PoliticsNGR has just been furnished with a transcript from a Press Conference by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta earlier today accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of plotting to rig the 2019 General Elections.
Read the Full Statement Below;
I am concerned
as a democrat who believes that with faithful and diligent practice of
democracy, we can get over most of our political problems and move
steadfastly and surefootedly on the course of stability, unity of
purpose, socio-economic growth and progress for all.
Democracy
becomes a sham if elections are carried out by people who should be
impartial and neutral umpires, but who show no integrity, acting with
blatant partiality, duplicity and imbecility. For all democrats and
those carrying out the process of elections, there must be the redline
that must not be crossed in tactics and practices of democracy.
I
personally have serious doubt about the present INEC’s integrity,
impartiality and competence to conduct a fair, free and credible
election. And if the INEC is willing, will the ruling party and
government allow it? From what we saw and knew about Osun State
gubernatorial election, what was conclusive was declared inconclusive
despite all advice to the contrary.
The unnecessary rerun, if
viewed as a test-run for a larger general election, would lead people to
expect incidences of deliberately contrived, broken or non-working
voting machines or card readers, confusion of voters as to their voting
stations, inadequate supply of voting materials to designated places,
long line to discourage voters and turning blind eyes to favour the
blue-eye political party of INEC because the Commission’s hands will be
tied to enable hatchet men and women to perform their unwholesome
assignment.
The transmission and collation of results are subject
to interference, manipulation and meddling. If the INEC’s favourite
political party wins with all the above infractions, the result will be
conclusively declared and if not, there will be a ‘rerun’, the result of
which is known before it is carried out. I know that I am not alone in
being sceptical about the integrity of INEC and its ability to act
creditably and above board. But we are open to be convinced otherwise.
The
joke about INEC would seem real. The INEC was asked if the Commission
was ready for the election and if it expects the election to be free,
fair and credible. The INEC man is reported as saying in response, “we
are ready with everything including the results!” God save Nigeria! It
is up to Nigerians to ensure that the redline is not crossed in
safeguarding our fledgling democracy. And if crossed, appropriate action
must be taken not to allow our democracy to be derailed.
A
friend of mine who is more credulous and who claims to be close to the
Chair of INEC keeps telling me that INEC will retrieve its image and
reputation by conducting the coming elections with utmost integrity and
impartiality. I am not sure as I believe more in action than in words
and in past record than in promise. The track record of the present INEC
is fairly sordid and all men and women of goodwill and believers in
democracy must be prepared for the worst from INEC and their encouragers
and how to get Nigeria out of the electoral morass that the Commission
is driving us into.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. A battle
long forewarned does not embroil the cripple nor catch him unawares. A
word is sufficient for the wise. The labour of Nigerian democracy heroes
must not be in vain. Some men of God would hold President Buhari to his
word on free, fair, credible and peaceful elections. I am a realist and
I reiterate that I go by track record. Therefore, I am not persuaded by
a track record of hollow words, impunity, insensitivity and
‘I-couldn’t-care-less’ attitude, or by the sanctimonious claims of any
candidate and his campaign staff. I will only believe what I see. This
is a time for vigilance to fight to safeguard our votes and defend our
democracy.
The price of liberty and sustenance of our democracy
is eternal vigilance and appropriate reaction to ward off iniquities. We
must all be ready to pay that price and not relying on hollow words of
callousness. The derailment of Nigerian democracy will be a monumental
disaster comparable to the disaster of the Nigerian first military coup.
While
Nigerians must not allow such a disaster to happen nor take such an
affront lying low, the international community who played an admirable
role in warning INEC, of course, to no avail on the Osun State
gubernatorial election and who have been warning all political parties
must on this occasion give more serious warning, send more people to the
field to observe and work out punitive measures against INEC and
security officials especially the Police and politicians who stand to
gain from INEC’s misconduct, which is obviously encouraged by the
Executive Arm of Government and who must be held responsible for the
violence that will follow.
Such measures can vary from denial and
withdrawal of visas from the people concerned and from their families
to other more stringent measures including their accounts being frozen
and taking them to International Criminal Court, ICC, if violence
emanates from their action or inaction. Nigeria must not be allowed to
slip off the democratic path nor go into anarchy and ruin. No individual
nor group has monopoly of violence or gangsterism. And we must not
forget that in human interaction, reactions are normally greater than
action, though opposite.
It is no use, at this juncture, to keep
lamenting about the failure, incompetence, divisiveness, nepotism,
encouragement and condonation of corruption by Buhari administration as
there is neither redeeming feature nor personality to salvage the
situation within that hierarchy. You cannot give what you don’t have.
Bode George put it bluntly in his statement of December 3, 2018 when he
said:
“The other day, the Vice-President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo – a learned man, an enlightened person in all parameters – was
seen at various markets in Lagos State and Abuja distributing N10,000
each to market women. What an absurdity! It was indeed an obscene
display of executive recklessness and abuse of office. Pray, where did
the money come from? Was it budgeted for in the appropriation law? In
more civilised nations, Osinbajo would have been impeached and
prosecuted for gutting our collective treasury.”
What an act by a
Senior Advocate of Nigeria lawyer, number 2 man in the Executive
hierarchy; and what is more, a pastor of one of the Christian movements
led by a revered, respected and upright church leader, Pastor E. A.
Adeboye. Osinbajo must have gone for, “if you can’t beat them, join
them”. A great pity indeed and which makes people ask the questions,
“Any hope?” Yes, for me, there is hope. Osinbajo has shown the human
weakness and proved the saying that the corruption of the best is the
worst form of corruption. His explanation that it was their government
programme can only be construed to be very shallow and lopsided, if not
an outrightly idiotic programme.
Traders in rural and sub-urban
areas of Nigeria are many more than those in urban areas and they are
much poorer than traders in Lagos, Abuja and other cities. They need
more attention and greater help. Are they to be confined to the heap of
perpetual poverty? What of those who are not traders? They are not
entitled to hand-out and they can languish in penury? And what about
millions who have lost their jobs in the last three and a half years?
The timing is also suspect. Those who criticise the action are called
evil but they are not evil as they know what they are doing and saying,
and they love Nigeria and Nigerians not less than the likes of Osinbajo.
They are not devils incarnate; they are patriots.
What is the
connection between taking the number of PVC (Permanent Voters Card) of
the recipient of the N10,000 doled out to ‘traders’ and the forthcoming
election? There is something sinister about it, and Professor Osinbajo,
of all people, should know that. With collusion of the INEC officials
and card readers not made to work, anybody quoting the PVC number may be
allowed to vote as the revised Electoral Bill was not signed. And if
that happens all over the country, it will be massive rigging indeed.
The Chairman of INEC must stand firm and carry out his duties with
competence and unbending neutrality. Card readers must be used without
fail and accreditation must be completed and number ascertained and made
public before voting commences as was done in 2015.
Amina Zakari
has become too controversial a figure to be able to give assurance of
free, fair and credible election for INEC. President Buhari and her
family have declared that there is no blood relationship but there is
relationship through marriage and that is more than enough for the good
lady to step aside. A judge does not sit in judgement over a case once
he or she becomes a cause for controversy or one side in the case has
strongly objected to the judge. Madam Amina Zakari should, in honour,
stay out and not be seen as a source of contamination of the election.
Otherwise, it will be difficulty to deny the rumour that she is being
assigned to Collation Centre for one duty only – to write out figures
that are not results of the voting in the field on fake results sheets
without water mark or on genuine results sheets which she will have
access to as a Commissioner. Amina Zakari is not the only Commissioner
that can be in the Collation Centre. Let the INEC Chairman act boldly
and impartially and prove his absolute neutrality and responsiveness to
contribute to make the election peacefully free, fair and credible. His
integrity needs to be transparently demonstrated.
We should
remember that there had been reports of INEC sponsored rigging in the
past, and also with INEC officials through collation and with officials
being put in party coordinators’ dresses and working for the political
party favoured by INEC and also putting the dresses of other parties on
INEC-favoured parties and police uniforms on INEC-favoured parties to
rig all the elections for the favoured party. Like all of us, INEC knows
all these and it should devise means to make sure they do not happen.
But will they? One way will be to only allow card readers to be means of
authenticating voters and where there is no such authentication, it
should mean no voting. The second is to use only identity cards with
watermarks issued by INEC itself to party officials only for
identification of political party coordinators, officials and agents and
not political parties dresses or arm and wrist bands which anybody can
wear for purposes of identification on election duty or function. Both
the Presidency and the National Assembly must so far be commended for
adequately providing funding as confirmed by INEC, and therefore funding
cannot be an excuse for poor performance by INEC.
President
Buhari and his hatchet men in the coming election think that the
judiciary must be primed in their favour. Hence, the Chief Justice of
Nigeria, Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, has been harassed and
prosecuted for non-declaration of his assets without following the
Constitution and the law, just to make him conform or set him aside for a
Buhari man to take over or act, as President Buhari and his people
believe no stone should be left unturned to rig Buhari in. It seems to
be a ploy to intimidate the judiciary as a whole in preparation for all
election cases that will go before them.
Where and how will all
these stop? Typically, with overwhelming outrage and condemnation, we
are told that the Presidency denied knowledge of the action. But the
Vice-President told us that the President knew of the action on Saturday
night for everything that has been prepared for Monday morning. Haba
VP, it doesn’t happen that way. Nobody should take such measure against
any of the four in hierarchy below the President or any of his ministers
without his knowledge and indeed his approval. But if that can happen
to the Chief Justice of the Federation, the fifth man in the hierarchy
of government, without the knowledge let alone the approval of the
President, then it speaks for the type of government we have which means
the President is not in charge let alone being in control and no
Nigerian must take anything for granted. We are all unsafe and insecure
under such an administration. And enough of it! Buhari’s apologists will
not stop at anything to try to cover up his administration’s inadequate
performance and character. A constitutional liberal democracy cannot
thrive without an independent and insulated judiciary from the executive
and the legislature. Nigerians must wake up and stop these acts of
wanton desperation tantamount to mental incapacity to run the affairs of
Nigeria wholesomely.
Life and living are anchored on trust. But
if I trust you and you deceive, cheat or disappoint me the first time,
it is shame on you. However, if I allow you to do so the same thing for
me the second time, I do not only have myself to blame, I must be
regarded as a compound fool.
Buhari has succeeded in deceiving us
the first time and we will be fools to allow ourselves to be deceived
the second time. Buba Galadima, who knows Buhari very well as a
confidant and National Secretary of Congress for Progressive Change,
CPC, the Buhari’s party before it joined in forming All Progressives
Congress, APC, has warned us this time around that no matter what he
promises, he cannot change his character and attitude.
He
describes him as inflexible, insincere, dubious, intolerant, never
accepts responsibility when things go wrong and impervious to reason and
advice for change. If you cannot change your mind, you cannot change
anything is the assertion of George Bernard Shaw. Even when figures,
facts and statistics are made clear to Buhari, he keeps repeating what
is untrue, either because he cannot understand or for mischief purposes
and that places him on the level of a pathological liar. He believes he
can get away with impunity and deceit as he seems to have done on many
occasions in the past. Buba Galadima’s position is well complemented by
Dr. Auwalu Anwar on the APC, CPC, TBO and Buhari’s character and
attitude in his yet to be launched book, “Politics As Dashed Hopes in
Nigeria”. It is also a stunning revelation. Anwar clearly pointed out,
“the brazen display of incompetence, insensitivity and irresponsiveness
by delusional party, CPC, leadership at all levels”. Buhari was the
leader of the party. Bola Tinubu’s statement about Muhammadu Buhari in
2003 is fairly prophetic, “Muhammadu Buhari is an agent of
destabilisation, ethnic bigot and religious fanatic who, if given the
chance, would ensure the disintegration of the country. His
ethnocentrism would jeopardise Nigeria’s national unity.”
Junaid
Mohammed was eloquent on the issue of nepotism. But if as we were told
that Buhari is nepotic because he does not trust others, why should
others trust him to continue to put their fate and life in his hand.
Trust begets trust. They cannot be trusted for ‘sensitive’ appointment
but they can be sent out to campaign for his re-election. Who is fooling
who?
Source:- Politicsngr
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