New Telegraph

Fears over gradual state capture

The subversion of the peoples’ will by the political class in various states of the federation indicates a gradual descent to state capture. But KENNETH OFOMA advocates political, electoral reforms to return power to the people to save Nigeria’s democracy.

At the return to democratic rule in 1999, many Nigerians believed that the journey to democratic maturity, which was halted by many years of military interregnum, would speed up, with attendant socio-economic El Dorado. But 25 years into the journey, many Nigerians are aghast at what appears a steady decline of democratic values and destruction of democratic guardrails. The civic space is shrinking just as the judiciary that is touted to be the bastion of Justice and last hope of the common man is now a tool of the mighty and powerful in the country.

To some, the situation represents nothing but a gradual descent to state capture! Democracy is about the will of the people as expressed at the polling booth, but that is being eroded today as the political class collude with the Police, the judiciary and the electoral bodies at both state and national levels to suppress it. Rigging, violence, judicial rascality have become the order of the day. From the political sector to economic, to security, to education and health, the hope of the people is fast being eroded. Many concerned Nigerians are fast loosing faith in the country. From the fraud that allegedly characterised the 2023 election, where INEC violated it’s one rule, to recent Edo State off-season election, to the winner-takes-itall local government elections across the states of the federation, to God -fatherism and gangsterism in Rivers State; it’s all a tale of woes and despondency, and the big quest remains: any future for democracy in Nigeria? Reflecting on the state of the nation Chief Nduka Eya, elder statesman, former Secretary General of pan-Igbo sociocultural organization Ohanaeze Ndigbo and former Chairman of INEC in Ekiti State, told Sunday Telegraph in Enugu that the sad turn of events in the county had turned him into a sad man. He said, “Let me tell you why this conflict continues. The 2023 election, you know that election was rigged. It is INEC that brought a technological witness, witness of technology that’s IREV (INEC result viewing portal). That IREV was to be when you pronounce a result at the polling unit it goes straight to IREV so that whatever you do in between it will contradict the IREV. “That IREV is a witness brought by INEC and you know what the court did? They said IREV is not part of the law and therefore whatever is their is nothing. That’s where our problem started because the judiciary has been affected. “Everybody knows, in fact, this morning I was listening to a programme, they said they are looking and results were coming then suddenly they said technical glitch because they saw the way the results were going.

This is INEC failure even in the result. “Okay, even if we take the result announced by INEC in the 2023 elections; three parties: APC, Labour and PDP came out. Each of the parties had 12 states they won, so even with the results announced, what could have been done with that result is a runoff between Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Obi for a final person to emerge. “Let me tell you why. The law says to be declared overall winner you have to score the highest number of votes in the election. Two, you have to win 25 per cent in two thirds of all the states, we have 36 states, so in 24 states you must win 25 per cent. Then finally you must win 25 per cent in the FCT. Those are the three conditions. Tinubu won one, highest vote, he didn’t win FCT, he didn’t win 25 per cent (in FCT), so he has one over three. Obi won in FCT, he didn’t win 25 per cent in all the states (24 states), he didn’t win highest. “ He has one score. Atiku Abubakar won non. So out of the three Tinubu won one over three, Obi won one over three and Atiku won nothing. Therefore, we now have two out of the three, the best, it’s out of this two who happened incidentally to be two Southerners should have gone for runoff and one should have emerged. “See what the judiciary did, they now converted FCT to become a state and now talk about 37 states. FCT was never a state because let me make it clear to you. FCT was carved out of Nasarawa, Kogi and Niger. Anybody cut off to become FCT is no longer in the state, so they don’t come into the two thirds of the States. They are a standing group, if you don’t speak English…that’s why 25 per cent in two thirds and FCT, it’s not including FCT. “So the judges were very clever. They then, “well, what is it, and should not be used, why should” …the rationalization of the law, why should FCT be treated separately. FCT is treated separately because if you remember, if we remember that when the seat of government was in Lagos nobody talks about Federal capital territory.

Whatever happens in Lagos the seat of government was still in Lagos, so Lagos was all inclusive. “You see, the trouble is that we have a problem. Our problem is that the foundation on which our sovereignty was laid, the military in going out has now imposed another unitary government on us, so we have a conflicting constitution on which we have been trying to amend… “What federal government did (should have done), we should just have thrown away the law (1999 Constitution) from the military. You remember Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in without the Constitution, it was after he was sworn in that this Constitution emerged which contained now a unitary system of government. What the military should have done, look we suspended your Constitution, we are leaving, take back your Constitution and sort it. But that is no longer an issue now. “The issue is that the politicians have stepped into the judiciary and this is my anger. I’m glad, I hope you know that the new CJN has now invited the state chief judge from Rivers and the federal high court judge in Abuja. Let me tell you, I didn’t do law, but in the matter of Rivers state…the High court in Rivers state is the highest court in the state. The federal high court is the highest court in the FCT, but they (federal high courts) are in the States for convenience. In order words any decision taken by the high court in Rivers state, if you want to change it you have to go to Court of Appeal because the Federal high court is not an Appeal Court. So they cannot rule on what a court of equivalent jurisdiction has already ruled on. “That’s where the mistake is because these federal high courts have become, if you listened to Ikenga (Ugochi yere), he listed, there are judges there who can be put into the pockets of some politicians, any time they go there they get a counter order. Why should we be shopping? “This jurisdiction is in the hands of the Rivers State High Court and they took a decision, anybody who is opposed to that decision should go to Appeal court because the reason why there are state high courts, federal high courts and federal appeal courts in the state is for convenience”. Speaking on the proposed bill for a separate national body to conduct LG elections across the country, Elder Nsukka Eya described the effort as mere “politics”.

“You see, I was a member of the Independent National Electoral Commission in 1999. I conducted local government elections up to the presidency in Ekiti. Why because when the military were leaving, they didn’t have any electoral body on ground, NEC was dissolved under Humphrey Nwosu and it is… Let me tell you another basic thing, it’s the military wanting local government to become a federal matter that is creating this problem. “From our days local governments are an extension of the state government. Federal government has no jurisdiction whatsoever on local government. But the military constitution said there shall be 774 local governments because during the military, in fact, at a time they dissolved the local governments in the states but the states restored them. “I’m talking in public now because I witnessed it and yet quiet because the military had the barrel of the gun. The capturing of the local governments is the military way of making money. You remember IBB (ex-military head of state General Ibrahim Babamosi Babangida) had during SAP, there was money, it was then we started talking about NULGE, we started talking about ALGON. What did they do? Chairman of chairmen, the chairmen of local governments now elected chairman, they go to chief of staff in the Supreme headquarters, ‘oh we want N50 Million to pay salary”. ‘Oh yes, you will get 50 Million but you will sign for N60million’. And they will sign and take their N50million. It’s the corruption that brought it. The federal government has no business with the local governments going by the Constitution in which Nigeria became independence. “You see what they are doing, let me give you example. The federal Attorney General is not Attorney General of the Federation, it must be clear. He is the Attorney General of the Federal government and if you know what it is, the federal government is a creation of the federating units, it’s an agency government, it’s not a superior government. “We agreed to be one country whether we are regional or states, we are 36 states now, okay, and you’re one country. And there is something, if you’re one country we must have common currency, we must have common defence, we must have common immigration. And these are the duties that combined us, so the federating units created a government like a country, ‘please take care of these things that bind us so we can have one currency, one immigration, one defence and so one’. And they are not supposed to be any superior, if you know, before the military, it is the regions that contributed 30 per cent to the centre for the running of the federal government.

Today it’s reversed, federal government has taken over everything and now giving to the states, that is irony that is going on. “We need a constitutional reform that will tilt towards regionalism, that’s exactly, what we need. The Anyaokus, the Patriots have gone to Tinubu and that’s why I’m accusing Tinubu, so what you are doing is that you don’t want military rule so that you can became civilian and rule us like the military. “When the Patriots told him look it’s time for us to go back to where we started so that we can proceed. What did Tinubu say? It’s not his priority now, he wants to capture Nigeria the way he captured Lagos and everybody knows he captured Lagos. Ambode did not go back because Ambode challenged that capture and he is still suffering today. Let us call a spade a spade. We must go back to the basis upon which Nigeria became independent,” Chief Eya said. On his part, the President, Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network (CRRAN); Olu Omotayo (Esq), who spoke to Sunday Telegraph in Enugu expressed optimism that Nigeria is redeemable. He said, “There is hope for democracy in Nigeria, only that we are not moving at the right pace, its slow pace because it’s not as we left in 1999, we have moved a bit because in 1999 the government of the day will not allow senate to function properly. Within a space of few years we had four senate presidents. I think we are moving forward only that the pace is not as we envisaged.” The human rights advocate blamed the nation’s inability to establish a credible electoral system for part of her stumbling challenges. “The electoral system now, the problem is that there is supposed to be improvement on the technology but technology has failed most times that is what is causing all these problems. “So the technology has constantly failed because at times they say some people could not vote, results could not be uploaded, that means it’s not an hitch free election they are conducting. “Then the courts also, the courts that I mean the judges and the lawyers, because some lawyers are part of the problem because when you know that the interest of the country supersedes parochial and you know the truth and you are filing frivolous application just to frustrate justice. So the judicial system has because the duty of the court to interpret the law as the law is straight forward. But the judiciary will sometimes shirk its duty. “So all those things put pressure on the apex court because people believe that they can’t get justice until when they reach the Supreme Court. And we have only one supreme court and the problem is so much unlike America we borrowed their system of government. Each state has its supreme court, it’s only federal matters that go straight to the federal supreme court.

“So for you now to say one supreme court to serve a country of over 200 million that’s the problem. So there is supposed to be an amendment of the law so that it’s either they follow the American judicial system, because of the number of supreme court justices, 24 people, there are some matters that have been lying there for over 10 years, it’s never come up to the supreme court. “Most of these things revolve around INEC and judiciary, I’m not blaming the judges but the machinery, what we have now cannot, because part of justice is speedy dispensation of justice. So if you cannot get speedy dispensation of justice have not been able to get the, in fact the constitutional right of fair hearing have not been satisfied. So we need to sit down, look at that area to improve our judicial system,” he stated. Omotayo further suggested that the National Assembly and civil society organisations should push for the early commencement of electoral reforms if the 2027 general elections will not be worse than the previous ones.

Please follow and like us:

Read Previous

IMF lowers borrowing costs by 36%

Read Next

Yingqi Auto Machinery Unveils Factory To Revive Vehicle Engines