Thoughts and non-thought son Nigeria’s elections (1)

Thoughts and non-thought son Nigeria’s elections (1)

uTOMI

Ebullient and often controversial but undoubtedly brilliant and ferociously polemical, former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani Kayode was, last Sunday, characteristically unsparing in taking on the latest verbal indiscretions of Mallam Nasir el’ Rufai, his one-time friend and co-Minister in the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration. On el-Rufai‘s unforced admission on national television that he benefitted from information provided by someone who tapped the phone of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, Fani Kayode wondered, plausibly, if such a person could not have been party to those responsible for the compromise of the Nigerian military’s communications resulting in the recent murder by terrorists of Brigadier General Musa Uba.

The latter’s convoy was ambushed while on operational assignment and, even though he initially escaped capture by the terrorists, he was later apprehended and gruesomely murdered apparently because his communications had been breached. In the same vein, Chief Fani Kayode broached the possibility that el-Rufai’s criminal acquaintances could also be responsible for widespread terrorist onslaughts in Northern Nigeria particularly in Kaduna State where the former two-term governor of the state has not hidden an inclination to disrupt, destabilize and discredit the administration of his successor, Senator Uba Sani, out of sheer envy and bitterness.

On Monday, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 8 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major -General Bemgha Koughna, was the target of an ambush in Kebbi State although the attack was foiled and members of the Lakurawa terrorist group involved repelled and some neutralized. How can we be sure that such attacks are not enabled by those associates of el-Rufai who, as he admitted, have illegal access to the country’s security communications? As he struggles to obtain bail and extricate himself from the clutches of anti-corruption and security agencies which have since detained him, el-Rufai must have begun to realize the utterly avoidable mess his reckless and arrogant volubility has landed him.

But the former Minister of the federal Republic and state governor is not alone in this boat of threatening national security and destabilizing the country all because of personal grudges and grievances against those currently in power. The former governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transportation in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, has made incendiary and inflammatory remarks on national television all because he claims to be hungry. Individuals and groups have openly called for military intervention and openly congregated in front of the Defense Headquarters in Abuja in pursuit of this objective all inexplicably without consequence.

In his reaction to the new Electoral Act enacted by the National Assembly and signed into law by President Bola Tinubu, the self-styled political economist, Professor Pat Utomi, was no less reckless and unrestrained in his use of language. In posts on X, the professor abandoned the sobriety expected of the intellectual and emitted nothing but emotional vituperations. In his words, “The line is drawn. It is politicians in power versus the Nigerian people. Before us is life and death. Choose a life that you may live…Back in the 1990s I put my life on the line that Nigeria may be free. Today it became clear that freedom has been murdered. I call on Concerned Professionals to return to the struggle for the liberation of the Nigerian people from a cabal foisting on us advance election rigging”.

This is incredible. What could have prompted this irrational and extreme reaction by Professor Utomi to the signing into law by the President of an Electoral Act, portions of which he disagrees with? Must we exchange the tyranny of Utomi ‘s opinion for the democratic decision of a majority of legislators in the National Assembly to which they are perfectly entitled? I submit with apologies to the late inimitable Gbolabo Ogunsanwo that Utomi ‘s professorial toga “is no Magna Cartar for mandibular wakaabout”. Those who support ‘real time’ transmission of election results, no matter what that means, and those who advocate electronic transfer of results from the form EC8A to the IReV portal with the former serving as manual backup in case of network failure have had their say.

Supporters of ‘real time’ transmission even exercised their right to stage a public demonstration to press their case. However, the majority of legislators who preferred electronic transmission of results from the requisite form to the IReV portal with manual backup and the deletion of the real time clause had their way. The President exercised his right and authority to sign into law the Bill presented to him by the National Assembly. How does that constitute the “murder of freedom in Nigeria” as scandalously claimed by the professor?  In any case, which democracy did Utomi put his life on the line to fight for? I need to be educated in what way the professor endangered his life in the struggle against military dictatorship in Nigeria.

Does Professor Utomi give a damn about credible elections or a viable democracy in Nigeria? I do not believe so. I recall that after the scandalously rigged 1983 general elections, Pat Utomi along with Emeka Maduagbuna and Professor Walter Ofonagoro were on the network of the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) for several weeks seeking to give intellectual justification and rationalization to legitimate a wholly discredited exercise. Barely three months after that election in which the NPN Minister of Transportation, Alhaji Umau Dikko, claimed that his party had won a ‘moon slide’ victory, the military struck and the second Republic crashed.

Today, Professor Utomi affects the rhetoric of a revolutionary. Yet, he is profoundly conservative, albeit a brilliant one. But he disguises the pursuit of self-interest by a professed commitment to ideals of democracy, freedom and social justice. When he thought he could realize his ambition of becoming the governor of Delta State on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Utomi could often be found in the Bourdillon Road residence of President Tinubu in Ikoyi. There is a famous visual on social media in which the sober professor is seen behind Asiwaju Tinubu at Bourdillon swaying to the throbbing rhythm of native talking drums. Had he succeeded in achieving his ambition on the ACN platform, would we today be witnessing his current pro-democracy grandstanding? It is unlikely.

Professor Utomi is ethnic Igbo. He stepped down for his kinsman, Peter Obi, to fly the Presidential flag of the Labour Party (LP) for the 2023 elections. That, of course, is no crime. Obi, Utomi and the obidients claim that the 2023 presidential election was irredeemably flawed. Yet, this was an election in which Obi performed well, obviously beyond his expectation. Is the good Professor Utomi claiming that the results of the 2023 presidential election were credible in areas like Lagos or the FCT, Abuja, where Obi won but rigged in states where he lost?

Surely, Utomi is not unaware that Obi won close to 85% to 90% of the votes in Southeast states with other presidential candidates hardly recording 10% of the votes in Igbo land? That was the most ethnically and regionally skewed voting pattern in that election with serious doubts raised about the credibility of the results. In all the other regions, the elections were more competitive and closely contested with the results more accurately approximating political reality. But an ordinarily articulate Utomi saw and heard no evil as regards the results from the Southeast. Even when there are ample online visuals of rampant underage and teleguided voting in the region.

Of course, I am not claiming that elections outside the Southeast were flawless. But Utomi cannot maintain complicit silence about flagrant election rigging in a part of the country while shouting from the hilltops about alleged large-scale malpractices in areas where his candidate lost. That is intellectually fraudulent. Can Utomi, obviously a social media aficionado, claim not to have seen a virile online video of a meeting between Peter Obi and a group of young Igbo professionals in Canada before the 2023 presidential polls? At that meeting, the obviously IT savvy Igbo technocrats, enthusiastically expressed their readiness to rig the elections in his favour utilizing their IT expertise.

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Obi very wisely was largely silent at that meeting. He did not express support for the offer. But he also did not oppose it. Would Professor Utomi blame anyone who watched that video for being wary of an Electoral Act that provided solely for so-called real time transmission of results especially considering the concerted external assaults on INEC’s computer network in the 2023 elections? But what is more baffling is the one-dimensional, narrowly constricted thinking displayed on this issue by a supposed intellectual of Utomi ‘s calibre. For, it is on the basis only of the Electoral

Act’s position on ‘real time’ transmission of results that he carelessly and cavalierly pontificates and generalizes on the entire document and reaches the bizarre conclusion that it signifies “the murder of freedom in Nigeria”.

The Senate Leader, Honourable Opeyemi Bamidele, undertook a far more intellectually resourceful and valuable appraisal of the 2026 Electoral Act explaining its various facets and dimensions to the public. As the media copiously reported the Senator’s comprehensive statement on the Electoral Act, he pointed out that “Section 3 established a dedicated fund for INEC to guarantee financial autonomy and ensure that election funds were released at least months before general elections. Section 47, he said, mandates the use of BVAS or any technology prescribed for voter accreditation, verification and authentication; Section 60(3) made electronic transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) mandatory, while Section 60(6) prescribed a six-month jail term or a N500,000 fine, or both, for Presiding officers who deliberately frustrate electronic transmission”.

Senator Bamidele explained further that “The Act allows for conditional use of form EC8A where electronic transmission failed due to communication challenges. Section 72(2) provides that a certified true copy of a court order would suffice for swearing -in where INEC failed to issue a certificate of return. Section 74(1) requires Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) to release certified true copies of documents within 24 hours of payment, with a minimum two-year jail term prescribed for non-compliance”. The Senator highlights various other innovations in the Electoral Act including maintenance of digital membership registers by political parties, new campaign spending limits as well as stiffening of penalties for vote buying, impersonation and result manipulation among others.

It is certainly difficult to disagree with Bamidele when he submits that the far-reaching reforms in the Electoral Act represent t”a major overhaul aimed at enhancing transparency, strengthening electoral integrity and deepening democratic governance ahead of the 2027 general elections” and is “a consolidation and refinement of Nigeria’s electoral framework”. Yet, exhibiting unwarranted arrogance predicated on an obvious ignorance of the details of the Act, Professor Utomi seeks to confine the entire document to the waste bin of history. This is nothing but the intellectual equivalent of anarchic Boko Haram-type terrorism.