₦airaland Forum

If PDP rigged in all those areas you mentioned, why is it that they lost in places like Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and the entire south west where they had the power? Why couldnt they take Ondo from Labor Party? The thing is that where a party wins, they will say it was free and fair but where they lose, they scream rigging

We all know that Yorubas have political ethics they follow, they dont need to rig but what I was sying is that Nigeria election is not free and fair in any manner.
Why should voting entails people carry guns like a war zone intimidating voters. With the money spent they can get people to vote in a civilized manner

if GEJ wasn't actually giving us free and fair elections, will Buhari's supporters even have hope? No matter how false it may be?

This is why we as a country can never grow, as far as I concern this election started well until Hijacking by PDP started. Kwara state, Benue State, Akwa Ibom state etc,. I Don t join that crap of free and fair. With modern tech and the money spent, every polling boot should have  been given a gps device that will sends the result in front of all parties reps involved to INEC HQ. Most returning officer and REC corrupt.Please why are all the result not out by nowif they were counted at the polling stations or the maths too much.

Free and Fair  , day dreaming

My good friend, this was not a Northern Forum meeting as you know it but. This was a clandestine coup-like meeting(gang-up) aimed at removing someone who dared challenge them to their 'rightful throne'

I agree with you but OBJ was there for 8yrs and he is not north, it still shows that we don't have any leader from south side which I might be made to believe. They  are all clowns. Someone credible like pat Utomi should have teamed up with a bigger party and then grow from there

The Buhari Brigade are claiming that Buhari is the change we need and that he has no dealings with the old order and criminals, but how do you explain him meeting with former military President Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser Gen Aliyu Gusau, former Inspector-General of Police M.D. Yusufu and former minister of finance Malam Adamu Ciroma, just take a look at the former former people in that least.

My friend the same way Buhari attends all the ex president meetings, so doe he attend the Nothern forum

I have always wondered why did Goodluck rush to pardon Ribadu to come back to Nigeria. Being OBJ boy don't be surprise him stepping down for Goodluck But they will have to do it a Nice way

The National Organising Secretary of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, told THISDAY that the party was aware of the plot against President Jonathan by opposition parties and said: “Surely they will gather, but surely they will scatter.”

I wonder when we will get diplomatic the way we make comments

Buhari did not do that. Idiagbon did all the work. Buhari was a lazy assed dictator. And when they felt that Idiagbon was overstepping his authority (doing good for Nigeria, mind you), they killed him.

Buhari was not part of people that killed Idiagbon, That man died if I can remember after returning from aso rock for a function.  Buhari will give room for people that Know better to handle the situations in presidency than him  not like the know all OBJ.

Sometimes it embarrasses me when Nigerian presidents comes out to address things in the public which could have been taken care of by a minister. A good leader is made up of who you have around you.

@Kobojunkie

Abeg tell am for me.

Those were my best days in Nigeria, If you drop any dirts on the road, even a Taxi driver will drive to you and tell you to pick it up. Nigeria where being though how to behave. Now all we see is rascal behavior which you president even noticed

My dear, this is similar to the point I'm trying to make. Vote for the person, and not just the party. As for Mutallab, my point is that he was a terrorist, but that doesn't make all Nigerians Terrorists. He's a northerner, but not all northerners are bad. SS governors may be bad, but not all SS men are bad. OBJ is Yoruba, but then so is Fashola. Ibori and co did bad, PDP is crappy, but these don't mean GEJ is bad (nor good, I'm just saying). Vote Buhari or Shekarau or Ribadu or Mama Ekaette not because you want PDP out, but because you believe they are good. I can't force an opinion on anybody nor vice versa, but people here are ranting sentimentally. I'm only againt Buhari, not because he is from the north or religion or anything, but because he has done evil to this country. We need new blood in politics. We need to oust out people like him that believe that they will rule Nigeria continuously, again and again because we are their slaves.

Please tell me what Buhari did to this country in 1983. Do you remember who started environmental cleaning and how everywhere use to be clean. Go to Aba, P H,Onitsha now if it at all looks as if we still have the cleaning Around. Who started going after Drug peddler or armed robbers. I remember at that time Arm robbers were using Knock out for fear of being caught with arms, Now all our ss governors are buying guns for criminals.

The harassment we get everyday from the police now is it not more.When I mean police,  I mean all the police that channeled to protect politicians.

Please just tell me what Buhari did to this country

The North believes that it is their birthright to rule Nigeria. I don't like PDP, but I would rather stick with Goodluck than watch Nigeria fall into the hands of a Terrorist. How can we be saying Buhari will be a better alternative? After what he and his ilk did to Idiagbon? Idiagbon was the one that did all the good work back in '83-'85, not Buhari. What did they do to him? They killed him. And look at the Jos situation. Any time Muhammadu visits that town, it flares up. Those vehemently supporting Buhari just want a change from PDP rule. They will vote Lucifer himself if he came out against PDP. Everybody is entitled to his/her own opinion. Let the votes decide. Stop counting your eggs before they are hatched.

Vote the Person, not the party. I hope Nigeria will still be in one piece by 2015 (God wills it). Fashola for President!!!

The North this , the north that, I am from Niger delta, common debate our only candidate(PHD) could not come out and defend us. What does that tell you. The most corrupt and brutal governors are south south. I am not being deceived anymore.

The thought of people like Ibori , Odili and Godswll just wanna make me throw up

@onome25

Hi folks, in as much as alliance is going on, the north are playing one trick:
1. To lure Ribadu to step down for CPC ( last born wan claim 1st born )
2. If eventualy Ribadu steps down for Buhari, ANPP candidate will now follow suit: making looks the hav a genuine heart for NIGERIA, i mean trying to kick PDP out.
Nigerians should b very careful wit all this men claiming to bring change.what i.m seeing is, the NORTH ( muslim ) has sometin they want to change & i believed that OUR Lord JESUS will deliver 80% votes to GEJ of the PDP.

Please dont come here with you religious thinking and so

@ agaba123 or beaf

During this period, some of Nigeriaís earlier anti-export bias in manufacturing disappeared
with policy reforms, and producers switched from imported to local inputs. Particularly in
agro-processing and textile manufacturing, there was greater use of locally produced
materials. The assembly-based manufacturing, which had depended on imported inputs and
been shielded from competition and market signals, contracted. But the industry as a whole
grew by 3.5 percent per year (1986-1990);

All this theory that you are writing, Babangida SAP,MAMSA, were all fraud.During this period we got the introduction of Tokunbo, tell me which local input did we turn to during those years, How come there is so much demand for forex now ifthose years set a pace for local input. The west will always applaud anyone that help them Bleep africa well like Babangida through IMF

Quote from: Seun on Today at 05:26:50 PM
What we know about Buhari suggests that he's a repressive dictator who hates human rights, the press and knows little about the economy beyond imposing hardship on people. His supporters claim he has changed, but we don't know anything about this "new Buhari" they are promoting.

Please feel free to educate us about GEJ, using facts that can be verified, etc, and we'll be listening.

For someone asking for facts, it's appalling that you resorted to rumors to buttress you lack of knowledge about Buhari. Buhari has not changed, and I find it hard to figure out what you are referring to as a new Buhari. Buhari remains the very same man he was when he birthed 3 out of the 4 Nigerian refineries, which unfortunately the PDP government has ran down in the last 12 years. Buhari is the same man who was a Governor, NNPC chairman, Head of state, and PTF Chairman all political offices he held with distinction. The only noticeable changes in Buhari are the fact that he's grown older and wiser and obviously he is no longer in a military uniform.

I'll take GEJ's records one at a time in my next posts.

He was interviewed by D'banj and also carry's Turai's hand bag

@ Seun

I think we are more likely to regret someone like Buhari whom we know little about.  We already know Jonathan's strengths and weaknesses from his time as the president.  I don't see why we should regret or be surprised about anything later on

.

Can't believe you said this Seun. With all your experience on Nairaland forum.Maybe you were not born when Buhari ruled, for you  not to know much about this man or probably you are like most Nigerians who pushes history aside so soon.

For Buhari, I know that he paid up  Nigerian debt in 1 year, made sure that all the essential commodities in the warehouses were brought out and sold to the public. Brought discipline and work ethics to government ministries, fought corruption by trying to bring back Umaru dikko, I can continue.

For Goodluck, stole money through the wife, Try to get Ibori freed in the UK and Dubai. Obasanjo Houseboy, had to report to Oga on election day at Ota farm. Allows his PDP governors to (Godswill Akpabio )behave as they like. He does not have a mind of his own.

I will not say much. I dont want my country to continue having the worst first lady ever as we do now. Buhari has said that he will scrap the office of the first lady, lots of good stuff coming from Buhari

Goodluck Jonathan
We must have an alternative to road transport which is why we are reviving our railways. You can now travel between Lagos and Abeokuta by rail. I made that journey by train myself a month ago. We just awarded a contract for the revival of the Port Harcourt-Makurdi, Makurdi-Kuru and the Kuru-Maiduguri line. This administration is only going to build on and never halt infrastructure. GEJ

My friend, i went to nigeria website and saw that rubbish locomotive that they brought in, we need people that will built a new modern railway line not the one they are taking big money and bringing in old locomotive. Not enough to vote someone in please.Goodluck has got no ideas

@Sagamite

Who is upsetting you this morning, abeg take am easy.

Late results coming in from Akwa Ibom and Jigawa states as well as in  FCT, all favouring PDP
Is FCT a riverine area?
This is the typical trick. The Anambra Central issue shows us that people still rig

I mentioned yesterday that there was massive rigging by PDP in akwa Ibom state, so I am not surprise. The people are backward allowing Godwill to play with their money


https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-641981.160.html

The moooron did not think Corruption was important?

No wonder the reetard was cajoling with a convicted criminal and corrupt people are left alone.

Credible election = looting accepted if he comes in on saturday. Beware!

@Nicklee

Nigerian press 'don fall my hand'. It is incredible that you can't find all collated results in one place, anywhere. What the heck are these people doing for crying out loud? In the US ( I know some people will descend on me for using the US as an example), results are uploaded by the press as soon as they are announced at the local voting center. Nothings wrong with that cos as long as results has been collated at the polling booth and announced, it becomes legit!! It doesn't take so much resources to do this simple thing. Ok, more than 24 hrs after elections, no news corp has sat down to collate and publish results announced so far. Everything is still all over the place. This is ridiculous.

Grow up Nigeria, grow up.

we dey small our press have been busy collecting bribes but there are other links you can follow

http://nigeriaelections.org/nass.php

agabaI23

the many name of BEAF

I dey laugh

it is difficult to separate gej from pdp and that means bode george ,alamiesigha,andy uba, alao akala,tony anenih,lucky igbinedion and ibori. not quite what i would call ,ILLUSTRIOUS COMPANY

Thank you my brother

@jmaine
LOL

Beaf is still busy rigging for PDP in Akwa Ibom , So he is gonna during the election period. so don't expect a lot of posting from for now

I think Goodluck is not smart enough to lead us to greatness. He can only answer 'yes sir' to Godfathers and we will keep going down as a country.
WE WANT BUHARI WHO LISTEN TO HIS JUNIORS LIKE IDIAGBON AND OUR COUNTRY WILL RECOVER

Can you Imagine, while we are busy here looking for[b] BEAF[/b] for what he has for us on this post. He is busy starting a new topic.

Please BEAF come out here and defend PDP and Jona

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-642851.0.html

Do you have anything to back that claim up . . . . ?

What do you want to hear, he gave 140 cars to the police and 100million to MOPOL, leaving out the other agencies , I call to fine out how the election was going and someone close to them said they are voting in a house. If you follow Akwa Ibom well you will understand.  Police commisioner was the only in the country that was not removed and is related to the Governor's wife

I mentioned that already , a friend of mine voted in a pdp house with some corper there, Akpabio gave 100 million to the police last week .

I think Chukwumerije is cool, he is very simple, met him a couple of times

Beaf is  dead for now until after rigging, they are rigging in Akwa Ibom state where millions are changing hands

pdp is fast becoming a regional party after all. (opposition party)
localized to some south-south and south-east states

Yes, just spoke to a friend in Akwa ibom and he told me he is coming out of a house where pdp and the corpers are rigging the elections.I knew this will happen in akwa Ibom

@ EzeUche


I don't blame you, is it because the wife of Akpabio is Igbo or that he is giving all the vast money to your people through fake contracts or using assaisin from your home town made you make this comment. The commissioner of police is the wife relation and is the only commissioner that was not replace by IGP.
It is just sad that Akpabio is spending most of Akwa Ibom money to bribe Judges , IGP, and sponsor Goodluck's campaign. The man is a disaster.Time will catch up with him soon. He should ask Ibori, samuel Doe,Saddam.People dont learn.

It is a shame that we do not have anyone in Nigeria that can listen to the people of Akwa Ibom. They all listen to Money. Upon all the Killings in Jos Goodluck, IGP did not find that serious but on Akwa Ibom case , they are flying police helicopter from Abuja to Uyo in order transfer and convict thier opponent.
Thier future generations will never see good for all the bad they have done to the people of Akwa Ibom state

[b]The reason we must vote GoodLuck and PDP out. They set up rugged government. I would be glad if they did plant him

Former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke, has given a sensational account of how elections are rigged in Nigeria. Recently in Abuja, as part of renewed moves to contest for the presidency in 2011, he gave a frank and factual account of the collusion of governors, state Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and the state Police Commissioners in the malaise.


Former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke


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He spoke to civil society groups and politicans.

“Let me start this way. Prof. Maurice Iwu is truly an enigma; he enjoyed the limelight. He enjoyed all the attacks, thrown and meted at him. He remained undaunted. I think, he belongs to the school of thought that believes that bad publicity is better than no publicity.

“So, even though he was being attacked and scolded and all sorts of things were said about him, he didn’t shy away from even going to the United States and talking to Nigerians in the Diaspora about his work, he didn’t shy away from it. I was told he organized a rally to ensure that he will come back to do the work he was appointed to.

“Why do I call him an enigma? The truth is, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has little or no bearing on the success of elections, that’s the truth. To me, it’s actually immaterial because he is head of the administration. He takes the brunt.

“The best he can do is perhaps, draw up a blueprint, but the implementation of that blueprint is outside his control. So, if elections are rigged in say - Taraba State- we don’t do that stuff in Cross River State (laughter),

“Every one looks at Iwu and he proudly says, we did this or that. Hogwash!

Let me now take you through the process of an election. We have 120,000 booths in Nigeria . At the hierarchy, you have the Chairman of INEC, then you have the zonal commissioners, then you have the RECs and they are the heads in every state. The zone as the name implies; we have six zones in Nigeria , so you have six of them.

“Then you have the RECs and there are 36 of them, of course, and Abuja . Then for each local government, you have an electoral officer. Beyond that, you have 120,000 polling booths, headed by presiding officers. The people think that at the end of the elections, the PDP would just decide who wins, and who doesn’t announce the results. I think the process is a bit more sophisticated than that.

“This is what happens; the Resident Electoral Commissioner is usually from another state. The electoral officers, they move around. They are usually from that state, but for the conduct of elections itself, you would probably move from Cross River to Akwa Ibom or to Abia, but these musical chairs don’t mean nothing.

“When the REC comes before the elections are conducted- of course, when he comes to the state, usually, he has no accommodation; monies have not been released for the running or conduct of the elections and all that because we always start late. He pays a courtesy call on the governor. It’s usually a televised event you know, and of course he says all the right things. ‘Your Excellency, I am here to ensure that we have free and fair elections and I will require your support.’

“Now, at that courtesy call, most governors, at least I did, will invite the Commissioner of Police because he is part of the action and he sits there.

“After the courtesy call, the Resident Electoral Commissioner now moves in for a one-on-one with the governor and says, “Your Excellency, since I came, I’ve been staying in this hotel, there is no accommodation for me and even my vehicle is broken down and the last commissioner didn’t leave the vehicle, so if you could help me settle down quickly;’ and the governor says, ‘Chief of Staff, where is the Chief of Staff here?’

“And the Chief of Staff appears. Governor says: ‘Please, ensure that the REC is accommodated–put him in the Presidential Lodge, allot two cars to him, I give you seven days to get this done. Then, the relationship has started; I am going to share some of these things with you so that we don’t leave here with any illusions.

“A lot of us, folks who have gone through an election or have been elected for one thing or another, see groups like Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the CLP as woolly-eye dreamers, you have to come down to the backsides, since I am now a hybrid between both. I want to bring you both down to backsides. Let me take you down to what happens so that you can change it because if you don’t change it, we here won’t suffer but I think our children will.

“We the elite, I am one of them, we send our kids to the best schools around the world, when they come back they are misfits, they cannot fit in and so ultimately we are designing a system that would destroy us in the end”.

“Let me take our minds back to Somalia . Somalia is mono-religious, mono-ethnic; they only have clans (but) they have one tribe. What has happened there? It’s a failed state because the elite in Somalia were so disconnected from the people that once they had some money, they buy houses in England, Washington and all those places; they were not investing, putting their best foot forward and I think that was what Pastor Tunde Bakare was talking about.

“If you want to be in a contest, you put your best foot forward; at the end of the day, there was such a disconnect that even till today, they cannot bridge it. Let me tell you, the last recognized President of Somalia is buried in Lagos- Siad Barre.

“We are multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-problematic. The reason why most people worry about us is if we explode, who will contain us? Let me also say this, I know what I am saying now is an aside, I will go back to the elections. When we conducted the census in 2006 or so, the raw figures said we were over 200 million; when they went and processed the figures, it came down to 140million.

“When you look at those figures and compare to those we had in 1991 at a growth rate of 2.1 or something like that, it is really just an extrapolation, because we were too embarrassed to admit our true numbers. If we get it wrong, we will fail like Somalia; in Somalia, half of them are in Kenya, Ethiopia, and a few are in Europe here and there; who will contain us in all of West Africa and Central Africa and for that it is imperative not just for ourselves but for the rest of the continent that we get it right.

“Now, back to the elections, once that relationship has been established between the governor and the REC, if you are a governor who is ‘A Governor’, maybe two nights after you just stopped by at the Governor’s lodge and see the REC and say ah, ‘ah, REC how are you doing? Are you?’ He says, ‘ah! Your Chief of Staff has been wonderful. He has been very nice to me; he supplied me the vehicles and everything is ok.”

“A few weeks to the elections, the REC sees the governor; you probably have on the average about three thousand five hundred, four thousand depending on the polling booths in every state. So, REC goes to the governor and says, ‘Your Excellency, could you please, give us the names of about four, five thousand people so that we can hurriedly train them, we need them as Presiding Officers.’ You need experience. A good coach is one who has played and has lost matches in the past?

“The REC now goes down and says, ‘we need to conduct a training programme for the presiding officers and em, headquarters hasn’t sent us any money yet, you know.’

“And the governor is like: ‘How much would that cost?’

“REC replies: ‘N25million for the first batch, we may have about three batches.’ Governor: ‘Ok, the Chief of Staff will see you.’

Now, the Chief of Staff, you call him: ‘Make sure, that we arrange N25 million this week and in two weeks time another N25 million and N75 million in all.’

“Chief of Staff: ‘Your Excellency, how do we do it?’ Governor: ‘Put it under security vote.’

“In other words, is it cash, ok, now, cash in huge Ghana Must Go bags – some of my colleagues will shoot me- (turns to the audience) is any former governor here? (Crowd replies no!)

“Good. Cash is lodged in huge Ghana Must Go bags for the REC and of course, to be fair to them, they call their electoral officers and say the governor has been very benevolent; he has given us this and that. I say three batches because they have them in senatorial districts.

“So, you have one in Calabar, you have one in Ikom and Ogoja, those are the headquarters of the senatorial districts. Each one costs N25 million. Of course, the sums are not properly retired. I don’t know how much of this N25 million worked. But, there is a rapport this is going on.

“The governor now turns round and says: ‘Call me the party chairman.’ The party chairman appears and the governor says: ‘INEC requires 50 thousand people for conducting the elections. See to it that we meet their needs.’ The chairman goes and you hear in the evening on radio and television: There will be an urgent meeting of all chairmen and secretaries of XYZ party at the headquarters.

“They should report promptly at 10am (because) matters of urgent interest would be discussed. End of announcement. Now we have texts messages, so its easier, in no time everyone is here.

“It’s a very short meeting, please, go back and within 48 hours submit from each local government 250 names of trusted party members. So in a week, the deed is done. The names, sometimes even passport photographs if required, are sent to INEC.

“And the training programme is carried out. Let me pause a bit. This is at party level. They are usually civil servants. They may be teachers, whatever, but they are party members. The remuneration, for each of them for the elections from Abuja is 10,000 Naira for the day’s work. But the state in its benevolence gives 50 to 100,000 Naira to each of these folks right before this election.

“This is even where it gets even more interesting. So, you have each of the three or four thousand polling booths; they are manned by party stalwarts. They are usually party stalwarts. You don’t send any peripheral member. The remuneration from Abuja has not arrived but that of the state was received 48 hours prior.

“On the day of elections, each polling booth has no more than 500 ballot papers, that is standard.

“There is no a polling booth that is more than 500. So only 200 people appear here, 300 there, 100 there, 50 there, 400 hundred there, at the end of election what happens. The Presiding Officer sits down and calls a few guys and says, ‘hey, there are a few hundred papers here, let’s thumbprint. This is the real election.

“Well, this is not a PDP thing. I am not here to castigate the PDP; it’s a Nigerian thing. This process may sound comical and jovial, it happens throughout the country, whether it is Action Congress or APGA it’s the same thing. We are all the same. They start thumb-printing, some are overzealous. So at the end of the day, you find some voting more than the number of people that were registered to vote.

“Otherwise they do it, you have 95 per cent turnout. You start wondering where were the voters, I didn’t see so many people. And the election results are announced; XYZ party wins and it takes a week for this paltry N10,000 for each presiding officer to arrive.

“Listen to this before you ask your question: Who is the most important person in an election? – The Presiding Officer. And if there are 120,000 of them (booths) there are 120,000 Presiding Officers, they are the most important people in the elections, not the chairman.

“So, as long as we keep applying that same method, you will get the same results. It’s crazy to think that because you substitute Iwu for Jega all will change. In other words, Iwu is a crook, Jega is a saint. Jega is great, he has an impeccable reputation. Iwu was great, now he seems not so great. Ok, they are both professors, they have reached the peak of whatever discipline that they profess.

The point is that it is the system and the personnel and the chairman has little or no control over that.

“Where are we now. We don’t even know when the elections will be. The Constitution amendment seems to be stalling somewhere. So it’s either in January or in April. Sometimes, we behave as if we invented democracy. We always want to draw new rules.

We should know the day of elections. It should be fixed. We should know that on so and so date I think, America is the 4th of November or so and if it falls on a Sunday it doesn’t make a difference.

“The point I am making here is that date is fixed, you know; because in a democracy, election should be a norm, not an event. In our democracy, election is an event. It’s like, we are going to spring on to you with fire works, hey, we are going to have an election, we are all running around- I know most politicians are broke right now, so we are all running around the field.

“Secondly, if you have your ears to the ground, there are whispers that maybe, we need to postpone this thing. The whispers are there. In a democracy, you postpone an election? You postpone things you didn’t plan for, not things that are there in the Constitution, that says you must do this, that and that, you can’t but –you know two ways of moving forward. This is where I like what SNG and CNP are doing.

“We need a critical mass of Nigerians to get out and vote. It is important because the more ballot papers that are legitimately used on election day, the fewer available to be used to rig the vote, that’s the truth. Don’t keep to yourself and think that they will announce results. They are more sophisticated than that. And that’s why the aspirants who felt cheated and had the resources to employ forensic personnel, like those elections had the elections upturned in Edo and Ondo, because they could establish multiple voting by thumbprint.

“So, if it’s an AC state, the procedure is the same. I remember a state, that state will remain nameless. I hear the story that the then President was so determined that he must change the leadership of this state and he called the IG and said, ‘look, that Governor is a security breach. Let’s have elections and flush the governor out, and the governor knows he is under siege. A week before the elections, a new police commissioner arrives.”





[/b]

[b]The reason we must vote GoodLuck and PDP out. They set up rugged government

Former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke, has given a sensational account of how elections are rigged in Nigeria. Recently in Abuja, as part of renewed moves to contest for the presidency in 2011, he gave a frank and factual account of the collusion of governors, state Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and the state Police Commissioners in the malaise.


Former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke


advertisement

He spoke to civil society groups and politicans.

“Let me start this way. Prof. Maurice Iwu is truly an enigma; he enjoyed the limelight. He enjoyed all the attacks, thrown and meted at him. He remained undaunted. I think, he belongs to the school of thought that believes that bad publicity is better than no publicity.

“So, even though he was being attacked and scolded and all sorts of things were said about him, he didn’t shy away from even going to the United States and talking to Nigerians in the Diaspora about his work, he didn’t shy away from it. I was told he organized a rally to ensure that he will come back to do the work he was appointed to.

“Why do I call him an enigma? The truth is, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has little or no bearing on the success of elections, that’s the truth. To me, it’s actually immaterial because he is head of the administration. He takes the brunt.

“The best he can do is perhaps, draw up a blueprint, but the implementation of that blueprint is outside his control. So, if elections are rigged in say - Taraba State- we don’t do that stuff in Cross River State (laughter),

“Every one looks at Iwu and he proudly says, we did this or that. Hogwash!

Let me now take you through the process of an election. We have 120,000 booths in Nigeria . At the hierarchy, you have the Chairman of INEC, then you have the zonal commissioners, then you have the RECs and they are the heads in every state. The zone as the name implies; we have six zones in Nigeria , so you have six of them.

“Then you have the RECs and there are 36 of them, of course, and Abuja . Then for each local government, you have an electoral officer. Beyond that, you have 120,000 polling booths, headed by presiding officers. The people think that at the end of the elections, the PDP would just decide who wins, and who doesn’t announce the results. I think the process is a bit more sophisticated than that.

“This is what happens; the Resident Electoral Commissioner is usually from another state. The electoral officers, they move around. They are usually from that state, but for the conduct of elections itself, you would probably move from Cross River to Akwa Ibom or to Abia, but these musical chairs don’t mean nothing.

“When the REC comes before the elections are conducted- of course, when he comes to the state, usually, he has no accommodation; monies have not been released for the running or conduct of the elections and all that because we always start late. He pays a courtesy call on the governor. It’s usually a televised event you know, and of course he says all the right things. ‘Your Excellency, I am here to ensure that we have free and fair elections and I will require your support.’

“Now, at that courtesy call, most governors, at least I did, will invite the Commissioner of Police because he is part of the action and he sits there.

“After the courtesy call, the Resident Electoral Commissioner now moves in for a one-on-one with the governor and says, “Your Excellency, since I came, I’ve been staying in this hotel, there is no accommodation for me and even my vehicle is broken down and the last commissioner didn’t leave the vehicle, so if you could help me settle down quickly;’ and the governor says, ‘Chief of Staff, where is the Chief of Staff here?’

“And the Chief of Staff appears. Governor says: ‘Please, ensure that the REC is accommodated–put him in the Presidential Lodge, allot two cars to him, I give you seven days to get this done. Then, the relationship has started; I am going to share some of these things with you so that we don’t leave here with any illusions.

“A lot of us, folks who have gone through an election or have been elected for one thing or another, see groups like Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the CLP as woolly-eye dreamers, you have to come down to the backsides, since I am now a hybrid between both. I want to bring you both down to backsides. Let me take you down to what happens so that you can change it because if you don’t change it, we here won’t suffer but I think our children will.

“We the elite, I am one of them, we send our kids to the best schools around the world, when they come back they are misfits, they cannot fit in and so ultimately we are designing a system that would destroy us in the end”.

“Let me take our minds back to Somalia . Somalia is mono-religious, mono-ethnic; they only have clans (but) they have one tribe. What has happened there? It’s a failed state because the elite in Somalia were so disconnected from the people that once they had some money, they buy houses in England, Washington and all those places; they were not investing, putting their best foot forward and I think that was what Pastor Tunde Bakare was talking about.

“If you want to be in a contest, you put your best foot forward; at the end of the day, there was such a disconnect that even till today, they cannot bridge it. Let me tell you, the last recognized President of Somalia is buried in Lagos- Siad Barre.

“We are multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-problematic. The reason why most people worry about us is if we explode, who will contain us? Let me also say this, I know what I am saying now is an aside, I will go back to the elections. When we conducted the census in 2006 or so, the raw figures said we were over 200 million; when they went and processed the figures, it came down to 140million.

“When you look at those figures and compare to those we had in 1991 at a growth rate of 2.1 or something like that, it is really just an extrapolation, because we were too embarrassed to admit our true numbers. If we get it wrong, we will fail like Somalia; in Somalia, half of them are in Kenya, Ethiopia, and a few are in Europe here and there; who will contain us in all of West Africa and Central Africa and for that it is imperative not just for ourselves but for the rest of the continent that we get it right.

“Now, back to the elections, once that relationship has been established between the governor and the REC, if you are a governor who is ‘A Governor’, maybe two nights after you just stopped by at the Governor’s lodge and see the REC and say ah, ‘ah, REC how are you doing? Are you?’ He says, ‘ah! Your Chief of Staff has been wonderful. He has been very nice to me; he supplied me the vehicles and everything is ok.”

“A few weeks to the elections, the REC sees the governor; you probably have on the average about three thousand five hundred, four thousand depending on the polling booths in every state. So, REC goes to the governor and says, ‘Your Excellency, could you please, give us the names of about four, five thousand people so that we can hurriedly train them, we need them as Presiding Officers.’ You need experience. A good coach is one who has played and has lost matches in the past?

“The REC now goes down and says, ‘we need to conduct a training programme for the presiding officers and em, headquarters hasn’t sent us any money yet, you know.’

“And the governor is like: ‘How much would that cost?’

“REC replies: ‘N25million for the first batch, we may have about three batches.’ Governor: ‘Ok, the Chief of Staff will see you.’

Now, the Chief of Staff, you call him: ‘Make sure, that we arrange N25 million this week and in two weeks time another N25 million and N75 million in all.’

“Chief of Staff: ‘Your Excellency, how do we do it?’ Governor: ‘Put it under security vote.’

“In other words, is it cash, ok, now, cash in huge Ghana Must Go bags – some of my colleagues will shoot me- (turns to the audience) is any former governor here? (Crowd replies no!)

“Good. Cash is lodged in huge Ghana Must Go bags for the REC and of course, to be fair to them, they call their electoral officers and say the governor has been very benevolent; he has given us this and that. I say three batches because they have them in senatorial districts.

“So, you have one in Calabar, you have one in Ikom and Ogoja, those are the headquarters of the senatorial districts. Each one costs N25 million. Of course, the sums are not properly retired. I don’t know how much of this N25 million worked. But, there is a rapport this is going on.

“The governor now turns round and says: ‘Call me the party chairman.’ The party chairman appears and the governor says: ‘INEC requires 50 thousand people for conducting the elections. See to it that we meet their needs.’ The chairman goes and you hear in the evening on radio and television: There will be an urgent meeting of all chairmen and secretaries of XYZ party at the headquarters.

“They should report promptly at 10am (because) matters of urgent interest would be discussed. End of announcement. Now we have texts messages, so its easier, in no time everyone is here.

“It’s a very short meeting, please, go back and within 48 hours submit from each local government 250 names of trusted party members. So in a week, the deed is done. The names, sometimes even passport photographs if required, are sent to INEC.

“And the training programme is carried out. Let me pause a bit. This is at party level. They are usually civil servants. They may be teachers, whatever, but they are party members. The remuneration, for each of them for the elections from Abuja is 10,000 Naira for the day’s work. But the state in its benevolence gives 50 to 100,000 Naira to each of these folks right before this election.

“This is even where it gets even more interesting. So, you have each of the three or four thousand polling booths; they are manned by party stalwarts. They are usually party stalwarts. You don’t send any peripheral member. The remuneration from Abuja has not arrived but that of the state was received 48 hours prior.

“On the day of elections, each polling booth has no more than 500 ballot papers, that is standard.

“There is no a polling booth that is more than 500. So only 200 people appear here, 300 there, 100 there, 50 there, 400 hundred there, at the end of election what happens. The Presiding Officer sits down and calls a few guys and says, ‘hey, there are a few hundred papers here, let’s thumbprint. This is the real election.

“Well, this is not a PDP thing. I am not here to castigate the PDP; it’s a Nigerian thing. This process may sound comical and jovial, it happens throughout the country, whether it is Action Congress or APGA it’s the same thing. We are all the same. They start thumb-printing, some are overzealous. So at the end of the day, you find some voting more than the number of people that were registered to vote.

“Otherwise they do it, you have 95 per cent turnout. You start wondering where were the voters, I didn’t see so many people. And the election results are announced; XYZ party wins and it takes a week for this paltry N10,000 for each presiding officer to arrive.

“Listen to this before you ask your question: Who is the most important person in an election? – The Presiding Officer. And if there are 120,000 of them (booths) there are 120,000 Presiding Officers, they are the most important people in the elections, not the chairman.

“So, as long as we keep applying that same method, you will get the same results. It’s crazy to think that because you substitute Iwu for Jega all will change. In other words, Iwu is a crook, Jega is a saint. Jega is great, he has an impeccable reputation. Iwu was great, now he seems not so great. Ok, they are both professors, they have reached the peak of whatever discipline that they profess.

The point is that it is the system and the personnel and the chairman has little or no control over that.

“Where are we now. We don’t even know when the elections will be. The Constitution amendment seems to be stalling somewhere. So it’s either in January or in April. Sometimes, we behave as if we invented democracy. We always want to draw new rules.

We should know the day of elections. It should be fixed. We should know that on so and so date I think, America is the 4th of November or so and if it falls on a Sunday it doesn’t make a difference.

“The point I am making here is that date is fixed, you know; because in a democracy, election should be a norm, not an event. In our democracy, election is an event. It’s like, we are going to spring on to you with fire works, hey, we are going to have an election, we are all running around- I know most politicians are broke right now, so we are all running around the field.

“Secondly, if you have your ears to the ground, there are whispers that maybe, we need to postpone this thing. The whispers are there. In a democracy, you postpone an election? You postpone things you didn’t plan for, not things that are there in the Constitution, that says you must do this, that and that, you can’t but –you know two ways of moving forward. This is where I like what SNG and CNP are doing.

“We need a critical mass of Nigerians to get out and vote. It is important because the more ballot papers that are legitimately used on election day, the fewer available to be used to rig the vote, that’s the truth. Don’t keep to yourself and think that they will announce results. They are more sophisticated than that. And that’s why the aspirants who felt cheated and had the resources to employ forensic personnel, like those elections had the elections upturned in Edo and Ondo, because they could establish multiple voting by thumbprint.

“So, if it’s an AC state, the procedure is the same. I remember a state, that state will remain nameless. I hear the story that the then President was so determined that he must change the leadership of this state and he called the IG and said, ‘look, that Governor is a security breach. Let’s have elections and flush the governor out, and the governor knows he is under siege. A week before the elections, a new police commissioner arrives.”





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