INEC must do more to give people confidence for 2019 election –Ezekwesili
Dr. Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili is Nigeria’s former Minister of Education and co-convener BringBackourGirls Campaign, a group at the forefront of the agitation for the release of the kidnapped girls at the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Bornu State. Now, Dr Ezekwesili is the Presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) in the 2019 general election. In this interview with a select group of journalists she speaks of her motivation for the race and how she intends to run the affairs of the country if elected as President at the election. PATRICK OKOHUE was there.
What is your view of President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to assent to the amended 2018 Electoral bill?
I think there is nothing noble about the President not signing the 2018 electoral bill into law. Absolutely, there is nothing noble about it. I think the President owes Nigerians a better explanation and I don’t think the explanation will even do it. The best explanation that the President can do now is to sign the bill into an act. The President cannot be seen as imperiling the 2019 election because that is what will happen if he does not sign the bill into an act. The electoral integrity of 2019 is dependent on how quickly the President assents that bill into an act. We as a party, I as a candidate will make sure that we don’t stop insisting that the President must do what he should do. The President should not allow his personal interest to get in the way of the collective interest of Nigerians. Our democracy is going to clock 20years in 2019; he doesn’t want to be the one who mars our democracy. He should sign that bill into an act immediately.
What are your fears in him not signing the bill? I think the President is probably afraid of at least two provisions that may likely worry him in the bill. First, this government don’t want the provision on the card reader. The card reader is the solution to electoral shenanigans. And I don’t think that this APC government wants it. The second part of it is that there is a provision in the bill that gives the rules of INEC the equivalence of provisions of the act. I don’t think they want that. And frankly speaking, INEC needs those kinds of powers in order to be very quick in responding to some of the challenges as they happen. So the rules are that INEC cannot be outside of the legal frame work. So, what is it then that stands in the way? The last time we were told that the National Assembly and the President’s people, especially those who work on his behalf, they couldn’t detect the errors at that time…..no, I don’t think Nigerians are fools, the President cannot fool anybody. It is clear that this government does not want improvement in the conduct of our elections. The same government was comfortable to see election in Ekiti and Osun being a disgrace to our country, where basically there was a civilian coup against our democracy in what happened in Ekiti and Osun. Our whole electoral process is now tradable, where the seller and the buyer aided by abuse of certain institution like the police and the military coming together to undermine our democracy. The citizens will not accept it. It will not happen. 2019 elections must hold and it must be transparent, free and fair. That is the legitimacy that the Nigerian people will confer on those who will win the elections. Do you support the National Assembly to go ahead to veto the President on the bill, if he insists on not signing it?
It may have to come to that. It will be unfortunate for the President. I recall when the President was newly elected and an interviewer asked me that “what word will you have for the president as somebody who has been a military dictator and now an elected president?” and I simply said to him that democracy is not military rule. In democracy such acts will not work and the President will learn very clearly that history will place him in an ignoble position if he does not sign this bill and make progress on our democratic experience.
Are you supporting calls for INEC to start prosecuting vote buyers? What I am saying is that those INEC, Nigerian police, the Federal Government itself, other establishments that are associated with election activities are simply not interested in addressing this impunity that is taking a foot hold in our democratic process. We can’t accept that. So, my point is that the chairman of INEC has a responsibility that is bigger than any other thing that we have known because under this particular management we saw the Ekiti and Osun, and this are actions that are directly of his own remit. The police have a role to play in this, the INEC law already says that vote buying is an offence. So why is it that the offenders were unpunished? The INEC cannot be the ones punishing people, that is not its own mandate, but it has to be the one making this a major issue because it undermines electoral integrity. It means that you are confirming legitimacy to people who haven’t won the election but bought the elections, we can’t do that. So I am opened to the idea that he needs to remember what history record for him and he has a training to be able to solve this problem. How do you suggest this problem be solved?
One major issue for instance, is that basic solution of ensuring that people don’t have the opportunity to create their vote by taking photographs of who they have voted for and be able to use the evidence of that as a basis to collect the money to have a proper market of buying and selling of the vote. What has happened? Are we going to be ready to ensure that the kind of access to such technology is taken away and as it is, this should be the case in every polling unit, that nowhere in the polling unit of this country would anybody be close enough to the person who is voting as to know that they have voted for you or your party and then collect money from you? So, there are some basic technical issues that can be done and they need until we see evidence of those things being done, we all must keep calling out INEC to do right things.
Do you think the INEC chairman has the credibility to deliver in 2019?
With the training and capacity of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, there is no reason why he should fail in conducting a free, fair and transparent 2019 election. The Osun and Ekiti elections have become signpost of what could go wrong in 2019, so there is no reason why a well-trained person would not take the lessons of those elections and prepare to give us an election, a national election that would meet the global test of well conducted election.
There are indications that Nigerians definitely are in need of alternative party away from APC and PDP. What are the plans to position your party as the credible alternative?
The key things of our party that we are saying unlike these other entities, we feel embarrassed that Nigeria has overtaken India as the world capital of extreme poverty and for that we want to tackle poverty in the way that the Chinese faced it and were able to tackle it. The Chinese faced poverty of hundreds of millions of their citizen and the way they did it was to run good economy that made the private sector the engine of economic growth and development in an inclusive way and they did that over the years. The right policies, the right institutions, the right focus of priority are in health, education, in basic human development, so that they invested in their people and then they did investment in critical infrastructures and when they did that, their economy began to grow double digits and as it grew over a period of nearly thirty years unbroken, double digit growth, they pulled their people out of poverty. Today 700million Chinese have been pulled out of poverty for decades. We have gone in reverse, at some point, our population that were poor was at 28million in the 90s and then we have grown in size until we are talking about 87million of Nigerian living on below $1 per day. Our government is going to run an economy, a market friendly economy, a private sector-based economy that will grow and lift at least 80millions Nigerians out of poverty.
How do you intend to achieve this in Nigeria?
Our emphasis is on economic development through human development. So, education is our new oil and human capital is our new economy so, it means that when you look at the kind of root and branch reforms that we are going to pursue in education, health, in those sectors that matters for human resilience, environment, water sanitation, it just embodies what it takes to have productive citizens who have the knowledge to scale the resilience, the adaptive capability to be able to solve the problems in their society. The progress that it brings is definitely a different direction from what our normal political parties like, they care about oil prices. All they do is as long as oil is doing well; they believe that the country is fine. What did they contribute to oil prices increasing, nothing? So, when you really look at it you say what is your contribution to the development process, it is nothing other than to look at it as an opportunity to make plenty of money. We want to change that discussion. Quote
With the training and capacity of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, there is no reason why he should fail in conducting a free, fair and transparent 2019 election. The Osun and Ekiti elections have become signpost of what could go wrong in 2019, so there is no reason why a well-trained person would not take the lessons of those elections and prepare to give us an election, a national election that would meet the global test of well conducted election.
What is your view of President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to assent to the amended 2018 Electoral bill?
I think there is nothing noble about the President not signing the 2018 electoral bill into law. Absolutely, there is nothing noble about it. I think the President owes Nigerians a better explanation and I don’t think the explanation will even do it. The best explanation that the President can do now is to sign the bill into an act. The President cannot be seen as imperiling the 2019 election because that is what will happen if he does not sign the bill into an act. The electoral integrity of 2019 is dependent on how quickly the President assents that bill into an act. We as a party, I as a candidate will make sure that we don’t stop insisting that the President must do what he should do. The President should not allow his personal interest to get in the way of the collective interest of Nigerians. Our democracy is going to clock 20years in 2019; he doesn’t want to be the one who mars our democracy. He should sign that bill into an act immediately.
What are your fears in him not signing the bill? I think the President is probably afraid of at least two provisions that may likely worry him in the bill. First, this government don’t want the provision on the card reader. The card reader is the solution to electoral shenanigans. And I don’t think that this APC government wants it. The second part of it is that there is a provision in the bill that gives the rules of INEC the equivalence of provisions of the act. I don’t think they want that. And frankly speaking, INEC needs those kinds of powers in order to be very quick in responding to some of the challenges as they happen. So the rules are that INEC cannot be outside of the legal frame work. So, what is it then that stands in the way? The last time we were told that the National Assembly and the President’s people, especially those who work on his behalf, they couldn’t detect the errors at that time…..no, I don’t think Nigerians are fools, the President cannot fool anybody. It is clear that this government does not want improvement in the conduct of our elections. The same government was comfortable to see election in Ekiti and Osun being a disgrace to our country, where basically there was a civilian coup against our democracy in what happened in Ekiti and Osun. Our whole electoral process is now tradable, where the seller and the buyer aided by abuse of certain institution like the police and the military coming together to undermine our democracy. The citizens will not accept it. It will not happen. 2019 elections must hold and it must be transparent, free and fair. That is the legitimacy that the Nigerian people will confer on those who will win the elections. Do you support the National Assembly to go ahead to veto the President on the bill, if he insists on not signing it?
It may have to come to that. It will be unfortunate for the President. I recall when the President was newly elected and an interviewer asked me that “what word will you have for the president as somebody who has been a military dictator and now an elected president?” and I simply said to him that democracy is not military rule. In democracy such acts will not work and the President will learn very clearly that history will place him in an ignoble position if he does not sign this bill and make progress on our democratic experience.
Are you supporting calls for INEC to start prosecuting vote buyers? What I am saying is that those INEC, Nigerian police, the Federal Government itself, other establishments that are associated with election activities are simply not interested in addressing this impunity that is taking a foot hold in our democratic process. We can’t accept that. So, my point is that the chairman of INEC has a responsibility that is bigger than any other thing that we have known because under this particular management we saw the Ekiti and Osun, and this are actions that are directly of his own remit. The police have a role to play in this, the INEC law already says that vote buying is an offence. So why is it that the offenders were unpunished? The INEC cannot be the ones punishing people, that is not its own mandate, but it has to be the one making this a major issue because it undermines electoral integrity. It means that you are confirming legitimacy to people who haven’t won the election but bought the elections, we can’t do that. So I am opened to the idea that he needs to remember what history record for him and he has a training to be able to solve this problem. How do you suggest this problem be solved?
One major issue for instance, is that basic solution of ensuring that people don’t have the opportunity to create their vote by taking photographs of who they have voted for and be able to use the evidence of that as a basis to collect the money to have a proper market of buying and selling of the vote. What has happened? Are we going to be ready to ensure that the kind of access to such technology is taken away and as it is, this should be the case in every polling unit, that nowhere in the polling unit of this country would anybody be close enough to the person who is voting as to know that they have voted for you or your party and then collect money from you? So, there are some basic technical issues that can be done and they need until we see evidence of those things being done, we all must keep calling out INEC to do right things.
Do you think the INEC chairman has the credibility to deliver in 2019?
With the training and capacity of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, there is no reason why he should fail in conducting a free, fair and transparent 2019 election. The Osun and Ekiti elections have become signpost of what could go wrong in 2019, so there is no reason why a well-trained person would not take the lessons of those elections and prepare to give us an election, a national election that would meet the global test of well conducted election.
There are indications that Nigerians definitely are in need of alternative party away from APC and PDP. What are the plans to position your party as the credible alternative?
The key things of our party that we are saying unlike these other entities, we feel embarrassed that Nigeria has overtaken India as the world capital of extreme poverty and for that we want to tackle poverty in the way that the Chinese faced it and were able to tackle it. The Chinese faced poverty of hundreds of millions of their citizen and the way they did it was to run good economy that made the private sector the engine of economic growth and development in an inclusive way and they did that over the years. The right policies, the right institutions, the right focus of priority are in health, education, in basic human development, so that they invested in their people and then they did investment in critical infrastructures and when they did that, their economy began to grow double digits and as it grew over a period of nearly thirty years unbroken, double digit growth, they pulled their people out of poverty. Today 700million Chinese have been pulled out of poverty for decades. We have gone in reverse, at some point, our population that were poor was at 28million in the 90s and then we have grown in size until we are talking about 87million of Nigerian living on below $1 per day. Our government is going to run an economy, a market friendly economy, a private sector-based economy that will grow and lift at least 80millions Nigerians out of poverty.
How do you intend to achieve this in Nigeria?
Our emphasis is on economic development through human development. So, education is our new oil and human capital is our new economy so, it means that when you look at the kind of root and branch reforms that we are going to pursue in education, health, in those sectors that matters for human resilience, environment, water sanitation, it just embodies what it takes to have productive citizens who have the knowledge to scale the resilience, the adaptive capability to be able to solve the problems in their society. The progress that it brings is definitely a different direction from what our normal political parties like, they care about oil prices. All they do is as long as oil is doing well; they believe that the country is fine. What did they contribute to oil prices increasing, nothing? So, when you really look at it you say what is your contribution to the development process, it is nothing other than to look at it as an opportunity to make plenty of money. We want to change that discussion. Quote
With the training and capacity of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, there is no reason why he should fail in conducting a free, fair and transparent 2019 election. The Osun and Ekiti elections have become signpost of what could go wrong in 2019, so there is no reason why a well-trained person would not take the lessons of those elections and prepare to give us an election, a national election that would meet the global test of well conducted election.
