[size=18pt]Nigeria held hostage by a cabal –Rights activist[/size]
By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Kaduna
Thursday, February 12, 2009
•Mr. Festus Okoye
Photo: Sun News Publishing

* More Stories on This Section

Kaduna-based Rights activist and member of the Uwais-led Electoral Reform Panel, Mr. Festus Okoye, has declared that there is cabal that is bent on holding Nigeria down, saying that the cabal is responsible for the bad leadership in the country.
Speaking in an interview with Daily Sun in Kaduna, Okoye who is also a member of the Abisoye-led Panel inaugurated by the Federal government to probe the last Jos crisis, said: "there is a cabal holding the country down.

There are some reactionary forces holding this country down. There are some people who activate sectional, religious and other primordial interests to remain in power and keep this country down. There are forces that do not really want this country to move forward”.
He spoke on all these and several other issues of national interest.
Excerpts:

The Electoral reform
In that committee, we have people who came from various and varying backgrounds. So, our committee was just a store of knowledge.But the big difference in our committee was that each individual appointed to that committee was very unhappy with the way we have been running our elections and that informed our approach to that particular assignment.
Secondly, we had public hearings in 12 states of the federation. In all the states we went to, traditional rulers said they were unhappy with the way we have run elections in this country. All the political parties that appeared before us said they were unhappy. All the civil society groups that appeared before us said they were unhappy. All the security chiefs that appeared before us said they were unhappy. The resident commissioners that appeared before us said they were unhappy. Politicians that rigged elections, stole the people’s mandate, stole ballot boxes, stuffed ballot boxes came before us and said they were unhappy.

Then, the issue became what is the problem and who is the problem, if everybody is unhappy? So, it became very clear that if we did not make recommendations that are revolutionary in nature, then the committee would have been lagging behind in the thinking of the people, the thinking of the government and public opinion.
One issue that everybody emphasized had to do with the independence and autonomy of the Electoral management body. We needed to deal with that and closely related to that is the professionalism and expertise of those running the electoral management body. We had to also deal with that. The first issue we dealt with had to do with the independence and autonomy of the electoral management body and also how to professionalize it and make sure that whoever that is there is somebody who is inbuilt with some level of integrity and who will take some ethical things into consideration in doing his or her work. That is one big issue we dealt with.

Another big issue we dealt with had to do with the issue of resolution of electoral disputes. Nigerians are very unhappy at the fact that somebody will assume office and three years after, his or case is still pending in court and three years after, somebody who does not have genuine mandate would have stolen the people’s mandate, remained in office for three years and the person who has genuine mandate will only come to enjoy the unexpired residue of a term of office of four years, when somebody who does not have the mandate had taken three years.

So, we felt that we needed to put in mechanisms that would enable Nigerians dispose of all elections petitions before anybody is sworn in and that is why we recommended that Nigerians should have elections in November and that all election petitions will terminate before the swearing in of the newly elected President or Governor or members of the National Assembly in May. We have also put a time frame for the disposal of election petitions. For the tribunals, we’ve given them four months to round off every election petition and for the appeal processes; we’ve given two months, making it a total of six months.

The third radical and revolutionary decision we took, as far as I’m concerned, is the fact that we have both in fact and in law abolished the State Independent Electoral Commission. But if you read the report, the report will tell you that we integrated their functions into the reformed Independent National Electoral Commission. But if you read carefully, you will see that they no longer exist in law and in fact.
The other thing we did was the introduction of independent candidature and the tightening of the conditions for registration of political parties. I want to tell you that I support liberal democracy and I support multi-party democracy.

But a situation where our committee spent a year and three months searching for over forty political parties, where their offices and where their principal officers are is unacceptable to the people of this country. But these over forty political parties collect subvention from INEC every year and it is a fact that there are some individuals whose only duty is forming political parties and collecting subvention. In fact, we heard that one single individual has five political parties. So, every year, he sits down and collects over N30 million from the Independent National Electoral Commission and has a permanent suit in NICON and his party has never fielded even a councilor for a councillorship election. We felt that type of nonsense should stop and that’s why we have recommended that in addition to the constitutional provisions, any political party that wants to be registered must have offices in two-third of all the States of the Federation and that subvention will only be given after election and it will only be given to any political party that scores at least 2.5 percent of the total votes cast in the election, so that all these mushroom parties that have no existence in fact and in law that were formed purposely to collect subvention will just completely disappear and we will have serious political parties who are ready to bid for power and who are ready to assume office, if the opportunity comes their way. These are some of the issues we dealt with in relation to the electoral process.

But these parties collect taxpayers’ money as subventions without carrying out their own side of the deal, shouldn’t the law catch up with them?
That is part of the lacuna we have in the electoral Act. When a party has not accounted for the money it was given, why should you give it additional fund without waiting for it to account for the ones it was given. I think that is also part of the failure of the civil societies. For instance, the audited account of the political parties for the year 2006 was published in 2008, when the Electoral Act says that these things must be done every year; it must be published in three national newspapers every year. If the one for 2006 was published in 2008, the one for 2008, when are we going to have it?

It means INEC should also share in the blame?
INEC should share in the blame because it means they are not also doing their work. For instance, the law also says that after every election, the Independent National Electoral Commission should also publish in three national newspapers, the audited accounts of the political parties, with which they ran election. That has not been done. So, what it means is that INEC does not have the capacity to do most of the functions assigned to them by the Electoral Act and by the Constitution. That is why we have attempted in our report to unbundled them, remove certain functions they are performing and give such functions to other agencies.

For instance, our Committee had created what we call Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission to deal with issues relating to political parties, their campaigns, their audited accounts, their registration. We have also created Constituency Delimitation Commission to deal with the issue of delineation of constituencies. We have also created what we call an Electoral Offences Commission to do with arrest and prosecution of electoral offenders because the Electoral Act 2006 gives the INEC the power to prosecute electoral offenders, when some of the electoral offenders are within the institution itself. These are some of the things we have looked at comprehensively and done some revolutionary work relating to the Electoral Act and the Constitution.

State Independent Electoral Commission
What our Committee did is that we proposed amendment to the Constitution because it is part of our terms of reference. If you look at volume one, which is our main report, you will see that we have annexure one, which is the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Amendment Act, 2008. We drafted a bill for an act to amend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, so as to further strengthen Nigeria’s democratic foundation in general and in particular, to raise the quality and standard of general elections together with the reinforcement of the cross cutting institutional framework, already delineated in that behalf and provide for other matters connected therewith.

So, all the recommendations we have made, we’ve reduced them into a bill and this bill, hopefully, would be forwarded to the National Assembly that will deliberate on that. So, we recognize the fact that some of the recommendations we made will impact on the constitution and that unless the constitution is amended, they will not have effect.
We also drafted Electoral Act amendment bill to take on board all the recommendations we have made. We also drafted what we called the Electoral Offences Commission Bill and we attached all these as annexure to our report.

Is it possible for all these bills to be taken before 2011 elections?
It is possible. If you look at page 253 of our report, the one we call implementation report, we said that there is a need for a thematic constitutional review, relating to all provisions that have direct bearing on the electoral process, without waiting for a wholesale review of the Constitution. So, what we have done is that the amendments we are proposing in relation to the Constitution are only amendments that have a bearing on the electoral process and we have said that take this as a first amendment and deal with and we have already drafted the bills. If, for instance, the President in his wisdom decides to constitute an implementation Committee, what the Committee will do, since we have drafted the bill, is to forward it to National Assembly and they begin deliberation and all these things are possible before December 2009, which is the date the President has also proposed for him to get all the electoral framework right. So, I think that all these things are possible.

You will agree with me that Nigeria is a funny country. We propose beautiful and lofty ideas, but getting them to work has always been the problem. For example, when they were debating the amendment to the 2006 Electoral Act, some Senators proposed that subvention should be given to parties based on the number of seats they win. But a lot of the other legislators kicked against that proposal and you and I know that in the National Assembly, it is majority that carries the day. So, if at the end of the day, the members of National Assembly see nothing good in your proposal, what happens?

Our Committee was set up by the President with a defined mandate and defined terms of reference. We have paid attention to those terms of reference and we have paid attention to our mandate. We got people from other countries with similar election problems like Nigeria to talk to us; we reviewed literatures from so many places. But at the end of the day, the question we asked is what is it that will work for the people of this country and that’s what we have proposed. For me, we have done our own job. The Electoral Reform Committee does not have the constitutional power to make laws. That power is within the exclusive reserve of members of the National Assembly, including the State Houses of Assembly. It is the business of Civil Society groups and major stakeholders in this country to push for this report and I can tell you that most of the recommendations we made, we paid very serious attention to the feelings of the people during our Public Hearings.

I want to also tell you that, for instance, the issue of the State Independent Electoral Commission; it is true that it has something to do with our federalism. But having looked at their performance holistically, majority of Nigerians believe that it is not an issue they want to leave at the State level because they have not managed it well. So, it is the pressure of Nigerians, the commitment of the President and the commitment of the major stakeholders that will see the reduction of these reforms into law. But we are under no illusion whatsoever that all our recommendations will sail through.

Some will sail through. Some will not sail through. But the issue is that whatever the National Assembly does, let them bear in mind the overall interest of the people of this country, the need for us to reform our electoral process, the need for our electoral process and our elections to be the reference point in Africa on how credible elections are conducted. I think it has become very shameful in modern day Nigeria, the reference point on how to conduct credible elections are Ghana, Benin Republic and some of these other countries and Nigerians are very unhappy about that.

The second thing I want to say is that I am also not under any illusion whatsoever that the law as it is, even if our recommendations may not on its own guarantee credible elections and that having gotten the electoral and constitutional framework right, the second thing we need to do is to get the political framework right. Unless the political class is ready to repent; unless the political class plays by the rules of the game; unless the political class internalizes the virtues of internal party democracy and the values of constitutional democracy, no matter how beautiful the law is, you may not make any fundamental headway. So, for me, the law is twenty percent. The politics of it is eighty percent and one of the ways we can get that eighty percent is if civil society groups have come to the inevitable conclusion that enough is enough and that they are ready to defend the mandate of the people, no matter what it will cost.

State creation
My take on this is that members of the press are yet to appreciate and delineate what the issues are. Section 9 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for the mode of altering provisions of the Constitution. If you want to alter the provisions of the Constitution, then you pay attention to section 9 of the Constitution. If you want to alter the ordinary provisions of this constitution, you need an Act an of the National Assembly and you also need two-third majority of members of the National Assembly and your report of that alteration must also be adopted by the vote of not less than two-third of all the State Houses of Assembly. But there are other provisions that require a higher number to amend. One of those provisions is the issue of provisions relating to chapter four of the Constitution; the second are provisions relating to State creation and provisions relating to creation of additional Local Governments and boundary adjustment.

If you believe that the process for creation, the provisions for creation of additional local government, that the provisions of chapter four of the Constitution are cumbersome and you want them to amend them, you need four-fifth of majority of members the National Assembly and it must also be approved by the resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-third of all the States. In counting the members of the National Assembly, you count both those who are dead and those who are alive. In other words, section 9(4) provides that for the purposes of section 8 of this Constitution, that is sections dealing with State creation and chapter four and so on, the member or members of each Houses of National Assembly shall, notwithstanding any vacancy, be deemed to be the number of members specified in section 48 and 49 of the Constitution. So, for the Senate, it is 109 and for the House of Representatives 360. No vacancy is allowed. So, it’s very cumbersome. If you believe that the process for State and Local Government creation is cumbersome and you want the National Assembly to alter it, this is the number you need. But if you want States to be created, the National Assembly as an institution cannot create States. The National Assembly as institution cannot activate the process of State creation. The process of State creation is like a court of law.

Court can only assume jurisdiction if cases are filed. If no case is filed before a court of law, it cannot on its own assume jurisdiction. Even if a High Court Judge witnesses an accident on the road, the High Court Judge cannot say because I have witnessed an accident, I hereby assume jurisdiction over the case. No. the police or Attorney General must file charges or file a first information report, before a court can assume jurisdiction, the same thing with the process of State creation.
Section 8 of the Constitution says that an Act of the National Assembly, for the purpose of creating a new State shall only be passed if a request is made to the National Assembly. A request must first of all be made to the National Assembly before they can even begin to talk of issue of State creation. Who are the people that will make this request? It says a request supported by two-third majority of all members representing the area demanding the creation of the new State in each of the following: the Senate and House of Representatives; the House of Assembly in respect of the area and, thirdly, the Local Government Councils in respect of the area is received by the National Assembly. So, the people who will activate the jurisdiction of the National Assembly are two-third of members of the National Assembly from the area demanding the State, two-third of the Members of the House of Assembly from the area demanding the State and two-third of the members of the Local Government Council from the area demanding for the State. They will make a request.

Then, after making the request, what happens? They will make it to the National Assembly. Then a proposal for the creation of State is thereafter approved in a referendum by at least two-third of the majority of the people in the area where the demand for the creation of the State originated.
For instance, if the people of Kaduna State are demanding for the creation of a new State, the referendum will take place in the whole of Kaduna State and the result of the referendum must be approved by two-third of the majority of the people of Kaduna State. Then the result of the referendum is approved by a simple majority of all the States of the Federation, supported by a simple majority of members of the Houses of Assembly. Then, it now returns back to the National Assembly and the proposal is approved by a resolution passed by two-third majority of members of the National Assembly. That’s what the constitution says.

So, my advice is that the Joint National Assembly Committee on Constitutional Review must make it very clear to State creation agitators to go and do what section 8 of the Constitution has asked them to do. The Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Constitutional Review has nothing to do with State creation. It is not part of their mandate.
Even if they receive such requests during their public hearings that they are about to embark on?
The Constitution does not mandate a Committee to receive a request. The request must go to the National Assembly and two-third of National Assembly members as well as House of Assembly members from the area must endorse the request.
JCRC
It is a National Assembly Committee, but the Constitution has not mandated it to receive this request. So, even if they receive the request, the National Assembly has not received it. People should go and do what they are supposed to do in the first place. For instance, if you want a State to be created in Kaduna State, there are three Senators representing Kaduna State and two of them must agree. So, if two say no, it has collapsed already. Even if the National Assembly promises you that they will create 20 States out of your State and two Senators from your State say no, the thing has collapsed.
My advice, is that the President should move quickly, and set up an implementation Committee for this report and that the implementation Committee should look at this report holistically and also forward the bills to the National Assembly and let them begin deliberations on it. This has nothing to do with whatever they do subsequently in terms of other provisions of the Constitution that they want to review. But let them take the amendment dealing with the electoral process and they should separate it from other issues they want to handle, so that the politics of State creation, the politics of federalism, the politics of resource control and the politics of giving a role to the traditional institutions does not overshadow the primacy and fundamentality of getting our electoral system to work right. So, my idea is that it should go to them first.

Jos crisis
You have to excuse my answering this particular question because you know I’m a member of the Abisoye panel. Maybe after our assignment, if you ask me the question again, I will be in a better position to proffer a solution. I understand some of the issues at stake but I will reserve my comments for now, until we finish the assignment given to us.

Bad leadership
I think there is a perfect realization that things should not continue the way they are. There is a cabal holding the country down. There are some reactionary forces holding this country down. There are some people who activate sectional, religious and other primordial interests to remain in power and keep this country down. There are forces that do not really want this country to move forward.

So, the first thing we need to do is to understand these forces, understand where they are coming from, understand their tactics and their mechanisms and find ways of breaking those tactics and mechanisms down. Secondly, no society can develop without an active middle class or even make serious progress. So, one of the things I think we need to do is to reform and empower our institutions. If you look at the history of countries that have stable democracy and are making real progress, you will find out that their institutions work and that more often than not, the President of the country or the Governor is only a supervisor but the real work is done by these institutions.

When people infringe on the law, knowing fully well that there are consequences and the law proceeds against them, give them due fine and sometimes, they are convicted thereafter, people will think twice about breaking the law. But in this country, when somebody is arrested for having cornered the resources of a whole State, the person says it is because I’m from this part of the country; it is because I’m a Muslim, that’s why I’m being arrested; it’s because I’m a Christian, that’s why they are arresting me; after all, so and so person from this ethnic group stole more than me and nobody has arrested him.

We hide under some primordial banners in order to escape prosecution. But one thing is that the moment institutions begin to work for instance the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the ICPC; if they are very professional in their work; if they are very ethical in their work and people know that if they are arrested and are found guilty, the prosecution would be done well and they will go in for it, people will think twice about what they did.

But if they know that the moment you are arrested, you are taken to court and then you are granted bail, you amass 20 Senior Advocates and the case, maybe after two or three years is off the ladder, impunity will continue. So, I think that a single individual can make a difference. But a collective can also make a very big difference. One of the things we need to begin to do is to get our institutions to work; institutions that support democracy, if they begin to work, things will begin to change. In the past, it is unheard of for a governor to be taken to court for trial for charges of money laundering, charges of economic sabotage and economic crimes and on. But now it is happening. So, I think that we are making progress, although the progress is slow. But we should begin to think of how to rebuild our institutions that support democracy.

What I’m saying is that as at the time the President set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, he wrapped the institution around himself and it became an instrument for the settling of political and personal scores. But if the thing is made independent and built around the institution itself, not around any personality, they will make better progress, not if a President has a personal scores to settle, he will say go and fight him and you go. No. if it’s an institution, if the President has scores to settle with the person, he will send you a petition and you look at the position and if he doesn’t have a case, you throw it out, no matter who is involved. That is how institutions work

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/feb/12/national-12-02-2009-15.htm

The usual drunkard. I guess he did this just to get money for his ogongoro.

michelle who teach you ogogogoro? you see wetin NL don do you

In case you don't know i know what it tastes like and menn, me sef go deceive to buy am.