A former House of Representatives’ Minority Leader and legal practitioner, Dr Wunmi Bewaji, speaks on the 2023 general election, the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the task before the President Bola Tinubu, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS.
The 2023 elections have come and gone but the process by which the exercise went through is still subject of debate, and the court cases are ongoing over it, what do you say to this against the assurances given by INEC before the poll exercise?
Answer: Yes, I would say kudos to INEC, INEC did a good job, you know. This is because no election has ever been perfect in this country and in Nigeria there is what you called substantial complimance, that’s the law in this jurisdiction. That means that it is realised that like very human endeavour, elections will not all be perfect. Even if it census figure, it will not be perfect. Now, at the end of the day, you look at the law, you look at the conduct of the election, look at the number of the polling units, thousands and thousands of units that you have, if probably there could be complaints in probably one percent or two percent of total number of polling units, you can say substantial compliance has been achieved. So you are not going to have like 100percent compliance with the law. Besides that, when you look at the petitions that had been presented by the two major political parties, Labour Party and PDP, you will see one thing that is common to both petitions. None of their petitions is the complained about the results, that is the figures declared by INEC for the election. I am very sure, none of them is challenging that, am talking of the figures declared not even at a single polling unit.
You mentioned in your statement that INEC, contrary to expectations, did not post the results immediately to the server. It has given explanations why it found it difficult doing so.
Number one, there is nothing apparently, in the entire Electoral Act that says that. INEC has an absolute discrection as far as uploading or not uploading the results. What the law expects the INEC to do is to declare the results, but the method by which that result would be published. Those are two things- declaration of the result and publication of the result. Uploading to the server, it makes for transparency like okay, as the results were coming in, you are uploading them and people were following them. The INEC in their wisdom had their reservation and so, they gave an explanation which I believe is tangible because you are dealing with presidential election and this is the thing with technology. As much as I support the use of technology, I have always been very very scared of what you know people can do with technology. Yes, because we have heard stories around the world of hackers hijacking a process and then they have made a mess of it. So, INEC has access to information maybe probably I don’t have and then they came to that conclusion that okay, we are not going to upload now, but at the end of the day, they uploaded. And at the end of the day, none of the candidates or parties has said what you uploaded is different from what we have. That is the figure that they ended up uploading, none of them has established otherwise. And then that is not an issue before the Tribunal to say oh, that the figure that we have in the result tabulated by our agents showing that we scored hundreds but the figure uploaded for us on the server eventually shows that we scored 40, none of them has said that. Therefore, whether it was uploaded in the morning or afternoon or in the evening is irrelevant; what is relevant now is that the result was eventually uploaded at a point when INEC believed it was safe to do so. You could imagine if the entire exercise had been bungled! If hackers had hacked INEC server and the system had been corrupted and a winner had been declared. You could imagine the outcome would have been disastrous for us, it could have led to a war. So, we should understand that INEC, in their wisdom, took the best decision that they felt was best for the purpose of the election and I think I support them for that.
On the last election and looking at the way it was conducted, can we say the country’s democracy is on the way forward or not?
Yes, it is on the way forward.
But you could see that the last exercise generated a lot of controversies beyond what was ever recorded in the country. Don’t you see it that way?
Yes, and I will explain to you why? Our democracy is progressing, and I must say I commend INEC from the bottom of my heart. I participated in elections before, I have been an election observer for over 16 years both within and outside Nigeria. Now, I am telling you this, there’s something we call expectation management which we need also to incorporate in our system. It is not everything you put in the statues, political parties have the responsibility to inculcate expectation management into their affairs. Yes, we politicians are incurable optimists but if you are running for office and despite whatever you believe about yourself, at the end of the day, until those votes are counted and result announced and winner declared, you cannot say I am going to win. Yes, during campaign you can say ‘I am going to win.’ I have lost elections before, until the ballots are cast and counted and result declared, you cannot really say ‘I am the winner.’ And then by your own definition of free and fair election, it should never be the election that you won. Any politician going about and saying ‘oh, when you win that election is free and fair, and when you lose that election is not free and fair,’ that politician is not a democrat. In the case of Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), for example, Obi had no pathway to winning. The Labour Party is merely a re-branding of APGA basically. The Labour Party is mainly an Igbo party plus Christian party; a combination of ethnicity and religion. Yes, it has its own advantages but it also has a lot of disadvantages. Now, we look at it, how does the Constitution prohibit the issue of ethnicity and religion in Section 22? It is because of this. This is because nothing drives the passion of people and their emotions as much as religion. These are people that are supposed to be leading us to paradise, so people believe in their pastors and their Reverend Fathers and all those. So when you drag religion into politics, this is the result. That is why when you look at Section 97 of our Electoral Act, it criminalises the use of ethnicity and religion and imposes fine and even a term of imprisonment. So those are two drivers that are dangerous. INEC must just stop limiting itself to just conducting elections. INEC has the responsibility to make sure that every section of the Electoral Act is enforced, it is not for decoration that you have Section 97. Nobody should use religion or ethnicity to campaign and Section 221 says no organisation or political party should canvass for votes or contribute financially to any political party or any candidate.
But it was not as loaded as we have it today?
No, it has always been like that because I remember in 1999, the National Assembly was not inaugurated on the 29th May that year. A lot of people don’t know the reason for that. The reason is that there was a lot of noise, a lot of controversies, conflicts which then President Olusegun Obasanjo had to sought out, then he had to wait to be sworn in, and after he was sworn in, he had to now use his new found clout as president to do it. That was the reason we had to be inaugurated on June 6, 1999. That very day on May 29, 1999, we were all waiting at the Chambers of the National Assembly for our inauguration, every member was there. I am telling you but because they were doing the zoning, we were in the opposition party, we were not part of it. They were doing the zoning but there was no agreement as at the night of 28th May, 1999. So on May 29, there was no attempt to inaugurate the National Assembly. The PDP was still working and they held several meetings in the Villa and eventually, it was resolved inside the Villa. I believe it is the responsibility of the party. I have heard that the opposition parties are grouping to install one of them in the leadership position. They should perish the thought.
Why?
The reason is this, all over the world, it is the party with the majority even if that majority is one, that should determine that. Look at the American Senate. We should have this as a convention; let this be a custom. It is not written in the US Constitution, it is not there. It is a convention, a custom which has become a law by practice once the party has the highest number, that number does not even need to be the majority, especially where you have more than two political parties. But in the Senate, in America where you have 50/50 because the vice-president is automatically a member of the Senate, he will cast his ballot and that’s 51/50. And it is the party with a simple majority that will produce the entire leadership, and not sharing it with the opposition party or parties. So, that makes for stability. We have had 24 years of uninterrupted democracy; it is time for us also to build our own convention, our practices that would strengthen this democracy. Therefore, APC is in the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, if you go and bring a candidate outside of the system, you end up having what we had in the 8th Assembly under Senator Bukola Saraki. Nigerians went to the ballot and they chose a president and by the composition of the National Assembly, Nigerians have also chosen a party that they wanted. So for the president to implement his programmes and policies, he would need to work with the party to then produce the leadership of the parliament. Of course, it doesn’t have to be microzoned to a particular individual but the party might look at it and say the president is from this zone, the vice president is from this zone, the speaker must come from here. The party can also say the president is Muslim, the vice president is also Muslim, the Senate president must be Christian, then the speaker must be this or a traditionalist or whatever. The party would have that and be able to implement its programmes and policies. Nobody is going to gain will any advantage by bringing in someone that would be implementing and creating an antagonistic structure at the parliament, then Nigeria would suffer it because that parliament would not be able to work with the Executive Arm of government and they would not be able to achieve.
Look at what the 2019- 2023 set of National Assembly has achieved. I am telling you in terms of productivity, no National Assembly has achieved that, let the truth be told. Look at what has happened to the Constitution, what they have achieved. If that alone is what they have achieved, that puts them miles apart. The Constitution right in our presence, is being amended and you know the foundation for progress and prosperity is being laid; we are now seeing something like power being taken out of the Exclusive List, something like railway being taken out of the Exclusive List, the Independence of the judiciary and parliament and financial autonomy being granted to them. These are amendments that would have tremendous, pronounced effect on our democracy going forward. In terms of performance, the president has done a lot in certain areas and has failed woefully in some other areas. For example, in the area of infrastructure, the president has done tremendously well. Since 1999, no other government has done a quarter of what this present administration has done in eight years. We’ve never had that. I made the joke that in the entire Obasanjo’s eight years in office, what he did on the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway was just to put a signpost on the expansion of the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway, he never achieved more than that on the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway. President Buhari has done a lot. A major area President Buhari has failed is in advancing democracy itself. You know when you talk of security, this is exactly what I am talking about. Look, no president since 1999 has done so much for the Nigerian Armed Forces. I am telling you this, I know this because I belong to an international organization, you know, with access to military purchases. Yes, Buhari has made tremendous investments in our Navy, in our Air Force and in our Army.
Despite that we still witness huge security challenges in the country. Why does the practice subsist?
Yes, I will come to that. So, if you see the number of equipment now available to our Armed Forces, I am so proud of our Armed Forces now, am extremely proud. The number of tanks that we have and the quality, and then Nigeria has achieved something now which is very strange to achieve in Military Diplomacy. Nigeria is one country that is multi-sourcing military equipment in different parts of the world. We are buying from America, we are buying from Russia, and from China. Incidentally, all over the world, when you are buying from Russia, you are stuck on that, because America will not sell to you. When you are buying from America, Russia will not sell to you. We are buying from India, we are buying from Pakistan. Look at the number of Air Force men that has been winged. This Buhari’s government has winged the highest number number of Air Force men, yes, with their own equipment now. And you would now see that when Buhari came into office in 2015, Nigeria was No: 8 or 9 in Africa in military ranking, but today, we are No: 3 in Africa. This is huge. But how does that now translate to security? This comes back to the well- known mantra in security that you cannot achieve security through bullet. You cannot use bullet to achieve security. It is a common saying in defence diplomacy that by force, by arm, you can defeat your enemy, you can achieve war success by defeating your enemy, but you will win the war, but how do you win the peace?
What Buhari has done, he has won the war against Boko Haram, he has won the war against bandits, but has he won the peace? So for you to win the peace, there are other things you need. What are those other things? Those other things are what Buhari is lacking- consultations, dialogue, friendship. He is not reaching out, talking to people. You see that is what would bring peace. Yes, they can see Boko Haram in X or Y place, you can take your weapons there, bomb them and level the place, but why are those people fighting? Do those people have leaders, can we talk to them? So this is where Buhari is lacking in promotion of dialogue. We are talking of IPOB and the rest of them, where is the avenue for dialogue with IPOB? Do we reduce everything to just bullet? Yes, bullet can work to a certain degree, but from that very point, it is dialogue, talking, friendship that is going to resolve all issues. So when you have a Buhari now that cannot boast of two, three bosom friends in the East, or two or three bosom friends in the West or even in the Northern Region itself, so that is where Buhari is lacking and that is where I think the incoming administration will do far far better because even from the victory achieved by the president- elect, you can see that national spread. You see the South-West, the South-South, South-South and of course, in the North-East, North-West and North-Central, that will translate into something when eventually he is sworn in.
And you see two or three days ago when he went to Port-Harcourt, you find there PDP members and APC members. That is the kind of forum that projects unity, that gives sense of belonging to people that I can see in the gathering someone that looks like me. And it would douse a lot of tension and it would make the agitation go down and once that happens, that means you would not need to spend too much on military hardware as this present administration is doing. Yes, we have all those equipment, it is good for us and we are now well respected even around the world concerning the equipment we had purchased in the last seven to eight years, but we need more than that.
Which agenda are you setting before the President- elect once he is sworn in as next president of the country?
What I want is a situation whereby the incoming administration will run an inclusive government. By an inclusive government, I am not talking of who gets what appointment, no. This is because who gets what appointment and in what position, that’s always within the the political class. So inclusive government means a government rooted in dialogue. Yes, if there is agitation in this area, what is the cause of that agitation? Let us discuss. I would like to have a president that, you know, make that Villa become a place that people would be assembled.
For example, if tomorrow you are meeting with the traditional rulers from all over the country, maybe on the basis of four per geo- political zone or one per state, and next tomorrow you are meeting with captains of industry, on what challenges they are facing in their areas of business and next tomorrow, you are meeting with leaders of ethnic organizations, that would be fine. It is also okay if you are even brokering dialogue maybe between this organization in the North and that organization in the South, and they are meeting.
You see from my experience, when people meet and they talk, especially under the umbrella or under the auspices of the president, it lowers tension, it makes people to believe they are listening to us. So even the most radical elements amongst them will say we are talking, it goes a long way.
When President Umar Yar’Adua brought Tompolo to the Villa, that was magical. Yes, it was magical and we achieved a lot through that. So that is the kind of thing that I would like to see, an all inclusive government that promotes dialogue, that would eventually engender unity and sense of belonging.
As far as building roads or construction of roads and infrastructure is concerned, that is fine, that one would come, but it has to be built on the back of the unity of this country. When we promote unity, we promote dialogue. When we promote interface, inter ethnic relationship, when we achieve that harmony, other things becomes easy. If we want to do something relating to banking industry or people in manufacturing, so we bring them to the table, we don’t just assemble bureaucrats and they are talking stuff they may not know anything about. If you bring in these people the policies would affect at the presidential level, then it would enable the president to have a first hand knowledge of the challenges those manufacturers are facing. And then it would be resolved in a way that everybody would say this is what we are doing in a transparent manner, not just for one CBN Governor to say I am doing ANCHOR Borrowers’ Program and not much would be known about it. So, dialogue is essential to the success of a democracy and I think this is one of the areas I believe and think is a strong area the president- elect, being someone who is known for promoting consultation, should focus on. I believe that, to a large degree, would determine his success in office.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
