PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has said that it was the introduction of Card readers and Permanent Voters Card (PVC) that made it difficult for the 2015 Presidential election which brought him to power to be rigged.
President Buhari also said that after the 2003, 2007 and 2011 Presidential elections, the Judiciary frustrated all his efforts to get his mandate back after being won in the 3 general elections.
Speaking at the Interfaith Conference on Religious Harmony organized by the Interfaith Initiative for Peace (IIN), President Buhari said with the introduction of Card readers and PVC in the 2015 general election, it became impossible for the election to be rigged.
Narrating the story, President Buhari said “His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury by coincidence, we were in the same department back in 1978 when he said he was here in Nigeria, I was then a commissioner (Minister of Petroleum Resources), he was in Shell, and from that time somehow, he contained my track of movement, so when I decided to wear Agbada and find out what is happening in partisan politics in our developing state.
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“In 2003, I was in court for 30 months, 27 months in the court of Appeal where we complained about the residential election staff, the chairman of the Panel of Judges in the High Court of Appeal was my classmate, we are from the same state, we sat in the same classroom chair by chair with him and Late Ya’ardua for 6 years, my chief lawyer was Mike Ahamba, a Roman Catholic, an Igbo man, when my first witness was in court, Mike Ahamba ask the panel of Judges to write to INEC to submit the register of those who voted in certain constituencies in certain states, so that he will proceed to prove that the election was not free and fair in the sense that those who are registered was not the number reflected in the election, they said I will do it, he (Ahamba) said no until they write it in their registered, they did, when they were to give the judgment, there was nothing about writing the letter to INEC more or less getting who registered in those particular constituencies, a member of the Judges panel, a Roman Catholic, an Igbo man, he said but this is what happened, what happened to the sign we put in the register, they disregarded him, so he wrote a minority report against the judgment passed by my classmate, the same tribe, the same religion.
“We went to the Supreme Court, who was the Chief Justice?, a Hausa Fulani from Zaria, a Muslim, after my legal head, Chief Mike Ahamba delivered his address, 2 hours 45 minutes, the panel of Justices of the Supreme Court listened to him, the went in and came out within maximum of 30 minutes, they said they were proceeding for their annual break, they went away for 3 months, so that made it 30 months.
“When they came back, we gathered there, I think it took them 35 minutes, they dismissed the case, in 2007, again I was told I was defeated, again I went to Supreme Court after going through the court of Appeal, who was the Chief Justice?, a Muslim from Nigeria State, Justice Kutigi, after 18 months in the lower court, it took them I think about the same number of minutes as the previous Supreme Court as they dismissed my case.
“In 2011, again I went to Supreme Court, and after about 8 months, who was the Chief Justice?, the late Mustapha, a Fulani man from Jigawa state, again, my lawyer has been consistently been Chief Ahamba, again my case was dismissed, and when I came out, Nigerian Journalists asked me what am I going to do, I told them what I did and I said it’s by my own choice that I decided to go into partisan politics, God dey”.
He, therefore said “In 2015, I tried again, I thank God and technology, Permanent voter Cards (PVCs) were introduced and card readers, so nobody could rig me out, I found myself here, so I know we are all playing partisan politics and fortunately by age, I am older than almost all my participants and my cabinet, not only the age but what I went through in the political development, I think it is a very good lesson that question of religion and ethnicity is fraudulent.
“Most people are not so sincere, they don’t know what they say, and some of you know during my primaries, they said Naira has finished, people are giving out dollars, even before the last primaries recently, dollars were being given , nobody takes Naira, so really, it is materialism, that is what we will fight to make sure that we stabilize at every level and do justice to our country, but what I found out regrettably is that we refuse to learn by other people experience and we are refusing to learn by our own mistakes”.
and then