Dr Nentawe Yilwatda was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 governorship election in Plateau State. Prior to that, he was the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Benue State. In this interview by ISAAC SHOBAYO, Yilwatda speaks about his foray into politics, the Nigerian electoral system and the litigations from the election petition tribunal up to the Supreme Court, among other issues.
What is your experience like in the past two years in politics?
It was a very rich and good experience for me as a person. This was my first contest in life. With the good morals, the politics, the political engineering of the state, the socialisation within the community, and the contacts I was able to make, I am better today than when I joined the race in 2022.
From the contest for the governorship ticket of the APC to the governorship race and litigation from the lower tribunal up to the Supreme Court, what is your assessment of the processes?
Life is full of hiccups and challenges. Challenges and problems are meant to be solved. The day we don’t have problems on earth, we are dead, which means we are just living without contact with humanity. Humanity has daily challenges, and as human beings, our role is to make sure that we evolve solutions to the problems that keep coming. Now, the Supreme Court judgment, I saw it as a supreme will of God and I have taken it in good faith. I have extended my handshake and congratulations to my fellow contestant, my elder brother, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang. I have also informed my followers to maintain a peaceful disposition after the judgment because we anchored our campaign on peace, security and prosperity. So, I ensured that I lived by the tenets of my campaign. There was no single demonstration while other political parties were demonstrating, carrying placards and making vulgar statements against us. We kept the promise we made to the people of Plateau State that regardless of what happened, we would ensure that no violence was recorded because the state is bigger than all of us, our ambition, our party and our campaigns. Painful as it is, we went to the court expecting, of course, a positive outcome, but we ended up having a negative one. Any comments we make at this stage won’t make any difference, so we are taking the judgment in good faith.
As a former Resident Electoral Commissioner, what is your assessment of the electoral system in Nigeria based on what transpired in the last general election?
It comes with a lot of weaknesses. You will recall that there were by-elections in Plateau State, and in those by-elections, the PRP lost to the PDP. They anchored their argument on two issues, that the PDP has no structure and that there was over-voting. They were cancelled and given zero and we thought that would be the premise, and the tribunal and the Appeal Court held that the BVAS record should be used as a basis for determining over-voting, but the Supreme Court judge thought otherwise. And it goes to show that the use of BVAS has not been effective in the electoral process. We are still having the process we had before the advent of the BVAS, which means that we need to make amendments to our Electoral Act to ensure that over-voting is addressed. If it is not addressed, we may have more violence in 2027. The Kano verdict says that if you have in your ballot box the ballot papers that are not stamped, you can stuff as much as you can, stamped or unstamped, and you have your way through an election. The outcome of the election in Zamfara also made an addition to jurisprudence; it simply says that even if the result you have at the polling units does not tally with what you have at the ward level, even if you add more votes at the local government level and it doesn’t tally with the lower results, it doesn’t matter. But the primary election at the polling unit is known as the result, not the result at the ward level. These are the new additions we have based on the judgment of the Supreme Court. I am afraid that these may give room for violence in 2027 because I don’t have to go to the polling units; I wait at the wards and local government, add as many as I can, and push those votes to the extreme and have my way through. These are the negative parts of what we are having now as a result of the judgments of the Supreme Court.
I think the National Assembly needs to take up these issues and look at the impact of these judgments and amendments so that we can improve the quality of elections in the country because these judgments may portend danger for the Electoral Act. Another one is that of Plateau State, where the High Court has no jurisdiction over party affairs. It simply means that I can just use the national to stamp through; by implication, the national can select anyone they want without a primary election and push those names through, and you have nowhere to go; you limit where people can plead their cases during pre-election. This simply means there is nothing like pre-election matters, and this is a dangerous trend for our democracy. So, I feel these are issues that the National Assembly must take a look at and propose solutions to before the 2027 election.
What should be expected from you before 2027?
I have worked as a public servant; I was an INEC Commissioner; I spent over 13 years as a director in the university; I worked as a consultant with a lot of international bodies, but no single person has brought any accusation about my personality, which means that as a person, I was an excellent civil servant and an excellent consultant, which simply means that nobody can get anything against my personality. If you want to test your moral life and personality, go into politics. People will X-ray you in more detail than any newspaper or journalist would have X-rayed you. If I am not an indigene of Plateau State, they would say I am not. I have confirmed that I am an indigene of this state by virtue of the governorship contest. Number two, I have good moral standing in society because nobody can hold anything against me. With all these, I can plan my political life. I think the last governorship election was an excellent contest for me based on what transpired.
The belief in some quarters is that politics is not meant for gentle people…
Someone said if you are a gentleman, go and sell coffee. We need people with good and impeccable characters to play politics in this country. If we all shut ourselves out of politics, riff-raffs will be the ones to determine the future of Nigeria or any state in the country. Politics is the most important aspect of our lives. Politics shapes our economy. It shapes everything about us. So, if it is the most important aspect of our lives, why should we leave it to people that are not good? That is why some of us are motivated to challenge the abnormal and that is why we are here. We can also be a motivation to other good people so that they can also come in and contribute their quota.
Plateau State has been experiencing crises for quite some time now, and during your campaign, you promised to tackle the hydra-headed monster head-on. What advice would you offer the present administration in the state on how to tackle the security challenges?
The security challenges in the state have been there for quite some time, sometimes taking religious or tribal outlook and sometimes it is bandits and land grabbing. There are different connotations and outlooks that these crises have taken over the years. So, we need to look at the critical factors in this aspect, either the religious component or the tribal component or the banditry component. We need to look at all these variations and the critical stakeholders and then bring them together in the peace-building process. Most importantly, we need to bring them to the table, discuss with them and assign to them the roles that each person will play in bringing peace to the state. This non-kinetic component is very important in the peace-building process. They said all wars end on a roundtable, so carrying arms is not sufficient for us to resolve these crises. We need to bring in a kinetic approach that involves bringing security agencies in building our local vigilante system, upgrading Operation Rainbow, ensuring that we upgrade our intelligence gathering system and deploying technology in responding to threats in our communities. I want to believe that the government has started taking action on all these. Our blueprint is available on social media and on our website. I think the government will gain by going through it.
Shortly before the last election, your party, APC, was tied to a certain religious group, but then you refused to comment on the insinuation. Would you like to make a comment now?
Even now, I will not make any comment because it is a promise I made, but let me just say that in 1981, John Kadiya of the ECWA Church was tagged a Muslim candidate on the Plateau against Chief Solomon Lar. Kadiya was a communion member of the ECWA Church and one of the elders of the church at the time. In 1991, the same thing happened when Sir Fidelis Tapgun was contesting for the governorship of this state with Bagudu Irtse. The latter was tagged an Islamic candidate and that happened many years ago. In 2003, even Jang was tagged an Islamic candidate because he was in the ANPP. The same thing happened to Lalong in 2015. So, it is a normal culture of Plateau politics that some people must tag somebody an Islamic candidate for political reasons. Once politics is over, that person becomes a saint. The funny aspect of it is that up to date, Plateau people have yet to understand that these people are using politics to ensure that good people do not emerge as governors of the state.
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