu would have served out his tenure and ought to start preparing to walk away, shoulders high or crest fallen. The choice he makes shall depend largely on the outcome of his on-going ‘re-electioneering campaign’ and those of many other Nigerians battling to truncate his ambition of superintending the next series of elections, billed for next year.
Iwu did not require campaign posters, paid or unpaid supporters, rallies, newspaper advertorials and sponsored or unsponsored public speeches by notable Nigerians about his very impressive credentials, before former President Olusegun Obasanjo graciously named him Chief Umpire of the 2007 elections. But from all indications, he does now, if only to retain that plum job.
Worried sick that the much trumpeted electoral reforms may truncate his, now very obvious campaigns for re-appointment, Prof. Iwu has demonstrated, in my view, a regrettable measure of desperation not expected of an umpire of not a school soccer competition, but one to determine the future, fate and fortunes of a country of over 150 million citizens.
In that capacity, Iwu will again be expected to decide who should be disenfranchised or not and those who must aspire to any office or not, no matter how popular such a politician may be among members of his constituency. In the process leading to 2007 elections, the fear of Iwu, among ambitious politicians, was the beginning of wisdom. He, along with the powers that be determined faces that should not appear on national television as electable, but if they must be seen on pages of newspapers at all, it must be as ‘DISCLAIMER’ by the Nigerian state, which Iwu represented. So despicable was the process that duly elected candidates on various party platforms got turned back and were replaced by sorry substituted with strange names on the instructions of, many believed, the Presidency, his employers.
Infact, there were instances when, many repeatedly accused Iwu’s INEC of bending the rules in favour of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to allow for replacement of questionably disqualified candidates with new ones, even after the timeline that was legally permitted for such changes. In other circumstances, candidates duly elected by parties at their official primaries and which INEC directly monitored, were denied accreditation by the electoral body because the party that elected them in the first place had a rethink and simply wrote in to say that the earlier name forwarded to it was “done in error”. Even when the electoral laws insisted on cogent and verifiable reasons for such change, Iwu’s INEC did the opposite.
For such acts of omission and commission, men like Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi went through hell before getting justice from the nation’s highest arbiter-the Supreme Court. Others who could not brave the odds against such risky legal voyage berthed and prayed for the unfriendly referee’s tenure to elapse before contemplating any new electoral move.
If the processes leading to the elections were flawed, the elections themselves were a huge failure, a disgrace to Nigeria and above all huge shame in the eyes of the international community. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), whose members also monitored the elections along with other volunteers described it as less than credible, violence-prone and unacceptable. These are to put them lightly.
Infact, there were instances when, the official result sheets of an election got to a given party weeks before the election, to enable it prepare results before the official date. It reminds me of former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili’s second term election, when, more than the registered list of voters in Rivers State miraculously turned out to vote their beloved governor.
When the dust died down an ever so eleoquent, and grateful Governor Odili told an assembly of Labour activists on May Day, in 2003, “I thank you for voting massively for me” and joked in pidgin English, but ona nearly put me for trouble-o, in veiled reference to the truth of over-voting.
All the attempts by one of Odili’s embattled opponents, Chief Sergent Awuse to display facts and figures, using voters registers to prove, where, voting did not take place, in addition to brandishing unstamped voters cards, but whose holders were believed to be part of the victory march, came to naughts.
Under Iwu’s watch however, names like Ban Ki Moon, Oliver Tambo, Bill Clinton, Sarah Bush, Late Saddam Hussein, Late Adaka Boro, Late Sani Abacha and even Cocoanut Island, appeared on voters registers, as members of the Nigerian electorate and there are no valid proofs that anything has changed. So disgraceful, some candidate even won an election while in prison custody.
Generally, the elections were believed to have been rigged in favour of the highest bidders, seating executives and at other times, Iwu’s power House clearly, played out the ruling party’s script. In clear terms, INEC, under Iwu’s watch, in the view of most Nigerians, failed to exercise the independence of an electoral umpire and that I agree greatly affected the credibility that ought to have been ascribed to an election of the kind.
How then, can one with such depleted credibility; one believed to have compromised positive discretion when most needed and one whose judgements on elections were roundly criticised and upturned by various courts of law as immoral and unjust, be depended upon to supervise yet another general elections? In 2011?
This consideration, without doubt, accounted for the March on Abuja, penultimate Wednesday, by organised Labour under the aegis of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) with the warning of a nationwide strike, should the Presidency re-appoint the embattled professor. Tagged, “March Against Our Common Enemy- Election wuruwuru,” the NLC rally urged government never to contemplate Iwu’s re-appointment.
Strangely, not ready to sit by, and be out-done without a fight, the supposed umpire, it appears to me, is all out seeking support of notable Nigerians, singers, drummers and T-shirt and face Cap loving youths to counter the huge opposition to his re-election, sorry possible re-appointment.
For the same reasons, Iwu met with those who matter at the National Assembly, first on March 11 and then on March 19, this year and where, he virtually sought their understanding and eventual re-consideration. That save-my-job tour, many fear, might have had little to do with the controversial Senate decision, to leave, with the Presidency, power to appoint an INEC chairman, against the suggestion by the Uwais Electoral Reforms Commission. But I disagree, although, mine hardly matters.
As if that was not serious enough, an obviously pro-Iwu praise singing ensemble by the stage-name, Alliance for Defence of Democracy and led by one Ikenga (not the famous Ikpokirikpo Crooner) but one with Imo Ugochinyere surname, staged a walk to the same National Assembly that Iwu, had visited earlier to, protest against the removal of the professor. For a job well-done?
Seriously, the appointment of an electoral umpire ought not be subject of these kind of controversy, because in the hands of such an appointee rests the destiny of a nation, her credibility and respect in the comity of nations.
With the grandstanding thus far demonstrated by Prof. Iwu, the respect for a thankless national service, which chairmanship of an Independent National Electoral Commission ought to earn, seems replaced by a desperation grounded in personal desires and appetites. An individual with such appetites to protect deserves not a chance to seat in judgement over the fate of others.
My Agony is that the Senate has inadvertently, played into Iwu’s hands and narrowed down what should have been a rich list of honest, nationalistic and credible Nigerians to choose from, if screened by the National Judicial Council (NJC) and re-examined by the Council of State before forwarding the likely choice or choices for confirmation by the National Assembly, as demanded by many Nigerians.
The argument by arrow-heads of the senate to the effect that even some judges appointed by the NJC are also not above board Methinks, begs the question. That, one of two judges failed to impress the senators does not remove the importance and urgency of a country still rebranding to have a properly independent electoral commission, selected from the best, by all three arms of government, the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature.
In that way, such an appointee will not bend the rules in favour of a party through the issuance of advance copies of election result, sheets, to be completed and returned as valid on Election Day.
It is the failure of that noble move to insulate INEC from the Presidency, thanks to the senate, that has encouraged Iwu to continue his open re-election campaign. I think the Presidency should reject him. And fast too.