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FRIDAY, 27 JULY 2012 00:00 BY EMEKA NGIGE OPINION - COLUMNISTS
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NOTHING can be further from the truth. I merely shook hands and embraced Mr. Wali and went my way. Even when journalists (including AIT) besieged me for my reaction, I told them that I would like to review the entire process before issuing an official statement. To now insinuate that my charitable gesture towards Mr. Wali amounted to conceding defeat or acknowledgement of the fairness of the election is highly mischievous. At any rate, even if I had congratulated him and subsequently discovered that the process was grievously manipulated, I am not estopped thereby from bringing such malfeasance to the attention of all stakeholders. Consequently, the shaking of hands with Mr. Wali is a non-issue.

The NBA General Secretary, Mr. Olumuyiwa Akinboro had challenged me to substantiate my allegations with “hard, incontrovertible and unshakable evidence.” I intend to do so now. It is incontrovertible that on June 28, 2012, I wrote to Mr. Akinboro requesting for the official National Executive Committee (NEC) members list as well as the delegates list as submitted by the branch chairmen. I must mention that when the letter was delivered to the NBA Secretariat, the desk officer refused to endorse the acknowledgement copy on the instruction of Mr. Akinboro. It took my personal intervention for the acknowledgement copy to be endorsed. This explains why the General Secretary has not denied receiving my letter.

Mr. Akinboro has asserted that the General Secretary is not constitutionally empowered to release the delegates’ list to contestants. On the contrary, the NBA Constitution does not prohibit the General Secretary from issuing the delegates’ list to the aspirants. The matter equally revolves around global best practices, whereby electoral agencies are required to show that the electoral process is manifestly transparent. We are aware that even in the general elections, rigging starts with the voters’ register. This was why I kept insisting on the publication of the voters’ register or being furnished with same as a candidate. Subsequent events have now confirmed my fears.

The General Secretary’s contention that aspirants source for voters’ list from branch chairmen is incorrect. The tradition is that the voters’ list as compiled is sent to all the branches for circulation to interested branch members. At any rate, why should the voters’ register be shrouded in secrecy if not that someone is up to some mischief? Mr. Akinboro has equally contended that the General Secretary’s role in the electoral process “has been taken over by the Electoral Committee.” This cannot be further from the truth. Both the NBA President and General Secretary insisted that everything pertaining to the compilation and distribution of the list of accredited delegates lay with the General Secretary. That was why the branch chairmen were directed to submit the delegates’ lists to the General Secretary and to no other person. For the General Secretary to now turn around and claim that his role had been taken over by the Electoral Committee is the height of mischief.

Manipulation of NEC list to include non-members

The contention that Mr. Paul Babatunde Daudu became a NEC member by virtue of his being the Secretary of Young Lawyers Forum (YLF) is not only false but misleading. Firstly, the Chairman of YLF, Mr. Precious Igbuan was never co-opted into NEC by the NBA leadership. That is why his name did not appear in the voters’ register as a co-opted member. However, Benin branch included his name as a delegate, thereby making him a legitimate voter in the election. Subsequent to the release of the NEC membership list by the NBA President at the Gombe NEC meeting of November 24-26, 2010, Mr. Igbuan’s name continued to appear on the minutes of subsequent meetings as a mere “observer.” It is therefore very clear that the inclusion of Mr. Paul Daudu in the voters’ register as a co-opted member is an exercise in illegality.

As to the reference to Mr. Opayinka as a co-opted member and voter, the records at my disposal clearly show that Mr. Opayinka was never on the voters’ register for 2008 elections, notwithstanding that he was the YLF Chairman. It was not until Chief Rotimi Akeredolu’s tenure that he was duly appointed a NEC member and subsequently a delegate to the 2010 elections. As for Mrs. Ranti Daudu, I still maintain – from the minutes of NEC meetings at my disposal – that she was not a NEC member until the voters’ register surfaced 24 hours to the elections, clothing her with NEC membership as a co-opted member. It is instructive that till date, the General Secretary has refused to incorporate the names of the co-opted NEC members at the Gombe meeting in the minutes. This is apparently to give room for the kind of manipulations that we now complain about. The President is free to nominate his friends, cronies and minions to NEC, but this must not be done whimsically. There must be NEC approval endorsing such nominations. This has not been done as can be confirmed from all the minutes.

Manipulation of voters’ register

Again, the General Secretary is conveniently avoiding the issue. We specifically mentioned the transfer of names of 20 Senior Advocates from the list of co-opted members in the voters’ register, leaving the list of co-opted members at 100. However, when the list of Benchers who are automatic delegates are equally removed from that 100, the number of co-opted members will certainly not remain at 100, as was the case on the voters’ register used for the election. Again, if you remove at least 14 Benchers from the list of co-opted members, the list cannot be more than 86. Therefore, it is now beyond doubt that the 100 names representing list of co-opted members contains names of non-NEC members.

It is incorrect that all the names submitted by branch chairmen were included in the voters’ register. The names of Messrs Ikenna Egbuna, William Akika and Aham Ejelam, to name a few, were duly submitted to the NBA secretariat, they transported themselves to Abuja only to find their names missing from the voters’ register. Contrary to Mr. Akinboro’s assertion, Port Harcourt branch had only 28 delegates on the displayed voters’ list while 42 delegates voted, as per the voters’ register. Abuja had 35 delegates on the displayed voters’ list while the General Secretary admitted that 45 delegates actually voted during the election. It was only Lagos that had 43 delegates on the register while 43 voted.

Deceased SANs on the list

Again, contrary to the assertion of the General Secretary that the list was sourced from the Supreme Court, we assert that the entire list of Senior Advocates was sourced from a recent publication entitled Compendium on Senior Advocates of Nigeria (2nd edition) published by GEM Communications Resources, moreso when the striking resemblance of the photographs in the voters’ register and the said compendium is glaringly incontrovertible. The alibi that the death of these SANs was not brought to the attention of the NBA secretariat is blatant falsehood, as the said publication clearly indicated their deceased status. It is on record that the NBA was duly represented at the valedictory sessions for the deceased SANs. It is therefore false that their status was not known to the NBA secretariat, moreso when they died in May and the register was compiled two months later in July.

Duplicated names on the voters’ register

On the assertion that no deceased delegate voted or could have voted, we assert that such deceased persons may have been impersonated, moreso as the General Secretary has shown a propensity to mislead the public as to the actual number of those that voted at the election. We state that the assertion that diverse mechanisms had been embedded in the electoral process to discourage multiple voting is incorrect, given that many of these suspect delegates had no photographs attached to their names. At any rate, the non-inclusion of these photographs is a breach by the NBA leadership of the electoral rules, which required that every delegate must submit his photograph for inclusion in the voters’ register.