The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the February presidential election, Mr Adewole Adebayo speaks on how the country’s electoral system can be strengthened, among other issues concerning the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). SUBAIR MOHAMMED brings the excerpts of the interview:
What is your take on the resolution of the Senate to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to strengthen the country’s electoral process?
One thing we need to know in legislation is that the eyes of the legislators are always at the back of the heads as they always like to solve new legislation with the problems of the past. So, the assumption that the problem of the next election will be INEC Result Viewing portal (IREV). From what I know, the problems will not be IREV. It will be another thing. Let us say this is the beginning of the conversations of what we can do, legislatively, to improve our electoral system. But the problem we have isn’t shortage of legislation. There are three things I observed. The first is that, there is nothing in the 2023 elections I participated in that suggested to me that anything went wrong because of IREV. None of the petitioners has been able to complain that it is because of the problem with IREV, that results that were declared at the polling units were different from the results that were ultimately used. When you go through the filings proceedings and judgments of the court, you will find it hard to find one record where they say that in this particular unit, this was the result but because it wasn’t immediately transmitted to INEC website, the result changed, I don›t think you will find anything like that. That isn’t the problem. I said in October 1, 2021 that they would just be disturbing you with issues of technology. When on the day of the elections, someone might just decide to switch off in INEC and say it didn’t work. Even if it is in the electoral act (assuming it is passed into law) that the result must be immediately transmitted, if on that day, there is a nationwide network problem, VPN isn’t working, the system is corrupted, and things like that, the constitution would still want you to find out whether you can otherwise establish the actual winner of the election. I think integrity at the polling station is what we should pay attention to. Things like making sure people don’t buy votes, you cannot commit violence, making sure that the distance between polling booth and the nearest third party isn’t less than about 100 feet so that anybody who is voting can be in doubt that they are out of sight and out of hearing of the people. So, if a person decides to influence you by giving you money or anything of value, they will not ultimately know what you are doing in the ballot box area.
A former INEC chair, Professor Attairu Jega said the president should stripped off the appointing power of the commission’s boss, what’s your view on this?
There are quite a lot of things to strip the president of. But who do you give it to? Remember that our founding fathers expect that we would look for the best of the best among us and make him president and that president is our head of state so that he would think clearly for the country and he would be one of the most honourable men in our midst who is willing to take up the job. For that reason, even in the most important position, constitutional positions that are more important than INEC, for example, the Chief Justice of the Federation, President of the Court of Appeal, Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice of the Court of Appeal, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, the entire judiciary, the president is the appointing authority. There are more sensitive positions that are even expected to be more independent than INEC that are left in the hands of the president to select , then what is special about INEC chairman and the commissioners? I think the problem isn’t about taking it from the president. But who do you give it to?
Is the nomination of the judicial officers not different? The NJC, as we know, is empowered in selection process before the president appoints. Isn’t that another way of checkmating the powers of the president?
No, under the presidential constitution, all over the world, the president is advised. Despite your advice, the president can take a good brilliant young lawyer with about 15 years of experience as Chief Justice of Nigeria. Your advice isn’t binding on him. The president has a lot of future appointments to make. And if you want to go into a new system where you don’t trust him to make sensitive appointments, then you go across the board and look at the appointments the president makes. In some countries, for example, the equivalent of INEC, the electoral members are chosen from the political parties thinking that if every political party has someone there, there won’t be any political party that would cheat one another. But in our system, the chairman is chosen by the president. Even the senate, they are assuming they don’t have a role to play. When the president appoints electoral or national commissioners or chairman of the commission, the person doesn’t go straight to the office, he goes to the senate for Nigerians to ask whether this person is a good choice or not . Never in the history of the senate have they rejected the chairman of the INEC or national commissioners except for Laurieta Onochie. So, if people are living according to good character, and they are worthy of the offices they are occupying and the oath of office they have taken, the system we have now will work.
The alternative is to say the same Chief Justice of Nigeria should appoint the INEC chairman, but the same Chief Justice is also an appointee of the president anyways. But if you say he(Chief Justice) should appoint the chairman of INEC, there would be instances where litigants complain even the empanelling of justices to hear their matter. I think more importantly is what has happened. Why can›t we find any more people of character who are above board?
Is it that our political system is so corrup that we can›t find people who are above board. That is the question we should be asking because one way or another, the person that is going to appoint INEC commissioners or chairman would have to be a Nigerian. Whether he is the president, chief justice of Nigeria or senator, that person must be a Nigerian. I think it is the quality of the character of our leadership is what we need to examine. It shouldn›t be a difficult role to fill if everyone is playing their roles. I will be more inclined if the senate says whoever the president chooses, we would open that person to Nigerians and we are not going to approve that person except that person proves to be a thoroughly vetted Nigerian that has the highest esteem, not the one they are trying deprive someone from the other arm. For example, if you pass such a law that you want to remove appointing power from the president, supposing the president refuses to sign. And he says no, you can not take my power from me. I will not sign it into law. What do you do? It is better not to be ticking the can to the other side or the blame game.
Let the Senate look at itself as a chamber and ask itself an honest question. Have we in the senate, doing our best in vetting the nominees to INEC? The National Assembly has the power to oversee INEC. It had the constitutional power to oversee INEC. It has power to approve INEC emoluments and budget, including conducting a hearing to remove an INEC commissioners or national chairman that is not leaving up to his performance. So, I think the system is robust enough if we can have men and women of character to come and run the system.
The economic team of the president is in full swing. In your view, have they lived up to expectations?
They are on top of the situation they created for themselves. There isnt anything happening in the economy presently that I haven’t predicted. What they are facing now is what is called factor cost stabilisation. If they can deal with that, then they would have reduced most of the crises they have on their hands.The trajectory of the economic choices they have made can not change anyone from where they are today. I predicted this. There are many options. Economics is about choices. And the choices they have taken would naturally lead to this. Whoever is the president, if you take the choices they have made, you will have the same result. Economics does not discriminate against your politics. It looks at the facts. What is the state of affairs? What are the options? What are the alternatives you want to forgo? So you have to live with the consequences of your decision. Now the price of money will not be stable. The exchange rates will not be stable. The price of commodities will not be stable. The price of factors of production will not be stable. The only way to sustain is to plan ahead for that instability.
Are you insinuating there will be a reversal or change of policies?
That will be the best, but they have ideological commitment. This was part of what we were trying to tell the voters about these major political parties, APC, PDP ,and LP, that they have ideological commitment to Bretton wood prescriptions. You could see it in their language.
What they are doing now is essentially what they said they would do. The result you have now is essentially the result you have if you take these measures. The best thing is to change but I don’t see them changing because they are committed to this ideology and its been like that since 1986 when General Ibrahim Babangida had this understanding with World Bank and IMF that we are going to go this way of Structural Adjustment Programme. It is the various versions of it that we have been doing. The late Abacha tried to run a two-tier system with it with the help of late professor Sam Aluko. The end result of it us that we are looking for a free market where there would be ingress and egress of capital across national boundaries and the price of the naira will be determined by what happens in Washington or New York and other commodity exchange houses all over the world. But I don›t see them change from their stand pint at thr moment. The time they would have adjusted would be from the day they came in because we gave been saying it will not work but they believe it would work. There are some people in the international community who have made promises to President Tinubu, and there have been a lot of discussions with the Brentwood institutions and the finance minister, Mr Wale Edun.
The medium- term expenditure says we are expected to borrow between 2025/26 N26T. It appears there isn›t different between the Buhari administration and this present government?
President Tinubu was right when he said he continued from where President Buhari stopped. He said it on many occasions, and people thought he was joking. From the ongoing, you will see that President Tinubu doesn’t talk a lot. Each time he talks now, people should listen because he tends to do what he says he would do, whether they are good or bad, but he ends up doing them. I have my concern with the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) . I thought he was blinded in terms of his creativity. I also think may be they want to complete some of the obligations contained in the (MTEF) which are legally binding. If, for example, they award some contracts and they need to fund it. They will need to borrow because, in the short term, you are not able to generate enough revenue to offset the borrowing.
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