One of the leading Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) with specialty in litigation, mediation and arbitration, election matters, among others, Malam Ahmed Adeniyi Raji, was Resident Electoral Commissioner in five different states for about eight years. In this interview with DARE ADEKANMBI, he speaks on the use of technology for conducting election, restructuring of the country, money politics and what INEC should do in 2023, among others.
In one of your past lectures, you spoke about technology and the politics of modernising Nigeria’s electoral system. That is so relevant today. What was your take in that lecture?
What I said in that lecture was that technology would assist us to clean up the electoral system and to make it much more reliable. But the challenge there is this: in a low tech environment, especially with the power challenges, we may not have it as smooth as it ought to be. Therefore, the power problem should be fixed before we rely heavily on technology. That is basically where I am coming from. Electricity is very crucial when it comes to technology.
In the light of the current effort at amending the Electoral Act which has a new provision such as e-transmission of results, what challenges do you foresee, given the experience Nigerians had with INEC deploying Direct Data Capture machines which had low power batteries and required constant charging for sustained use as well as the experience with the smart card reader?
Transmission of results may be by text messages. I don’t think it is going to be real time as it is happening on the field. I don’t think that is what they will do. Maybe what INEC intends to do is to transmit results by text messages or what have you. So, until we see what is meant by electronic transmission in the law, we may not be able to know what truly they intend to achieve. I do not see them having it done real time because many of the voting points and units are in remote areas that may not even have Internet services which are crucial for real time transmission of results. Real time transmission deals with the Internet. So, how do you do that? Maybe they will have to do text messages. Until we have a situation where virtually all parts of the country are connected and then there is Internet, we may not have it real time. So, this boils down to the definition of what is meant by electronic transmission of results under the law.
Would you suggest that the National Assembly give a force of law to INEC’s guideline for elections so that we don’t have a repeat of the 2015 experience where in the various judgments of the courts, no regard was given to the data from the smart card readers deployed for accreditation purposes?
It can’t be given the force of law if it is against the provisions of the law. The courts did not countenance the smart card readers because the voter register remains very fundamental for accreditation and card readers cannot replace the register specifically provided for in the Electoral Act. So, INEC guideline cannot override the Electoral Act, just as the Electoral Act can’t override the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. Guidelines are inferior to the Electoral Act because they are made pursuant to the Electoral Act. That is the problem.
Although it has been resolved now, I would like to get your take on the issue of direct, indirect or consensus as the appropriate mode of primary. Where do you stand? Are you for direct or indirect?
I think beautiful as the direct primary seems, the first challenge is the question of whether the parties have credible party registers to be able to conduct primaries involving all their members. Where is the register? They will just end up gathering an assembly of thugs and what have you, killing and maiming some people and then some people sitting down somewhere and writing the results. Then they will now have a mini general election before the main general election. So, this is the danger of direct primaries. And it is not in all cases that people will have issues as to who should become the candidates. Some parties, if they can agree, can have consensus candidates. So, either they use indirect or direct primary if it is not statewide, for instance in a councillorship election where all members of the party in a ward know each other, they can use the direct mode. But if the primary involves senatorial, governorship or presidential election, they are looking for a mini general election before the main election if they go for the direct mode. So, the parties should be given the options of adopting either direct, indirect or consensus. That is my take.
I do not think our parties have been run in a way as to be able to conduct direct primaries when even the INEC is having challenges with voters’ register. Where is the register of members of APC or PDP? Where is it? Who has the custody? I am not saying they don’t have membership cards, but where is their register? How is it kept, in what way or format? Is it manual or electronic or is it stored in the cloud? The other time they had primary election in Anambra State, the winner of the primary of APC got over 230,000 votes. When the real election came, he got 40,000 votes. What is that telling you about the direct primary of APC? The other time they did a primary in Kano and turned in over two million votes for the president. But in the general election, he ended up with about one million votes. Which register is the figure [declared] in the primary from? Do they use any register or they are just writing whatever they like as results? Direct primary will not promote credible elections. On the contrary, it will further aggravate the fraud and the shenanigans in the whole electoral process.
In a lecture late last year, you advocated the adoption of what you called ‹wealth tax policy› by the Federal Government, calling for the imposition of tax on the super-rich and using the proceeds therefrom to make life better for the common people. Were you surprised the Federal Government, rather than heed your counsel, contemplated removing subsidy from petroleum products, a decision that will make life further difficult for most Nigerians?
And that is why the people kicked that they would not tolerate it and the government had to back down on it. I think the government is now back to the drawing table to look more into how to raise the taxes so as to win the confidence of the populace, because, right now, it is a fact the government has lost people’s confidence. Even though the attempt to remove subsidy is economically sound, politically it will not fly. It is sound because it will engender sufficiency in the economy and remove what I will call unnecessary deadweight losses in the system. But the populace must believe in you. We have the super-rich in the society with huge wealth and we are not devising means to tax them and make the resources available to make life better for the common people. If I were the government, I would first start with the wealth tax and will then tell the common people that we have taken huge amount of money from the wealthy ones, now it is going to be everybody in a little way because it is not only the poor people that use petrol. The rich too use petrol. But it will cut across and the money realised from the wealth tax will be used to beef up the transportation system for the poor. I think this will be a better route.
You have been an advocate of restructuring of the country. But the North which the current system favours does not seem to countenance the idea. It would seem as if all of you championing that cause are just mouthing it without any hope in sight that it will happen.
Well, I don’t see it that way. The kind of restructuring we are clamouring for is one that will be beneficial to everybody in the long run. What do I mean by this? Bad governance is everywhere in the country. For example, the unbridled and unchecked powers that the governors exercise affect the functioning of the local government councils throughout the country. There is no difference anywhere. But if we have a parliamentary system which is a moderate system, this over-monetisation of politics will be reduced and it cuts across the board, whether you are in the North, the East of the West. The way they are using money ultimately affects the performance of government because the governors and other actors need to recoup the money they have invested. This also fuels corruption. So, not even setting up more EFCC or ICPC can cure corruption when we have a fundamentally defective electoral system that places so much premium on money before people can get to offices. That is what we are talking about.
You also once advocated treating each region as a federation of states and this syncs with the position of the South-West governors in their presentation to the Constitution Review Committee in Abuja last year where they canvassed that the six geopolitical zones be recognised as the federation units on the basis of which revenue will be shared instead of basing it on the states.
That is a very beautiful idea. The states can remain, but at a lower rung where we will have regions that can engage in meaningful developments. For example, why can’t we have a functioning rail system between Akure and Lagos within the regional power? Why can’t there be a telephone service provider that will be operating mainly in the South-Western region of Nigeria? Why can’t there be a common transportation system from Akure to Ado-Ekiti to Osogbo, Ibadan, Abeokuta and Lagos with large economies of scale to aid such? Why can’t we have that? This is what will promote rapid development, integration and good commerce.
Recently, Governor Seyi Makinde was in Iseyin, which is a critical part of Oke-Ogun, for the sod turning of a faculty of LAUTECH. His supporters have also been boasting that the governor has done so well for Oke-Ogun in terms of projects and development generally. Do you see him as a governor who is the real friend of Oke-Ogun?
Governor Makinde is better than those before him as far as Oke-Ogun is concerned. But there is still room for improvement. That is the way I will put it. But he is better than those before him. There is no doubt about that. He is better in terms of what he has been able to achieve in Oke-Ogun, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Where are Oke-Ogun people in the clamour for power shift in 2023? It does not appear there are strong contenders from that part of the state. Yes, Professor Adeolu Akande has indicated interest, but not much is from coming the area…
Yes, Professor Adeolu Akande is eminently qualified to be governor.
Are Oke-Ogun people still supporting him? The people of the area are often accused of not speaking with one voice…
That is not true. Who said Oke-Ogun people don’t speak with one voice? That is a lie. We speak with one voice. Do the Ibadan people speak with one voice? Do you know how many gubernatorial candidates emerged from Ibadan alone in 2019? Are they speaking with one voice?
But at the end of the day, an Ibadan became the governor in 2019…
Let nobody tell that nonsense that Oke-Ogun people don’t speak with one voice. Do the people of Ibadan speak with one voice? Otherwise, why did we have Bayo Adelabu in APC, Sharafadeen Alli in ZLP, Senator Femi Lanlehin in ADC in 2019 and Makinde in PDP? We are talking of speaking with one voice. Who has come out against Professor Akande from Oke-Ogun in APC? He is the only one in APC known to those of us from Oke-Ogun.
But do you see the dream of an Oke-Ogun governor achievable in 2023 against current reality in the state?
That is left in the hands of God to determine. Nobody even knows who will be alive in 2023. There is nobody who is so strong that will say Oke-Ogun does not have a chance. You can’t write off anybody. Professor Akande is our son and we are proud of him. We are fully with him. But that is not to say Governor Makinde has not done well. Makinde has performed so well, though there is room for improvement as I said earlier.
What is the philosophy behind the various acts of benefaction you have been showing people and institutions. You built a massive library in Iseyin and you recently added a magnificent mosque. Not many rich people are so generous.
The whole idea is to give back to society part of what God has endowed me with. We all have different values. Some may acquire to keep until they go away for others to come and spend for them. It is all left to individuals. And besides, we all carry our cross and our destinies. We are not made the same way. We are different people.
You were a Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for eight years. What are you expectations from INEC regarding the 2023 elections?
I expect INEC to keep on improving as it has been doing, to clean the register and reduce the fraud in the elections. I know 90 per cent of the electoral problem is not traceable to INEC, but the politicians and members of the public. But I want INEC to be more vigilant and to ensure that we have a credible and a clean election. Already, some of the nonsense they do with the voter register has been cleaned up substantially. Let them keep on improving more and more until they get it right completely.
INEC is saying it will checkmate the candidates and parties this time to ensure they don’t spend more than what is stated in the law as part of the goal to de-monetise the electoral process. How realistic is this? Is it actually achievable?
It is in the law that there is a limit to what they can spend for elections. I think if INEC wakes up and starts sanctioning those who flout the law, it will be part of the ways to clean up our system. But if we continue with this presidential system, I don’t see INEC achieving much. If somebody emerges as governorship candidate and you limit him to either N50million or one ridiculous amount of money, it is like you are living in self-deceit. The best for us is to go back to a modified parliamentary system whereby anybody who is going to be the president in a state or a region will also go to the parliament like everybody and they all become parliamentarians and from there he can become president or governor or premier or prime minister. Those unnecessary expenses will reduce or be brought to the barest minimum and we will no longer have a situation where somebody will say for his primary, he spent N5billion. How can you spend N5billion on primary in your constituency just to go to the House of Assembly? I believe we need to throw away the presidential system of government. It is not suitable for our environment. This idea of executive governor behaving like emperors is not in our culture. So, for INEC to be able to monitor expenses related to election, I think it will be much easier for them in a parliamentary system than this presidential system.
People have complained that INEC has not been audited all these years. They accuse the body of coming up with huge budget every election cycle and after the money is appropriated and disbursed, no account is rendered on how the money is spent…
I don’t think it is correct to say INEC is not being audited. The Auditor General’s office does oversight on INEC.
Why is it that the audit report is not made public?
How many audit reports are made public in Nigeria? Internal queries must have been issued and maybe they have been resolved or answered. That much I can say. I remember when I was in INEC, they used to go round to serve audit query, asking questions how money was spent and what it was meant for. Such queries will be answered and appropriate sanctions will be given to erring individuals. It is not true that INEC is never audited.
But are you not concerned that we spend so much money to conduct elections? The budget is always humongous.
Look, I go back to the same point. If it is a parliamentary system we are running, all the elections will be conducted in one day. There will just be two elections on the day, state parliamentary election and federal parliamentary election. For state and federal, people vote for their candidates on a single day. Unlike the current practice where governorship, presidential, Senate, House of Representatives, state House of Assembly elections are held on different days, gulping huge money. This is part of the complications we have in the presidential system. The amount of money that goes into governorship and presidential elections is unbelievable.
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