From Kenny Ashaka
A member of the 2014 National Conference and former President of the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, Festus Okoye has launched a virulent attack on Northern delegates to the conference, describing them as personalities who were at the confab to seek favours.
In this interview in Kaduna, Okoye who represented the civil society groups and organizations at the Conference wondered why the Northern delegates started complaining about the legal validity of the confab and representation, saying: “nobody chose them. It was the government in power that chose them; so they should have declined participation. But having participated they no longer have the locus standi to question the issue of representation in a conference they participated in, in a conference where they chaired committees, in a conference where they signed reports of committees and in a conference where they signed the final report without complaining.”
A member of the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral reforms Committee, Okoye also took a look at the divisive unpleasant split in political parties, the fraudulent things politicians do during elections and concluded that the 2019 general elections may end in sorrow if something drastic and fundamentally different was not done about the reformation of the electoral processes.
He spoke about the 2015 election, describing it as not free, fair and transparent because a situation where smart card readers were jettisoned in some communities and constituencies made it so.
You have a wide range of experience when it comes to election monitoring. You were also a member of the Justice Muhammed Uwais panel that looked into our electoral system and offered recommendations. Why is that Nigerian electorate cannot change or retain leaders through the electoral processes?
The electoral process is a circle. It is also a chain. A break in the entire chain affects the electoral circle. I will tell you this. One, the electoral process involves some critical stakeholders. It involves the executive branch of government, legislature, judiciary, electoral management body, civil society groups and organizations, mass media and security agencies. Any break in this particular chain affects the entire electoral process. One of the biggest challenges we have is that the political elite, up till today, really do not believe in the electoral process. They still believe that they can manipulate and wangle their way to power. That is why we have had a very serious distortion of our electoral process. Now, at the Electoral Reforms Committee, otherwise known as the Uwais Committee, we found out that while the ordinary people, as I have pointed out, have accepted democracy and the electoral process and accepted the concept of leadership change through the ballot box, the political elite, up till today, have not accepted that. That is why you have situations where our elections have turned into wars. Let me give you a clear example. One; when the ordinary people of this country go to the polling station as early as 5:am on election day so that they can have a vantage position and vote as early as possible and go home, after exercising their democratic franchise, the political elite in the different parties will lead political thugs to go and carry the ballot boxes or lead political thugs to smash everything that was used in the election or they will wait for the ordinary people to finish their voting and they will go and re-write the votes and return results that are fraudulent and not backed by the votes of the people.
We have attempted to correct some of these anomalies. You will remember we have on many occasions sat at conferences, the Constituent Assembly, National Constitutional Conference and National Conference levels to sort out all these problems. Yet the results of these Conferences are not manifesting. What do you think is the problem?
It is not that the results are not manifesting. One, if you look at the report of the Electoral Reforms Committee which was set up by Yar’Adua in 2007 and at the end of the day we submitted our report in 2008. The political elite did not have the political will to see through the report of that committee and that is why so many things were bungled. Let me give you an example. We recommended that the Independent National Electoral Commission should be unbundled so that they can concentrate fully and fundamentally on organizing and supervising elections. To that particular extent, we recommended the establishment of Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission to deal with issues relating to political parties, registration, finances, monitoring of political party primaries and conventions. Till today, that particular recommendation has not been implemented.
Who are those to unbundle INEC? Is it not the government and those you refer to as political elite?
That’s the point. Good recommendations have been made, but these recommendations that will elevate our electoral process have been rejected by government.
That’s the question I am asking. Is it the government or political elite?
It’s both of them. Just a minute, I will give you an example. Secondly, we also recommended that we should establish an Electoral Offences Commission to break the circle of electoral impunity in this country. Till today, they have refused to implement that particular recommendation. We also recommended the establishment of Constituency Delineation Commission. Till today, we don’t have a Constituency Delineation Commission and based on that we have constituencies that are bloated and those that have shrunk and nobody is doing anything about it. We also recommended that our constitution should be amended to prevent this nonsensical nonsense of cross carpeting, to prevent any person from cross carpeting for whatever reason. If you have been elected by your political party, remain with it. The political elite have refused to implement it. And these people who have refused to implement this report cut across all the political parties. Those in government believe that they got there through fraud and that fraud must be retained. Those outside believe that if the recommendations are implemented they will also not engage in fraud in other to supplant those in power. Both those in government and political elite out of government are speaking with one voice in relation to keeping our electoral process where it is. So, it is the ordinary people that want electoral reforms. It is the professional groups and associations that want electoral reforms. It is the civil society groups and organizations that want electoral reforms. But those who have benefitted before and have been shoved aside and those who also want to benefit and have not had opportunity to benefit it seems to me that all of them are agreed that they can only get to power through fraud and fraudulent means and so they do not want any reform or any fundamental amendment to our electoral framework to guarantee free, fair and transparent elections.
You have several years of election monitoring behind you having been a one-time President of the Transition Monitoring Group. Tell us some of the fraudulent things that politicians do during elections.
Let me start with the elections that we have just had. One, during the 2015 elections, some of the political parties did not believe that the introduction of the smart card reader was going to be a reality. Some of them even went to the extent of attempting to clone the smart card readers and the permanent voter’s card. Two, there were so many constituencies where the political elite engineered that the smart card readers should not be used. They threw away the smart card readers and used the Incidence Forms only. So you have a situation where the smart card reader recorded only five voters and then there were 1,000 voters in the Incidence Form because they did not want to use the smart card readers. Three, we had so many constituencies where they deliberately decided that the smart card readers will not see the light of the day. So they threw away the smart card readers and resorted to the old ways of doing things. We also had situations where political thugs sealed constituencies and communities and made sure nobody got in. We had situations where electoral officers, presiding officers, supervisory presiding officers were hijacked and killed and electoral materials snatched from them. These are fraudulent things that the political elite have been perpetrating. Unfortunately, some of them got the tacit support of the Army and Police in perpetrating electoral fraud. Some of them were able to buy off electoral officers, presiding officers and top management staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission in these fraudulent moves. So you can see we have had situations where ballot boxes and papers have been snatched. That one is a common occurrence; fraudulent results have been returned; constituencies being sealed off by political thugs is a common occurrence. The Police and the Army have also connived in making sure that the votes of the people do not count. So we are still having very serious problems with our electoral process. Unfortunately, very unfortunately, there has not been any marked deviation from what we had when PDP was in power and when this present APC government is in power. What that means is that unless we do something drastic and fundamentally different, the 2019 elections will come to grief.
With your description of how the smart card readers were jettisoned in some constituencies and communities, would you, in all good conscience, describe the 2015 elections as credible, free and fair?
The smart card reader was a marked improvement in our electoral process and there was also an improvement in electoral integrity during the 2015 election. I will not, in good conscience describe the 2015 elections as free, fair and transparent. I will rather say that the 2015 election was a marked improvement in terms of the way we organize elections and also in terms of electoral integrity. Yes, the smart card reader was abused in so many constituencies, but in so many constituencies it also guaranteed electoral integrity. People voted in some of these constituencies where they never voted before and believed that their votes counted. The issue with the 2015 elections and the smart card reader was that the political elite have not fully understood the import and the implications of the smart card reader. So to that particular extent, some of them allowed the smart card reader to work and some of them undermined the smart card readers. It was only when we got to the Election Petitions Tribunal that we understood the import of the smart card readers. The Supreme Court has said emphatically that the smart card reader is not a voting machine; that the smart card reader is an accreditation mechanism put together by INEC to authenticate and verify that the holder of the permanent voter’s card is the genuine owner of the card; that the smart card reader is the property of INEC, not a cloned one and that it prevents multiple voting in terms of the fact that it captures your biometrics in the elections and guarantees some level of integrity in the accreditation process and it stops there. So in terms of trying to prove over-voting in an election, you cannot use the report from the smart card reader alone to prove over-voting or fraud in an election. You must still refer to the voter’s register used in an election because it is the base of the electoral process. So the point I am trying to make is that in 2015 the political elite had not perfected the mechanism on how to undermine the smart card reader. But they perfected it during the Rivers State election and also in Edo governorship election. They realized that in terms of proving over-voting, the smart card reader is not the ultimate, that the voter’s register is the ultimate. It is also that in terms of proving over-voting you must carry the result from the smart card reader and the results from the Incidence Form for that particular purpose. So what the National Assembly has done in the Senate amendment that is not yet law is that the Senate in their amendment to section 49 of the Electoral Act has said that if in the process of accreditation the smart card reader fails in terms of 10 percent of the voters, the election must be stopped and re-conducted. In other words if you have more than 10 percent of the registered voters not going through the smart card reader but going through the Incidence Forms that the election should be stopped and re-conducted.
It would seem that the smart card reader is an albatross in the electoral process in the light of the Supreme Court judgement
No. It is not an albatross. The smart card reader is what it is. It is the smart card reader that reads the permanent voter’s card in other to authenticate that the person holding it is the owner. In the light of the Supreme Court judgement what ha s happened was that the smart card reader was introduced into the electoral process without a consequential amendment to section 49 of the Electoral Act. That is what the Senate and the House of Representatives are trying to do now in order to bring the smart card reader into the electoral process and make it part of the law. Before, it was not part of the law. The Supreme Court agreed that it was a very good innovation. The Supreme Court has affirmed that the smart card reader is a good innovation that was smartly and creatively introduced into the electoral process to authenticate the biometrics of voters who come to vote and to prevent multiple accreditation and voting. To that particular extent it is a very good innovation. But I tell you that technology does not on its own guarantee the integrity of the electoral process. It is the actions and inactions of the critical stakeholders in the electoral process that guarantee the integrity of the electoral process. Our electoral process can still be free, fair and transparent without the use of smart card readers and the use of electronic voting machine if the political elite agree to play by the rules. If the political elite refuse to play by the rules of the game no matter the type of technology you introduce they will find ways and means of undermining it.
Let’s go to the last National Conference. Arguments arising from the convention of that conference are becoming controversial. The conference delegates from the North recently threatened anarchy and chaos in case the final report of the conference undergoes due process to form part of Nigeria’s constitution. The delegates also claimed that the report of the conference is of questionable legal validity and that the decisions at the conference were arrived at by undemocratic means. You were a member of the conference. What is your response?
Yes I was a member. Now, let me say this: that those who addressed that conference were the movers and shakers of that conference
When you say movers and shakers, what do you mean?
They were key actors in all the committees of the National Conference and all the decisions that were taken at the National Conference. Two, Kumaila sat on my left at the National Conference and he was the leader of the Northern delegates. Thirdly, the National Conference broke into 21 sub-committees. No sub-committee returned a minority report. All the sub-committees turned in consensus reports. The committee on Religious Matters turned in a consensus report. The committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters turned in a consensus report. The only aspect of the Political Parties and Electoral Matters Committee that was rejected was the aspect where we asked for the reform of States Independent Electoral Commission. But the plenary rejected it and said they should be scrapped. The Political Parties and Electoral Matters Committee had two co-chair, distinguished Senator Ken Nnamani and Distinguished Senator Iyorchia Ayu. They chaired the committee. I was a member of that particular committee. I was initially posted to the committee on environment before I was re-posted to the committee on political parties and electoral matters. It is possible that the motive for the establishment of the 2014 National Conference might not be altruistic, but the National Conference Committee reports are of national importance and national validity. Go and look at those reports. You will see solid recommendations. If this government looks at the report of this National Conference this issue of herders-farmers clashes would have been dealt with because despite all the challenges of the 2014 National Conference we made solid recommendations on how to deal with the herders-farmers clashes in terms of grazing reserves and so on. Go and look at the Political Parties and Electoral Matters Committee and then look at the Ken Nnamani report on this Constitutional and Electoral Report that has just been submitted; you will see that it is just the same thing. The 2014 National Conference recommended the establishment of a Political Party’s Registration and Electoral offences Commission, the Nnamani Committee on Electoral Reforms that was established by this government recommended the same thing. The 2014 National Conference recommended that there should be no cross-carpeting for whatever reason, the Nnamani Committee also recommended it. Almost all the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference were also recommended by the Nnamani Committee.
So what is the big deal? So I believe that whether the 2014 National Conference is of dubious legal validity or not, the government should look at the report and take whatever it wants to take and drop the rest that it doesn’t want. That is what a rational government should do. You cannot just because you do not like the way it was established carry the entire thing and put into the dust bin. Take some of these recommendations and use them to move the country towards a different direction. The point I am making is that those people who are now threatening fire and brimstone over the report of the National Conference participated in all the committees of the National Conference, signed the reports of all the committees of the National Conference, headed the committees of the National Conference. Coomasie headed one of the committees of the National Conference. So how can they now turn round after they have turned in reports from their committees based on consensus to now say those reports which they authored with their hands, which they signed without compulsion that if it is implemented there will be fire and brimstone. It doesn’t make sense to me. It shows lack of integrity.
Now let us look at their second claim that the North was not adequately represented at the conference.
That came up at the National Conference. For me, in terms of representation the criteria used by the government, in terms of selecting delegates, were not too clean. But you will also agree with me that all the states of the federation sent delegates to the National Conference. At the plenary we did not vote on anything. The entire reports of the 21 committees were accepted through a process of consensus. The only one where there was some level of dissension was the report relating to derivation and the North-east reports and the time when somebody wanted to introduce what they called modern constitution into the National Conference and we said no our brief was to make recommendations to the government that set us up. The moment we finish those recommendations we hand them over to them. If they want to turn the recommendations into a modern constitution to replace another constitution, it is their ball game. But we were never ever asked to write another constitution. And on that almost all the delegates were on the same page that part of our mandate was not to write a new constitution. When people were talking of a new constitution we said no and the chairman agreed with us and it was overruled.
What do you mean by the process of representation not clean?
What I am saying is that there was no debate relating to how the delegates to the 2014 National Conference should be chosen. I was chosen as a representative of the civil society groups and organizations. Civil Society groups and Organizations did not hold a meeting to say who should represent us or agreed that Festus Okoye should represent us. No. The government made up its mind that I should be part of the delegates that should represent civil society groups and organizations. So myself, Olisa Agbakoba, four of us were chosen to represent civil society groups from the south-east and four each to represent the civil society groups and organizations from other geo-political zones. But it was government that did the selection. In terms of the civil society representation there was no dissension because most of the leaders of the civil society groups were chosen. Femi Falana was there. I was there and others. Yinka Odumakin was there. The Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Organization was also chosen. The representation from civil society groups and organizations was okay. But you know that was it the ACN or APC did not send representation. But all the states controlled by them sent representatives to the conference. So I think that while the representation had problems, those who participated and are now saying that representation had a problem should have declined participation on grounds of representation. Nobody chose them. It was the government in power that chose them; so they should have declined participation. But having participated they no longer have the locus standi to question the issue of representation in a conference they participated in, in a conference where they chaired committees, in a conference where they signed reports of committees and in a conference where they signed the final report without complaining. Their complaint is belated, politically motivated and has no merit whatsoever. I believe that if they had made a mistake in participating at the National Conference they should have the courage, the presence of mind to tell the Nigerian people that they made a mistake in participating and accepting their nominations.
Having also participated and claimed all the allowances paid to delegates to the National Conference and also enjoyed the perquisites of office, enjoyed the limelight, granted interviews, affirmed the resolutions of the National Conference then for them to now turn around because a different political party is in power and then because some of them are looking for favours from the new political party in power I don’t think they are being honest and being fair.
I was going to ask you what you think has changed between 2014 and now to warrant this turn around
Let me tell you the truth. Some of them went to the National Conference and were not paying attention to issues of national importance. Most of them only talk when there is a camera in front of them and when the camera faces them. Even when you are discussing issues of political parties and electoral matters, they will begin to praise the government in power because some of them were looking for ministerial and board appointments. So at each opportunity they were praising the government in power rather than looking at the main issues that took us to the National Conference.
So since the government that nominated them to the National Conference is no longer there and they participated in the conference and some of them belonged to the political party in power then, they are now out of power, some of them have been pauperized by the prevailing situation now want to find their way back to this government. I think that this government should not succumb to this cheap blackmail and opportunism.