REASONS WHY MAURICE IWU MUST STAY

REASONS WHY MAURICE IWU MUST STAY

By: Aloy Ejimakor

It is becoming clear that for some of our politicians, contest for power in Nigeria is driven most by the unbridled desire to control the resources of the country. By contrast, if a politician is truly driven by the desire for public service, he will follow the path of honor, like Al Gore did when he waived his right of petition (or attrition - as applied in Nigeria) and conceded the presidency of the United States to Gorge Bush, even when he (Al Gore) was leading on the manual recount. It is therefore a truism that the spate of litigations that trailed the 2007 elections in Nigeria was fed more by a rising level of desperation on the part of some politicians and less by any institutional flaws in the conduct of the elections. Add the fact that, for the first time in Nigeria, we saw a quantum leap in the number of political parties and contestants for power. More parties and contestants meant many more sour losers who headed to court with the singsong that it was Professor Iwu that robbed them of victory. And I dare say that there is also a new level of misplaced judicial activism that is largely targeted at a PDP that has been successfully portrayed in the media as the sole party that rigs elections in Nigeria. A few of the verdicts too, like that of Amaechi and Ngige appear to be retaliatory rulings against an Obasanjo the judiciary is intent on settling scores with. Unluckily (and unfairly) for Maurice Iwu, he has come to represent the poster-boy for all manners of people who have an axe to grind with Obasanjo and the system he left behind.

Talking of sour losers, there are some who now pass off as activists, pretending to be fighting INEC (read: Iwu) on behalf of Nigerians. Femi Falana has gone to court to secure a mandamus against Iwu yet he downplays the fact that his animus is largely driven by the fact that he contested for and lost the governorship of his state under the nomination of a party (NCP) that did not even win a seat in the House of Assembly. That party has never been heard of since after the election. And then you have Alhaji Balarabe Musa, who is joining up with Femi Falana to fight Iwu because his party failed to win any elections even in his home state of Kaduna. There, the PDP and ANPP won them all. So, it appears that Musa is miffed that Iwu and INEC entered into some sort of tripartite conspiracy to deliver Kaduna State to a hue of joint co-conspirators from the ranks of PDP and ANPP. How do you reconcile this with the mantra that the Iwu is beholden to PDP only?

This whole over-concentration of attacks on Maurice Iwu ignores the glaring truths that also count for him and INEC. Begin with the near zero violence in the federal elections Iwu conducted which clearly and unarguably contrasted with the carnage of Kano and Jos LGA elections. Iwu did not conduct those elections that sadly brought such mayhem. Then we have vast numbers of Governors throughout the federation who are too cowed to conduct their LGA elections almost two years into their term, including a Peter Obi who someone found the false guts to take on an Iwu who delivered on a greater national burden and on schedule too. Now the federal government has vindicated Iwu by proposing to abolish SIECs and have LGA elections conducted by the same national INEC that some people love to belittle. Professor Iwu was the very first to complain about the manner of INEC funding. The Electoral Reform Committee concurred by proposing a first-line charge to fund INEC. That also counts for the Professor.

Additionally, I have come to believe that the problem of organizing elections in Nigeria goes beyond INEC as a single institution amongst the many others like the police and the SSS that are also deployed to critical functions on election-day. The citizenry also carries some of the blame. So, if we decide that nobody is going to interdict our ballot boxes; that election-day law enforcement will rise to deal with instant electoral offenses; that our politicians will refrain from engaging thugs to cause electoral mayhem; and that everybody else comes together to say: for once we are going to have the most credible elections of all time, it will happen and all the ‘omnipresent’ Iwus and INECs of this world cannot frustrate that desire. But if we decide that we are going to be mired in election malpractices just like exam malpractices and other sharp practices that are rife in this country, the most pious assemblage of umpires headed by the Pope himself will not succeed in giving us an election anywhere near being credible. In other words, it is our dubious ways as a people and the mindset that we must win by hook or crook that give us marred elections. Professor Iwu (and those that will succeed him) and our current and future INECs are just the fall guys for what I like to call “embedded societal proclivity to beating the system”. And like the mendacious woman in Solomon’s famous judgment, if some people cannot beat the system, they resort to decimating it. Falana’s frivolous lawsuit to force EFCC’s hand on Iwu appears to be directed at sowing some instability in the polity in the run-up to preparations for 2011. So, in effect, his actions are also targeted against a President Yar’Adua they have reckoned to be the soft underbelly to prevailing on their designs to cause political disorders in the system – to achieve the same ends they sought by calling for no elections in 2007.

And lest we forget, Maurice Iwu did not just fall from the sky and conducted the elections within the best of political and legal climates, such as obtained in Ghana and the United States, both of which have been (unfairly) compared to Nigeria. There were flurries of indictments, ill-prepared opposition politicians, inadequate legal order and the specter of Third Term that nearly sailed through the parliament. The aggressive pursuit of Third Term and the forces arrayed against it wrought untold distractions on Iwu, INEC and the larger Nigerian society in terms of concentrating on the transition. Keep in mind that the ‘transition’ election that brought Yar’Adua required a different mindset from one in which Obasanjo was universally expected to succeed himself. Consider also that entire pluralities of the national and state Assemblies joined in supporting third term, not to talk of the aid and comfort coming from cash-flush corporate Nigeria, the blessing received from various Nigerian religious/traditional leaders for third term to prevail and the easy acquiescence of a conniving citizenry.

When third term failed, grand Nigerian conspiracies were unleashed on INEC to intimidate it away from carrying through with the elections. Recall that vast numbers of prominent Nigerian politicians were calling for interim national government, meaning that they did not want the elections to hold, mostly because they figured they were sure to lose. Some analysts have charged that the call for interim national government was also clever cover for the secret desire for the military to come back, in the hope that it will recruit its appointees from opposition ranks. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the same clique of politicians who never wanted the elections to hold back in 2007 will continue to harass a Maurice Iwu they blame for losing a contest they would not have won anyway. Now, their actions have come to be a double strike of sorts – first, as retaliation against Iwu for daring to hold the 2007 elections; and second, as a strategy to scuttle the 2011 elections they have figured that they are again poised to lose to the more disciplined, better organized PDP.

Ejimakor is an attorney and analyst. alloylaw@yahoo.com

BEFORE MAURICE IWU GOES, HEAR THIS

BEFORE MAURICE IWU GOES, HEAR THIS.

By: Aloy Ejimakor

Now that elements of opposition politicians led by Barrister Femi Falana (SAN) of the NCP have taken the anti-Iwu (and anti-system) battle to the judiciary, let us pause a moment to hear some enduring home truths. It is only when this whole renewed anti-Iwu vigor is glanced off recent history that we can begin to understand why such anti-Iwu aggression persists; and also why it is surely going to continue to roil long after Iwu has gone.

First, rewind back to pre-2007. You will see that throughout the time-line to 2007, entire segments of the media were deployed to the purpose of discrediting the outcome of the elections. Elements of local and foreign intermeddlers who passed off as either monitors or observers were engaged in a well-coordinated, well-financed campaign to discredit the elections even before the first ballots were cast, culminating in the failed incendiary truck and the desperate legal action commenced to compel Iwu to annul the results. Like now, Iwu was also then the poster-boy for everything they claimed was wrong with elections that never even held. Those arrayed against the elections figured that they will succeed by personalizing their attacks around the person of Maurice Iwu, mostly because their sponsors reckoned that Iwu was intent on carrying through with an election they were ill-prepared to win. Evidence of this is legion and can be found in the malicious publications that were sponsored on Iwu's long-settled professional standing; and for the first time, these people began to question Iwu’s internationally acclaimed contributions to the complex sciences and the stature Nigerian gained on account of that. They even went as far as questioning Iwu's basic academic qualifications several years after such have been accepted by renowned institutions where Iwu had made tenure, including University of Nigeria where he became a Professor at the young age of 34.

The same campaign has once again started and the clear intention is to discredit the 2011 two years ahead of its schedule. You don’t have to look far to see that these people have one thing in common, and that is: they are all politicians who have no structural base to win elections. Quite frankly, I don’t see any electoral preparations on the part of Femi Falana’s NCP and Balarabe Musa’s PRP that will give them any fighting chance (against the PDP) in 2011. So, they figured that they might as well begin early to create credibility problems as a launching pad for the post 2011 litigations and media attacks they are again poised to unleash on the system. They forget easily that INEC will survive Professor Iwu and the attacks they are levying on one man and the institution he heads contribute to great lengths in making Nigeria unstable and hurting the country's standing in sub-regional and global affairs.

As regards President Yar’Adua and the PDP, they need to know that there is a helluva of a political liability that abounds if the President is seen to be too eager to placate an unserious opposition by even considering replacing an experienced INEC leadership too close to final calls for the next election. I call the opposition unserious because it is unlike in Ghana and the United States, which have been compared with Nigeria, where the opposition is large, organized and steadfast. In both countries, their elected and electable members don't jump ship to the ruling party, and not in droves like they do in Nigeria. Pray, how can the opposition supplant a ruling party that is fast swallowing entire ranks of opposition politicians? The other day it was two ANPP governors from the North; recently, we hear of Atiku decamping from AC to the PDP. So, you can see that at the geometric rate the Nigerian opposition is decamping to the PDP and the fractured parties they leave behind, there will be no opposition party of substance left in 2011 to have a fighting chance of winning against PDP. The only opposition party that has remained steadfast is Orji Kalu’s PPA, which explains why Orji was disappointed with Atiku’s recent moves to eat crow with the PDP.

To be sure, even if Maurice Iwu's tenure is left to sunset in 2010, these politicians will still latch on to his replacement to explain why they had to lose 2011 - a sort of a sad replay of why they had to lose 2007. Considering this emerging scenario, it will not make any sense in replacing Iwu with a new Chairman, especially since replacing him might give the unwitting impression that the President has finally capitulated to those who love to taunt him as lacking political mettle, besides the more important point that such eleventh hour replacement will further complicate the same issues we are trying to overcome. Therefore, whether Iwu goes or not, we must bear in mind that INEC does not function in a vacuum of institutions but rather in the midst of many institutions. INEC does not have the powers to arrest electoral offenders, the police does. INEC does not have the national intelligence mandate to detect early conspiracies portending threats to our elections, the SSS and to some extent, the NIA does. That means that anybody pointing fingers for electoral offenses need to point them elsewhere, and not at an INEC leadership that has no legal and coercive mandate to prevent election-day violence and other machinations deployed by politicians who would rather spoil it all for the rest of us by hiding under a Maurice Iwu that has become an easy target for venting opposition impotence in the midst of a virile PDP.

Ejimakor is an attorney and analyst alloylaw@yahoo.com