My opinion on how the election went is best captured by the title of the report issued by domestic observers after the presidential election: An election programmed to fail. In every aspect of that election, you can't escape the conclusion that the election was programmed to fail. People may argue that there may be no elections without some hitches. Mr. President made that argument in his broadcast. But when you look at the degree of the mistakes, (it's incredible). Though there are some minor ones that are pardonable.
But when an election witnessed such degree of logistic crisis, to the extent that in some states there was no election, especially in the South East and the North East, and where they held at all, they started so late that people could not vote without the fear of intimidation and violence. In the case of Abia State, for instance, the governor was shown on television saying he voted at 7 p.m., and this was in the city; then you can imagine what happened to those in the rural areas, if it got there at all. Despite these flaws, massive numbers were released as the figures that the winners got.There is also the issue of lack of secrecy in balloting. In all the states of the federation, our observers worked at more than 50,000 polling booths in all, which means that we were at more then 30 per cent of all the voting stations. Our observers returned with the issue of lack of secrecy. Then you begin to ask yourself under what condition our people voted right there in the open before the presiding officers, party agents and other voters. There are also cases of under-age voting and muddled up ballot papers, especially in the National Assembly polls, where some party logos were left out. So, if you put all these together, you would agree that these are not minor mistakes which you observe in every election.They are so flawed that you cannot help but reject the election. Which was what the domestic observer group did in their report. We rejected the presidential election in its entirety and called for its cancellation.
After the governorship election, the TMG asked that election in 10 states be cancelled, why did you single out these states when you said there was widespread electoral malpractice across the states?
This is because at the time we made the call, it was a preliminary report; we released it under 24 hours, and since then we have included four other states Ekiti, Oyo,Taraba and Gombe. The reason we singled out those states was that the results our monitors got from the field were far from the ones INEC declared. The results INEC gave were massively inflated. So, we said the results announced in those states were at variance with the results from the field and the voting pattern in those states.
You said the presidential election should be rejected, but there are already plans to swear in those declared winners. What happens if your advice is not taken?
It will mark the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic. This is because no society, no nation, can endure the level of criminality, the level of robbery -armed robbery -of the people's mandate that we saw in April 21.The government that will emerge from that kind of election would have legitimacy and credibility problems. The government, from day one, will have vociferous opposition. The government will not be able to implement its policies, especially those that have to do with corruption. How can you fight corruption when you are a product of corruption? How can you preach transparency when you are a product of an opaque election? How can you call out people to follow you when the people know they did not vote for you in the first place? If they allow this to go on and if they pretend that it is business as usual, we can as well say bye-bye to the Fourth Republic. In my history of monitoring election in Nigeria I started in 1993 and I have also monitored elections in Asia and other African countries; I have never seen this level of robbery.
Even the National Democratic Institute (NDI) that had monitored elections in over 100 countries agreed that the level of fraud in this presidential election is monumental. In its report, it says the level of irregularities, lapses and malpractices it witnessed in the election is the worst. That means that the level of fraud in that election was unprecedented in the world. I cant see how it will work They may pretend about it; they can use the police to harass people and even arrest some of us who are saying the truth, but that will not help us, that cannot stabilise the government.
Was the election deliberately programmed to fail or was it that the court rulings simply overwhelmed INEC?
There are two issues you joined here. First, whether the election was deliberately programmed to fail and that if INEC was overwhelmed by the court rulings, compelling it to do certain things. There is high level of incompetence in INEC, and the most annoying thing is the level of bravado they used to cover their incompetence. Any person that criticises any aspect of the election was labelled a supporter of the opposition or someone that has collected money from the opposition. INEC from the onset was not open to the civil society contribution; it was in fact very hostile to the civil society. They made it very difficult for any one to contribute to success of the election.The other thing is that the preparation for this election began after the defeat of the third term. The people who wanted third term did not give up; they thought they could use other means to achieve it, until it became so clear that third term would not succeed; then they commenced plans for the election. It was late in the day that they started preparation for the election. They did not release money for it. From day one, they were not interested in the election; they thought the third term would succeed and they would just give us the sham we had in 2003 again. It was late in the day that they realised that this election must hold because the constitution says there must be an election every four years. They then decided that those that worked against the third term will not participate in the election. Then they went into Kangaroo panels to get people disqualified. In the process, they dragged INEC into it and INEC became the political action committee of the PDP, and then lost focus and forgot its core function area of conducting election. It went on appealing every case until the Supreme Court gave the last order. So, when they say it is the Supreme Court ruling that made them print the ballot late, one should asked them why they refused the sound advice that they should include everyone and then allow any one that has anything against any one to go to court. The people are also there to vote out those they feel are not good for them. It is not the job of INEC to tell Nigerians who should not contest. This is a problem INEC created for itself. This combined with its serious incompetence to give us this election.
Who funds TMG, because there is this insinuation that the group was being funded by the opposition?
Our source of funding is very clear. From 1998, when the TMG was formed, we have always been supported by donor agencies to monitor elections. In 1999, it was the European Union (EU) that funded the deployment of 10,000 observers that we used. In 2003, it was also the EU through the United Nations Development Project (UNDP). In 2007, it was the EU, UNDP and the British Department For International Development (DFID) through the joint donor basket. It is this same joint donor basket that funded the INEC. If you read the INEC adverts for the elections, you would see that clearly. Our source of funding has always been very clear.It is not hidden at all .They alleged that we were given N300 million. Those are not the kind of money you collect and hide; we have bank accounts and they know about that. They can check to see if there are movements like that. Individuals running the organisations too have bank accounts and they can go and check if money is hidden there. If they are not satisfied, they know where we reside, perhaps we hide the money at home, they can come and search. Or have they noticed a lot of changes in our lifestyle. These are just attempting to divert attention from the issue of the lapses in INEC we pointed out long ago that if they had listened, they might not run us into this mess.
We are moving towards a one-party state and the PDP seems to be the beneficiary of this movement. Do you think the PDP deserves this commendation?
It does not appear. It is the fact that we are in a one-party state. If you look at the results announced by the INEC, which gave the PDP more that two-thirds of the legislature, you observe we are already in a one-party state. It is always becoming a norm that if you come to a society and there is a party that has more than 70 per cent of the election, then there is an indication that there is a problem with that election because it does not reflect plurality. People have different ideological leanings and there are different religious beliefs. If one party is having such a result, then it does not reflect plurality of the people. Every society is characterised by plurality. The second leg of the question is: that does the PDP deserve it? It is almost a rhetorical question for me. If you see what happened on the Election Day and saw the voting pattern of the people, if the votes have been allowed to count, we will be talking of another thing. Not just that they did not deserve it, the voting pattern did not reflect it.
President Olusegun Obasanjo will be winding up his government late next month. Some people have said this regime failed, what is your own assessment of this as a Nigerian?
I am someone who does not jump into hasty conclusions in assessing governments and institutions. But I must tell you that in assessing this government, I have been at pain to find out where the bright light in the performance is, and I can tell you that it has been in very few areas compared to the potential of this government. When Obasanjo was being sworn-in in 1999, I was in an hotel room in Mexico where I was attending a UNDP programme. The Cable News Network (CNN) gave his inauguration over 10 minutes airtime, and the cameraman was showing Nelson Mandela of South Africa nodding his head in approval of the good things Obasanjo was saying. For the first time in a long time, I had goose pimples of a good leadership taking over the country. But few months down the line, the hopes were dashed, as there was widespread insecurity, unemployment, crime and assassination. At the end of the day, put side by side the popular acceptance of this government, the resources that has come in unprecedented in the history of this country ; the international support, you cannot escape the conclusion that it was a hope dashed and a hope betrayed. I can't even muster enough adjectives to describe the level of failure of this government. The level of failure of this eight years is so much that you cannot fail to see it.
You have been monitoring elections for over 14 years now; are you pained that we always have problems whenever civilians supervise elections compared to those done by the military?
This is actually the first time civilians had served out two terms and is conducting an election for another civilian regime.
What of Alhaji Shehu Shagari?
Shagari's own was the first term. It was the first year of his two terms that the government was uprooted, so there is no experience to compare it with. But I agree that if you look at the statistics of elections conducted in Nigeria so far; the elections conducted in 1979 and 1999 and then compare them with the elections conducted in 1983, 2003 and 2007, you would agree that the 1979 and 1999 election reflected the plurality in the Nigerian society that I spoke of earlier, which is missing in the other election.
In the 1979 election, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) won the South West, the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) won the South East, while the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) won the North and other segments of the Middle Belt. This showed plurality. It showed the tripod; the three major geographical areas that made up the nation. Though with its own problems, it still reflected plurality. You will give it a pass mark. In 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) won the South West ,the PDP won in other parts, though there were malpractices there too, but you could see the plurality. But what happened in 1983, 2003 and this 2007 is that the party at the federal level used the instrumentality of state to go against the plurality by muzzling the opposition. To that extent, you can say the military, who are always retreating, performs better in elections supervision. That is not to say that the military should come and organine elections. No! But in comparative terms, the election they organise is better than those organised by the civilians. One thing we need to note here is that those elections were done by retreating military government. The lesson from that is that it is only when you have a very independent electoral administration that is not affiliated to any of the contesting parties that we can have a free and fair elections. What happened in 2003 and 2007 was that the INEC was too affiliated to the PDP, and so it is difficult for it to deliver a good election. In future, we should made sure we have an INEC that is not only independent in name but in every aspect of it, even in its funding, and run by men of integrity.
How do you think this independent you speak of can be attained in Nigeria?
It requires amendment of the constitutional and the Electoral Act. Constitutionally, the power of the president to appoint members of the commission should be whittled down, if not removed. What we should do is that the critical stakeholders have independent representation in the INEC, so we won't have a situation where one person appoints everybody, and in the process controls them. Today, almost all the commissioners of INEC are card-carrying members of the PDP; so, what do you expect them to do in an election their party is contesting in? The composition of INEC needs to be looked into.
The second area is funding. INEC should get its money from the federation account or the consolidated account and not going to the ministry of finance asking for money, knowing that the ministry is controlled by the (federal) government.The third is the issue of accountability. It should be made possible through the law that an enquiry will be made of the election to find out the areas where mistakes were made and if any individual is found to have compromised the process, and if convicted, should serve a stiff penalty to serve as deterrent to others.
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