By Sunday Ani
Former Akwa Ibom Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mike Igini has said for an umpteenth time that no amount of vote buying by any politician or group can change the outcome of the 2023 general election. He also debunked insinuation that anybody could pre-load voters’ names into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), describing it as a blatant lie.
In this television monitored interview recently, Igini spoke on other nagging issues pertaining to the 2023 general elections.
What is your message to Nigerians as they prepare to elect a new set of political leaders as from February 2023?
I want to say to Nigerians that 2023 is around the corner. Giving what has been going on which steps have now been taken to deal with, I think that a moment of despair and great challenges as we have been confronted with is that we must not dissolve into hopelessness but resolve to overcome the problems. And that is why at a moment like this, the only battle of all leaders who mean well for Nigeria is to keep hope alive that by 2023, Nigerians will have opportunity to make a choice of who will be their leaders.
There seems to be renewed attacks on INEC offices across the country in recent times. What does that portend considering the fact that the President has warned that he wouldn’t want excuses having provided enough money for the INEC? As a former REC, do you think that the money provided will be used to replace the destroyed facilities to a point that the election will not be marred by the attacks?
I think the President is very appreciative of the challenges that INEC is going through right now. This is exemplified by the kind of profound statement he made at the Owerri declaration, where he actually charged all the security agencies in the country to stand tall and mighty in the defence of democratic values. I was in that conference. The attacks are not new, so they are not surprising, but what is surprising which is a shame to us as a people, and as a country, is that over the years, we failed to stop such ugly trend. For decades, this has been the attitude ranging from 2011 to 2003 and 2007. Remember that in 2006 when we were preparing for the 2007 election, we witnessed several attacks, even in the INEC office Abuja where the ICT office was burnt down. A truck load of explosives was driven into the INEC office in Abuja; that was a registered truck driven by a human being but we could not get the culprits to book. I think the greatest shame to all of us which is the reason we must take this challenge is that for too long we have allowed non-legitimized actors or extra constitutional actors to undermine and destroy public institutions; that is where we are.
Politicians appear to be very desperate as we approach the 2023 elections; how can we as Nigerians deal with such a situation?
Let me tell you some of the things that perhaps are responsible for the kind of desperation we are witnessing right now. And this is the message from me based on my experience having worked in that institution for 10 years; it is the fact that the political class is clearly desperate at the moment. This is on account of the fact that in the 2002 Electoral Act, INEC innovations that have been developed to deal with historical challenges of service delivery are such that election rigging is now made difficult if not impossible. All the loopholes that are in the statutes and INEC procedures have all been blocked and that is why, of course, you see what is happening in the South East; it is clear that the elite are desperate. Even though we see our weakness in other places across the country but I think that the step being taken right now is in the right direction because their fear is that today, you cannot use the incidence form. The BVAS has come to stay. Result upload is now the new sheriff in town. As a result, people who don’t know what to do are clearly the ones trying to instigate all these things going on, but shamefully and regrettably for them, and the good news for Nigerian people is that no matter what anybody does, the Nigerian people from Abia State by way of alphabetical order as it is done in INEC, to Zamfara State, will sing a new song by 2023 using their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). That is why we call on all eligible Nigerians to go and collect their PVCs now. The misfortune of a few elite will no longer be the misfortune of the entire people of this country. Everything rises and falls with leadership. If you get the leadership question right, the speed with which Nigeria will attain greatness will be like the speed of the rockets. In every society, we must recognise and be realistic to know that there are forces for progress and forces for retrogression. In fact, the book, “Open society and its Enemies,” clearly shows that for every effort to make progress for our country, there are people who, perhaps, very few but powerful on account of what they have benefited to the detriment of the majority, will want the status quo ante to be maintained, but unfortunately for them, the current Electoral Act, the INEC innovations and procedures that have been used to conduct 105 elections, have taken power from the few people into the hands of the Nigerian people. Where we are now is how Nigeria people want to use this power that has been given to them, which must come by way of having PVC, and that is why some people are hanging loosely around the court, trying to find a way to file a suit to stop the use of BVAS. That will not work and as I have said, we want to see that colleague of ours in the bench, who will seek for such a process to give an order that BVAS will not be used and results should not be uploaded. We shall be waiting for that because as we have known from our history, it will start by the political class and end up in the judiciary. That is why the judiciary eventually in all the terrible things we have had will end up being a dumping ground where when we thought that the good time has come, we end up being disappointed. This will never be the portion of Nigerians in 2023. For me, while thanking the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for the issuance of pre election practice direction, I think it is very important for the CJ of the Federal High Court to as quickly as possible, remind all the divisions of the court because as at last Thursday, I understand that some individuals under the name, International Society for Civil Liberty and Rule of Law, have gone to the Federal High Court seeking order for the stoppage for the INEC statutory backed slogan ‘No PVC, no voting,’ which is contained in Section 47. I want to believe; I don’t want to go into motive here, that it is a public interest driven action that was taken to the Federal High Court seeking interpretation. I believe that if the words in the statute are clear, they may not require other interpretation but to be seeking that that should not happen is not possible because that is the provision of the law. I must point out the danger of saying that people can go to the polling units without their PVCs on account of the fact that their names will be on the soft copy on the electronic format of BVAS, therefore people who have not collected their PVCs should go to the polling units. No, that is a recipe for chaos and violence at the polling units. That is another way of taking power back to the presiding officer under section 49 of the old Electoral Act that has been repealed because the danger is that politicians will arrange and organize thugs to go to the polling units and begin to demand from the presiding officers that their names are on the BVAS and that they must be allowed to have ballot papers and vote. No, we must not do that. Section 49 is clear and that is that anybody intending to vote, to admit such a person in the polling unit arena, such a person must have his/her PVC. If you do otherwise, you are giving another power to the presiding officer. Therefore, the law is clear. Every provision of the Act is designed to cure the mischief of the past. INEC has reformed so well that today we have the Act and the procedures. I think my call for Mr. President is that beyond the resources that have been given to the INEC, the issues that are now defining the environment which are clearly the issues of security are matters within the domain of the president and that is why the statement to the police that they must remain apolitical, fair and loyal to democratic values in the countdown to the 2023 election is very profound. And I will encourage him to continue to do that because the greatest legacy that the president will be remembered for, in fact any president in his final term in office, is not about his achievement in other sectors of our national life but he will be judged more around the world by the kind of election that was conducted when he was leaving office by the Election Management Body (EMB) not the president because he belongs to a political party. He must create an enabling environment where the electoral umpire, the EMB that is poised to take our electoral system to a different level will be able to achieve that so that by 2023, the Nigerian people will be able to sing a new song, because election is the bedrock of any democracy. Those who fail to drink from the well of knowledge contained in the Electoral Act, INEC processes and procedures, will perhaps die of taste in the desert of ignorance; that is my advice to politicians. Go and campaign; no more rigging because all the loopholes have been blocked. There is nothing you can do anymore; Nigerians want to meet you in the Philippi and that is on the February 25 for the presidential and National Assembly and two weeks later, we will be having the governorship elections around the country. This is what is ahead of Nigerians. So, Nigeria people should lift up your eyes because hope is reborn in them. They should never despair or dissolve into the sphere of hopelessness because power is back to them.
What are your views on the recent increase in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) withdrawal limit?
It is unfortunate that we are in a country where anything that appears to favour the Nigerian people is not sustained at all. In fact, I am so disappointed that the withdrawal limit has been increased; very disappointed from the point of view the elections beyond other ramifications that have to do with the economy. I must tell you that the deception by the elites of our country has been shown again. The whole argument about withdrawal limit was hinged on the ordinary people. I never heard any argument that this will affect the big men. They never made that argument; they lied in the name of the ordinary people. Now the limit has been increased to N500, 000 per week, so people can now go and take as much money as possible for the purpose of vote buying. For me, given my experience, the CBN policy led by Godwin Emefiele is one that I welcome wholeheartedly. I am particularly for a cashless Election Day policy. And that withdrawal limit is actually supposed to help us to deal with what has assumed the level of a menace, vote buying, which constitutes the devaluation in the bout as the best means in the expression of the people in a democracy but now they have gone ahead to increase it. Another worry I have, without prejudice to any other information that has not been put out there, is that the wrong signal has been given to the whole nation about the fact that the apex institution is financing terrorism. Do you know the implication of that to investment decision and even to election itself?
I am very worried about that, but quite frankly, I feel very disappointed that the withdrawal limit has been increased. But in any case, let us see how that will work. It is now left for the various security agencies particularly the financial security agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and even the Nigeria Police itself which is going to be the leading agency, to ensure that we deal with the issue of vote buying, which has assumed the level of a menace. But in any case, let me inform Nigerians that no amount of vote buying will change what will happen in 2023. In the various elections that have been conducted using this same procedure, they spent money but the money never reflected in the outcome of the elections. In fact, general election is not primary election where they spend dollars and all kinds of money. We want to see how they are going to spend money this time around. This is what is called general election. The citizens of this country want to exercise their office, and on that day, they won’t go to the INEC office or any political party office. The office of the citizens on Election Day is the polling units and that is where they are going to troop to. And mark it, this election is going to be a watershed; it is going to record the highest level of participation because the awareness we have seen is unparalleled. So, no amount of vote buying will help anybody. Frankly, as somebody who is so concerned about the wrong deployment of the use of money, I have been fully in support of the withdrawal limit policy; that is a policy that must be implemented. Why is it that when we have a policy we don’t even implement it first before we amend or jettison it? I thought that we should have allowed the policy to stay at least for the period of this election. From the CBN point of view, they might be carrying out their monetary policy but clearly for us, we have seen the unintended consequence of the policy which is on a positive note on the part of election in our country that the will of the people must not be bought. In fact, a vote is a public gold; it is the citizens’ franchise to participate in collective decision making, and this is what they are trying to torpedo, but regrettably and unfortunately for them, the system that is in place has no business to do with that.
What do you have to say about the story making the rounds that voters’ names can be pre-loaded into the BVAS?
Just take a look at the four or five governorship elections that were conducted; all these stories about pre-loading of BVAS are all lies. Politicians are spending money recklessly. Some fraudsters who are parading themselves as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts are deceiving them that there is something they call pre-loading; there is nothing like pre-loading of BVAS. It is like saying that what used to happen before when election was like an organized crime where ballot boxes would be snatched, you go to somewhere, thumbprint, come back and it is announced, is still possible. That is not happening anymore. Have you forgotten that that is how it used to be in the past? All those are things of the past. I will advise politicians to go and settle down because where INEC is now and what the security is supposed to be doing now is fine-tuning what is called implementation strategy; that is where we are right now not what some politicians are still doing now. People are still going to court at this point trying to use the court to do substitution of candidate; substitution is over. There is timeline to every stage in election and that is why my call is to my constituency, the judiciary. Judges should be aware that of the entire 153 provisions in the Electoral Act, INEC made a total of 91 out of which 48 was accepted. Every provision was proposed to deal with the mistakes of the past. In fact, all the jurisprudence that was based on the repealed 2023 election is all over; what we have now is a new law completely. It has to be understood and that is why my call again to the CJ now that all matters of pre-election will have to go to the Federal High Court is that lawyers should take note of rule No 4 of the 2022 pre-election practice direction issued by the CJ sub-rule 4, 8, 1 & 2 to the effect that any suit that will have implication for the national election as it relates to or pertains to issued guidelines of INEC and the 2022 Electoral Act, must and should be filed according to the practice direction in Abuja, so that the CJ will be able to see such a matter. We don’t want a last minute, eleventh hour surprise to this country. So, I am worried that people are still hanging around court registry loosely across the country to find a way to file a process to stop the use of BVAS. In fact, my call is on the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) that the lawyer that filed the suit in Imo State to stop the use of BVAS and upload of result for those untenable reasons that he adduced; that the NBA should have invited the lawyer because the Supreme Court number contained in the stamp of that lawyer is contained in that process. My worry is in my constituency. That is where I have my worry because there is no guarantee of justice except the personality of the judge. The ideological orientation of a judge is so important, and that is why the CJN is being celebrated and praised to high heaven for being very strict on the matter that was brought before him in respect of the CBN Governor and how he dealt with it. How many of our judges will do that? We had Justice Ikpeme who on the eve of election did what he did and several courts in different jurisdictions were given several orders. I am very worried about that particularly now. Despite the fact that the period for substitution is closed, and the only window left is a case of death, people are still making efforts to substitute. Last week, a senior advocate called me to seek my opinion on this matter and he was very convinced that at this point in time, there is no room for that, but the same politician has gone to another lawyer and they are going to file the matter in court, trying to use the court to change the timetable by substituting somebody to another political party where as the only window open now is a case of death and we don’t pray for that, though we don’t have control over that. That is where we are now.