By: Attorney Franklin Otorofani
Mature societies are defined by the stability of governmental institutions, policies and functionaries. Conversely, immature societies are notorious for policy summersaults, institutional instability, and high personnel turnover rates at the highest levels of administration. Nigeria fits snugly into the above description. She is the epitome of impermanence and instability and therefore the concomitant absence of development. There is a direct link between political and therefore institutional instability and underdevelopment. The country Nigeria has acquired notoriety not only for abrupt policy summersaults, but also institutional and personnel changes, usually at the most destabilizing of times! High level political appointees are ousted while on official duties abroad representing Nigeria and the government that just humiliated them out of office without notice! Pray, who would die or stick out his neck for such a country? Is it any wonder that ‘patriotism’ is the last word on the lips of Nigerian political appointees, and indeed, Nigerians in general?
It’s for the foregoing reasons that the author fervently calls on all well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Yar’Adua administration to break the pernicious cycle of policy summersaults and project abandonment in order to move the nation forward. The nation makes no progress whatsoever with what appears to have metamorphosed into a policy of ‘destroy and rebuild’ that has animated our development agenda over the decades, which more than anything else, has been responsible for the nation’s stunted growth and development. And one area to begin this cyclical break is no other than INEC and its Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu.
In the aftermath of the results of the general elections the drumbeat of calls for Iwu’s resignation and/or removal reached its crescendo after the presidential election. Sore losers, notably Abubakar Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of his one-man party, AC, and Buhari, who contested under the platform of the ANPP, strenuously sought to make Iwu and INEC their scapegoats. Maurice Iwu, a patriotic Nigerian with an uncommon commitment to advancing our electoral processes, became the bogeyman who must be sacrificed to appease electoral failures. With raw emotions fueled by the misguided reports by foreign election monitors, reaching boiling points, Iwu was strenuously portrayed more as the PDP Chairman than that of an independent electoral commission. While the Iwu bashing lasted gullible Nigerians were easily mislead and got carried away with Atiku and AC inspired anti-Iwu rhetoric. The overturn of a couple gubernatorial elections, even though more on technicality than on substantive issues, only served to pour fuel on the raging anti-Iwu inferno. It took the decisive decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to de-oxygenate the inferno that could have engulfed the nation and reduce it to ashes.
Yet, the call for Iwu’s ouster, though somewhat now muted, has not completely ceased. Failed politicians are not banking on Yar’Adua to assuage their bruised egos with Iwu ouster in his much talked about cabinet reshuffle exercise as if Iwu is Yar’Adua’s minister. For the avoidance of doubt Iwu was appointed for a term certain with all the security of tenure that goes with it. That said, it’s fair to say that the tide of public opinion has changed somewhat, thanks to the Court of Appeal decision. If the second highest judicial authority in the land that had ruled against INEC in the past could find that the presidential election was conducted in ‘substantial compliance’ with the electoral law and the constitution, there was no basis to discredit Iwu. On the contrary the man who achieved the impossible for the nation (where all his predecessors failed) deserves nothing short of a medal.
Iwu has so far weathered the storm and I would give credit to President Yar’Adua and other patriotic Nigerians who stood by him through thick and thin, for not listening to the voices of retrogression advancing their parochial agenda in disguise. The case has been fought and won in court on the basis of facts presented and the applicable law before a panel of independent Justices, not Ahmadu Ali or OBJ-appointed panel. And there was more good news for Iwu and INEC still: Gubernatorial election re-runs ordered by tribunals generally acclaimed even by Atiku himself as free and fair and therefore credible, returned the same PDP governors whose prior elections were condemned by the opposition as PDP’s fraudulent impositions allegedly with Iwu’s connivance. These credible gubernatorial re-runs conducted by Iwu, which returned the same governors previously declared as winners proved one and only one point that was already judicially reaffirmed: that is, the general, in particular, presidential and gubernatorial elections, were conducted in ‘substantial compliance’ with the electoral laws of the land and therefore credible before the laws of the land. Nigerians must respect judicial decisions even if they disagree with them. As such those still publicly claiming that Yar’Adua was imposed on the nation or that the presidential election was stolen even in the face of the judicial pronouncement are doing great disservice to the nation in general and the judiciary in particular. They cannot therefore claim to be democrats when they so treat judicial decisions with contempt.
The same results would be returned were the elections to be conducted by God Himself or his angels from heaven and Atiku and Buhari would still complain of rigging! However, to hold that the elections were conducted in substantial compliance with the electoral law is not to say that the elections were flawless, but that whatever flaws there were did not rise to the level of gross or wholesale non-compliance with the electoral law as to render the results a nullity. The problem is not with Iwu but our politicians. We can change INEC Chairs a thousand times but if our politicians do not change, nothing will change.
The trashing of Abubakar Atiku in his own state and even local government area in the Adamawa State gubernatorial re-run has exposed Atiku’s electoral hollowness even in his own backyard. No wonder AC only did well in Lagos where ex-Governor Bola Tinubu held sway. In terms of electoral calculus Tinubu is a whole lot worth more than Atiku and therefore better suited to fly AC’s presidential flag. Atiku is now a liability to AC; not that he was ever an asset in the first place. And as he flees from the US to Dubai in the United Arab Republic (UAR) over the Jefferson case in which he has been cited, it will be well for the AC to strip Atiku of its leadership if it doesn’t want the party to be run from Dubai, which Atiku has made his first country against Nigeria.
With the tide of public opinion turning against Atiku and the AC, now is the time to give Iwu all the support and encouragement to proceed with God’s speed with his reform agenda for the agency. Now is not the time to change a winning team, and I would therefore expect Mr. President to stoutly resist any attempt by pressure groups to undermine the good works Iwu has done with INEC. The Ribadu treatment has no place for Iwu because he has a term certain and his removal can only be carried out with the concurrence of the senate on legally stipulated grounds, not on a presidential whim as happened to Ribadu and Lamorde.
The onerous task of building enduring democratic institutions entails not only democratic continuity but institutional and leadership continuity as well. Iwu has proved his mettle and has been validated and vetted by an independent Judiciary that bluntly refused to visit the sins of our ethically challenged, fraud-prone politicians, on the electoral Czar. And, as the nation awaits the Supreme Court verdict in the appeal before it, all that I’m permitted to say for now is, Mr. President: Let Iwu Be! “…for the sake of institutional growth, solidity, and cohesion.”
INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, must not be sacrificed to appease the gods of electoral failures before and after the Supreme Court verdict, which I humbly predict, will uphold the Appeal Court decision on grounds of law and facts alone as presented at the hearings, not necessarily on the basis of overriding national interests, as some mischief makers would want the world to believe.
And I dare say that if Mr. President will keep his job with a favorable Appeal and Supreme Court decision which in effect, is the ultimate vindication of INEC, then Iwu deserves to keep his too! How about that for equity and fair-play, Mr. President?
Let Iwu Be!!
Franklin Otorofani, Esq. is a Nigerian-Attorney based in the United States
mudiagaone@yahoo.com
Mature societies are defined by the stability of governmental institutions, policies and functionaries. Conversely, immature societies are notorious for policy summersaults, institutional instability, and high personnel turnover rates at the highest levels of administration. Nigeria fits snugly into the above description. She is the epitome of impermanence and instability and therefore the concomitant absence of development. There is a direct link between political and therefore institutional instability and underdevelopment. The country Nigeria has acquired notoriety not only for abrupt policy summersaults, but also institutional and personnel changes, usually at the most destabilizing of times! High level political appointees are ousted while on official duties abroad representing Nigeria and the government that just humiliated them out of office without notice! Pray, who would die or stick out his neck for such a country? Is it any wonder that ‘patriotism’ is the last word on the lips of Nigerian political appointees, and indeed, Nigerians in general?
It’s for the foregoing reasons that the author fervently calls on all well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Yar’Adua administration to break the pernicious cycle of policy summersaults and project abandonment in order to move the nation forward. The nation makes no progress whatsoever with what appears to have metamorphosed into a policy of ‘destroy and rebuild’ that has animated our development agenda over the decades, which more than anything else, has been responsible for the nation’s stunted growth and development. And one area to begin this cyclical break is no other than INEC and its Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu.
In the aftermath of the results of the general elections the drumbeat of calls for Iwu’s resignation and/or removal reached its crescendo after the presidential election. Sore losers, notably Abubakar Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of his one-man party, AC, and Buhari, who contested under the platform of the ANPP, strenuously sought to make Iwu and INEC their scapegoats. Maurice Iwu, a patriotic Nigerian with an uncommon commitment to advancing our electoral processes, became the bogeyman who must be sacrificed to appease electoral failures. With raw emotions fueled by the misguided reports by foreign election monitors, reaching boiling points, Iwu was strenuously portrayed more as the PDP Chairman than that of an independent electoral commission. While the Iwu bashing lasted gullible Nigerians were easily mislead and got carried away with Atiku and AC inspired anti-Iwu rhetoric. The overturn of a couple gubernatorial elections, even though more on technicality than on substantive issues, only served to pour fuel on the raging anti-Iwu inferno. It took the decisive decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to de-oxygenate the inferno that could have engulfed the nation and reduce it to ashes.
Yet, the call for Iwu’s ouster, though somewhat now muted, has not completely ceased. Failed politicians are not banking on Yar’Adua to assuage their bruised egos with Iwu ouster in his much talked about cabinet reshuffle exercise as if Iwu is Yar’Adua’s minister. For the avoidance of doubt Iwu was appointed for a term certain with all the security of tenure that goes with it. That said, it’s fair to say that the tide of public opinion has changed somewhat, thanks to the Court of Appeal decision. If the second highest judicial authority in the land that had ruled against INEC in the past could find that the presidential election was conducted in ‘substantial compliance’ with the electoral law and the constitution, there was no basis to discredit Iwu. On the contrary the man who achieved the impossible for the nation (where all his predecessors failed) deserves nothing short of a medal.
Iwu has so far weathered the storm and I would give credit to President Yar’Adua and other patriotic Nigerians who stood by him through thick and thin, for not listening to the voices of retrogression advancing their parochial agenda in disguise. The case has been fought and won in court on the basis of facts presented and the applicable law before a panel of independent Justices, not Ahmadu Ali or OBJ-appointed panel. And there was more good news for Iwu and INEC still: Gubernatorial election re-runs ordered by tribunals generally acclaimed even by Atiku himself as free and fair and therefore credible, returned the same PDP governors whose prior elections were condemned by the opposition as PDP’s fraudulent impositions allegedly with Iwu’s connivance. These credible gubernatorial re-runs conducted by Iwu, which returned the same governors previously declared as winners proved one and only one point that was already judicially reaffirmed: that is, the general, in particular, presidential and gubernatorial elections, were conducted in ‘substantial compliance’ with the electoral laws of the land and therefore credible before the laws of the land. Nigerians must respect judicial decisions even if they disagree with them. As such those still publicly claiming that Yar’Adua was imposed on the nation or that the presidential election was stolen even in the face of the judicial pronouncement are doing great disservice to the nation in general and the judiciary in particular. They cannot therefore claim to be democrats when they so treat judicial decisions with contempt.
The same results would be returned were the elections to be conducted by God Himself or his angels from heaven and Atiku and Buhari would still complain of rigging! However, to hold that the elections were conducted in substantial compliance with the electoral law is not to say that the elections were flawless, but that whatever flaws there were did not rise to the level of gross or wholesale non-compliance with the electoral law as to render the results a nullity. The problem is not with Iwu but our politicians. We can change INEC Chairs a thousand times but if our politicians do not change, nothing will change.
The trashing of Abubakar Atiku in his own state and even local government area in the Adamawa State gubernatorial re-run has exposed Atiku’s electoral hollowness even in his own backyard. No wonder AC only did well in Lagos where ex-Governor Bola Tinubu held sway. In terms of electoral calculus Tinubu is a whole lot worth more than Atiku and therefore better suited to fly AC’s presidential flag. Atiku is now a liability to AC; not that he was ever an asset in the first place. And as he flees from the US to Dubai in the United Arab Republic (UAR) over the Jefferson case in which he has been cited, it will be well for the AC to strip Atiku of its leadership if it doesn’t want the party to be run from Dubai, which Atiku has made his first country against Nigeria.
With the tide of public opinion turning against Atiku and the AC, now is the time to give Iwu all the support and encouragement to proceed with God’s speed with his reform agenda for the agency. Now is not the time to change a winning team, and I would therefore expect Mr. President to stoutly resist any attempt by pressure groups to undermine the good works Iwu has done with INEC. The Ribadu treatment has no place for Iwu because he has a term certain and his removal can only be carried out with the concurrence of the senate on legally stipulated grounds, not on a presidential whim as happened to Ribadu and Lamorde.
The onerous task of building enduring democratic institutions entails not only democratic continuity but institutional and leadership continuity as well. Iwu has proved his mettle and has been validated and vetted by an independent Judiciary that bluntly refused to visit the sins of our ethically challenged, fraud-prone politicians, on the electoral Czar. And, as the nation awaits the Supreme Court verdict in the appeal before it, all that I’m permitted to say for now is, Mr. President: Let Iwu Be! “…for the sake of institutional growth, solidity, and cohesion.”
INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, must not be sacrificed to appease the gods of electoral failures before and after the Supreme Court verdict, which I humbly predict, will uphold the Appeal Court decision on grounds of law and facts alone as presented at the hearings, not necessarily on the basis of overriding national interests, as some mischief makers would want the world to believe.
And I dare say that if Mr. President will keep his job with a favorable Appeal and Supreme Court decision which in effect, is the ultimate vindication of INEC, then Iwu deserves to keep his too! How about that for equity and fair-play, Mr. President?
Let Iwu Be!!
Franklin Otorofani, Esq. is a Nigerian-Attorney based in the United States
mudiagaone@yahoo.com
