Booby Traps in the Electoral Act
By
In my article, "The gospel according to Francis Arthur Nzeribe", I had argued that come 2003, we would either be saluting a re-elected Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo or a second-timer Alhaji Ibrahim Babangida as the President of Nigeria. I remain unmoved in this prediction. I also argued, even
predicted, that there will be no new parties. Subsequently, I had also, under different platform, talked about both the imperative and inevitability of
President Obasanjo emerging as a sole (consensus) candidate for the 2003 presidential elections. These events will come to pass. The reasons or arguments
that I advanced are perhaps too well known to be repeated here.
What is important to note is the fact that those postulations, indeed predictions, have perhaps become even more relevant today than they were at the time
they were made. Their inevitability is staring us in the face. Twelve months into the elections, we are still waiting to see the presidential candidates,
that are Obasanjo challengers. I am aware that somewhere in Kano, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi has been granting press interviews saying he is on his way to Aso
Rock. Good luck to him but I ask: Under which platform?
Is it the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of which he is a member and which has his opponent, Obasanjo, as sole administrator? Let's leave it at that at
the moment. Then take new parties. I still personally believe that there is no need for new parties apart from sensing the futility of the attempts by
some groups of Nigerians to form new parties. Again, twelve months to the elections, do we have new parties? Throughout the outgoing year, several
prominent Nigerians and politicians of note turned full circle in search of new parties. From all indications, they worked so hard to meet the conditions.
But what is the outcome of the hard work? Which brings me to the new electoral law.
With that law as it is, it is senseless for anybody or group to go ahead to form new political parties. The law effectively bars new parties from fielding
candidates for the states and federal elections. Then for what purpose would any party exist if it cannot field a candidate for the president election? It
is even more senseless to talk about partaking in local council elections in which the law purports to allow new parties liberty. Not even the poorest
folks in the hinterlands will vote for a party which is not known beyond the village square. If the electoral law subsists, I cannot see any politician
going ahead to insist on new parties. Political parties are no social clubs. They are formed for only one purpose, namely, to capture power. But today,
the reality is that with the new electoral law, new parties are simply out of it.
Having said this, I must hasten to point out that the new electoral law is not a complete negation of the collective democratic aspiration of Nigerians.
It is the modality of bringing the law into being that is protested. It is simply not good for our dear country and is, of course, a time bomb. I am aware
that some critics would assert that it was perhaps my earlier position on new parties and consensus candidacy that helped in softening the ground for what
we have now.
Such an impression is erroneous and I think I owe myself the duty to explain, in order to enable Nigerians distinguish between those ideas and what seems
to be on ground now.
As I said earlier, I still do not believe that there is need for new political parties now. But I am definitely not in support of the method being
adopted, via the new electoral law, in stopping Nigerians from forming parties. I do not believe that new parties should be stopped through such a high
wire intrigue and overt manipulation of the legislative process. My no-new-parties theory is predicated on the conviction that politicians would on their
own see the need to strengthen the already existing three parties as credible alternatives for participatory democracy in our country. It was to be a
collective understanding as part of a way of making politicians learn to work together rather than crowding the system with contending tendencies. This,
in my view, would make for more stability and, of course, easier for us to nurture our hard-earned democracy. Put differently, my understanding or
advocacy for no new parties precludes the bullying of Nigerians into surrendering their democratic rights of freedom of political association. My
involvement in the legislative process that gave rise to the law does not contradict my stand on no new parties. Since I, ab initio, stand for no new
parties, I similarly stand for any legislation that underscores this position. But the point to note is that I do not support the particular process
adopted in reaching this destination.
The issue of party formation is of course just one side of a contentious coin. The other is that of consensus candidacy. In the course of the outgoing
year, I had, under the platform of the Movement for National Consensus And Accommodation (MONAC), advocated for the need for a consensus candidate for the
2003 presidential election. Our argument was simple: To lessen rancour and ensure a successful transition from civil to civil administration. The thinking
was predicated on our understanding that the very factors that militated against the smooth and orderly elections not supervised by the military are still
very much around.
Again, I will not beat my chest but it is perhaps instructive to look back at the events of October and November 2001 when the so-called largest party in
Africa held its congresses and the national convention. Up till now, results are still being disputed at the ward levels. I ask: Were the deaths recorded
during the congresses necessary? As my people would say, how many dead bodies make up a heap. Two? Three? Hundred?
The point to repeat from my earlier advocacy for a consensus candidate was not a function of any personal interest in the Presidency of Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo in particular but because of the situation on the ground and as he is ab-initio qualified to rule and received an over whelming mandate in the
first instance.
Again, this notwithstanding, I must state as clearly as I can that my ideas about consensus candidacy is completely different from what appears to be on
the drawing board of the major dramatis personae in the political chess game, including, most especially, the President. This takes us back to the
contentious electoral law. However anybody pretends otherwise, I see the law not as a surreptitious attempt but as a brazen one to decree every other
person out of the presidential contest in 2003. The Presidency realizes that only new parties can throw up candidates to challenge Obassanjo, not any of
the existing ones. The Presidency also realizes that Nigeria and Nigerian politicians are like donkeys. No matter the load, they groan but in a peculiar
docile manner keep moving on. As someone says, it will bubble, it will calm, it will smell, it will dry up.
I argued previously, that PDP is Obasanjo and Obasanjo PDP. If in doubt, go and ask Barnabas Gemade. The Alliance for Democracy is also there for him as a
platform. Being a Yoruba party, there can be no way it can produce a candidate to stand against Obasanjo. Sometime at the middle of this year, the only
potential challenger, Olu Falae, declared publicly that he is no longer in the presidential race. So who else? Bola Ige? Bolaji Akinyemi? Abraham Adesanya?
As for my party, the All Peoples Party (APP), my position that it lacks the muscle to produce an effective challenger to Obasanjo stands, unless of course
the emerging political realities throw up opportunities for it on a platter of gold. But this is hypothetical. We are talking about issues on the ground.
I have gone this length in rehearsing things I have said before in order to underscore the point that the new electoral law is invariably aimed at making
Obasanjo a consensus candidate. But let me purse for a moment and ask: Why was this not acknowledged before now? Let me, however, make the following
clarifications. I still believe that President Obasanjo should be returned as consensus candidate for the 2003 Presidential elections for the reasons I
have given earlier.
But I do not in anyway endorse the method that is being currently used to achieve this. Consensus candidacy, of the type I believe in, is not by
handpicking, not by bullying and intimidation of opponents. The consensus candidacy of the type I advocate is democratically achieved through lobbying,
negotiation and, dialogue. What happened is dictatorial and smacks of militarism. Let us in the name of peace, unity and progress in Nigeria be donkeys
but for the last time. Let it not happen again. A word is enough for the wise.
But the question is, where does this leave the National Assembly of which I am a member? Did it perform well in the outgoing year? As one of the actors, I
cannot judge so I leave it for the rest of Nigerians outside the National Assembly.
What I can say for sure is that we have succeeded in achieving peace of the graveyard; a legislative graveyard of incapacitated, and intimidated law
makers. But, of course, a graveyard remains what it is: Only for dead people. But your law makers are very much alive. This is not to say that I am not in
support of the current leadership of the National Assembly. But this leadership must be seen to flex its muscles now and again. Someone gave me a joke
recently which goes like this: In the beginning the leadership of the National Assembly did as they were told - "jump": "Yes Sir". In
the middle, the joke went on, the leadership refused to do what it was told - "jump": "No Sir". At the end, the leadership does more
than it is told - "jump": "How High, Sir?" That was a joke, but it is instructive. This may not necessarily be the situation but that
is how outsiders perceive us.
Overall, it will be a grave illusion to believe that the general political outlook in the country is not something to worry about. For the President in
particular, I hope he does not believe even hundreds of his volunteer, professional, unsolicited "Mr. Fix It" that all is well. Whether he likes
it or not, his re- election bid which has now become clear is the main worry of Nigerians. Should he be entrusted with a second term? Nigerians are
worried about what he will do with a second mandate. There are those who believe that the little semblance of tolerance from the evidently in-patient
President is because the stakes for a second term bid are high. They therefore believe that once Obasanjo gets a second term, he will go full blown
dictatorial. This same fear is harboured in respect of all the Chief Executives at all the three tiers of government. Needless to say, there is need to
dissuade Nigerians from holding on to such fears.
We should make no mistake about it, the new electoral bill has heightened the anxiety and apprehension of Nigerians over the future of their democracy,
even the real survival of Nigeria as a corporate entity. For me personally it is a time bomb and I pray fervently that the consequences do not invite the
military back to the political arena. But we need not sit by and brood over it. There should be a pragmatic way of getting over this potential danger and
here I shall attempt to suggest some solutions.
The President says those who are agrieved should go to court. This is mere bluffing, and is wrong. It is not a court matter. It is a political matter that
should be resolved politically. He should take to the road and explain the electoral bill to the nation in order to sooth their nerves, pull the rug-under
their feet so to speak and avert crisis, which could possibly be a military coup.
In looking for a solution, I would want Nigerians to first agree on two basic facts. One, that the local government officials were elected for three
years, not four. Two, that the National Assembly has the power to say when elections should take place by making laws.
The thing to do, therefore, to come out of the present impasse is to one, stick to the three-year tenure of the current elected officials. Two,
thereafter, the councils should be dissolved and Caretaker Committees appointed, not by the Federal Government, but by the State Governments. Then the
caretaker administrations would hold forth till 2003 when elections will be held. A no winner or loser solution.
The Local Government Councils should not be given an extra one year for which they have no mandate. It is wrong. It is setting bad precedence. There is
nothing sacrosanct about this idea but I believe it will go a long way in lessening the fear in the PDP that council elections in 2002 will not favour the
President in his native South-West zone, or that state governors will use it as an opportunity to put in their stooges. By my formula, all the
stakeholders will still have additional one year to perfect their strategies but at same time enables the entire nation to know peace and have some
sanity.
I support what has been done by the electoral bill 2001 to the extent that the final agenda coincides with mine, that is to say: No new parties, Obasanjo
for second term on consensus basis. I do not necessarily approve of the means. But that is politics. Besides, there are several ways of skinning a cat.
Some ways are less painful and crude than others. It is not late to make amends in the name of peace.
Talking about peace, I believe the new year should challenge the chief executives at the various tiers of government to ensure an end to the protracted
ethnic crisis in the country. For me personally, I attribute the entire thing to bad leadership and as we move into the critical period, it is only the
most naive that will believe that all is well.
On the whole, the major bone of contention is the presidency. It is wrong for President Obasanjo and his handlers to believe that the best thing is to
decree people out of contest as the electoral law purports to. Let me repeat, he remains a good candidate for re-election but for that to happen,
everybody must be carried along in a democratic consensus manner.
The legitimate aspiration of my own people, Ndigbo to have one of their own in Aso Rock come 2003 cannot be wished away. This is regardless of the
position which I still maintain that an Igbo President is not feasible for 2003. I need not repeat my argument but I should add that an Igbo President is
not only feasible in 2007 it is inevitable.
All the talk about a Northerner positioning himself to take over from Obasanjo amounts to inordinate ambition. There will be nothing like that. The North
should shelve that ambition for now. It controlled the country for over twenty years. It is only fair that the South East, which harbours at least 40
percent of Nigeria's population, is given a chance.
But how will my people go about this? Certainly not by the foolish dichotomy between so-called Abuja politicians and the home based. It is only among
Ndigbo that such nonsense exists. When shall we learn lessons?
December 2001