Is'haq Modibbo Kawu
8 March 2007
column
It is clearly an indication of the sorry pass that Obasanjo's desperacy to remain in power has taken Nigeria, that a few weeks to the elections, the Nigerian people have to commence a campaign that the elections must hold. If it was in the realms of speculation before now, the proverbial wind has exposed the hind place of the Obasanjo fowl. The bid to truncate the electoral process has now come out in the open, even if the Obasanjo entourage is still using subterfuge.
The Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 edition of most Nigerian newspapers carried the report that the Attorney General of the Federation will be meeting with the Chief Justice of the Federation and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the April elections. The report went further that the proposed meeting was at the instance of the National Council of States, and that push had been initiated by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
What is unfolding before our eyes is that Obasanjo is enlisting the support of a constitutional institution like the National Council of States, to literally commit a treasonable act; but always clever by a half, he wants to get a legal cover for the act. What was the explanation offered for the meeting? In the words of Attorney
General Bayo Ojo, "For example, INEC said from the 12th of March and April 12th it will come up with list of candidates and they have to print about 100 million ballot papers". So what? Any patriot might ask.
Ojo provided the answer: "the time frame is too short. The logistics gives cause for concern (REALLY?)". He went further that there are about 50 parties which means that at every polling booth, there are going to be 50 party agents, so "that's too much, it is a cause for concern (BUT FOR WHOM?)". The INEC had four years since 2003 to prepare for the elections, and even when well-meaning Nigerians were expressing worries about the preparedness of the electoral body to hold credible elections, the arrogant Professor Maurice Iwu and his spin doctors, were busy abusing civil society groups or financing advertorials in Nigerian newspapers, threatening all kinds of consequences against whoever raised points of concern against the activities of INEC.
The planning for elections which ordinarily should have been in the open, and which ought to have been the example of transparency and open to citizen contributions, under Professor Iwu, has been treated like some form of state secret. This situation was created when the electoral body began to behave as if it was at war with the broad mass of stakeholders interested in ensuring that the 2007 elections did not leave room for the type of massive rigging which Obasanjo perpetrated in 2003. The consequence has been disastrous for Nigeria at every level of development.
Even the blind could see through the posturing and terminological inexactitude that characterised the aggressive defensiveness of Professor Maurice Iwu. He knew best in electoral matters, the way that his boss, Obasanjo knows best in everything else; nobody can or should suggest ideas because Iwu alone knows how to deliver elections and civil society groups in particular were a meddlesome nuisance that our electoral all-knowing professor could very well do without or appropriately put in their place. He enjoys grandstanding, he is the master and nobody else's views mattered, except maybe those of Obasanjo. So it is obviously a mischievous climb down to now begin to proclaim a logistic nightmare as a problem needing some legal interventions, for which Obasanjo needed the backing of the National Council of States to kick start, using the Attorney General, the INEC chief and the Chief Justice of Nigeria. I smell a rat and Nigerians must wear our thinking caps and begin a return journey to the trenches of resistance. Obasanjo is determined to carry out another act of subversion of our national constitutional order.
Last week, a Distinguished Senator visited our Editorial Board to give us background information on political developments in the country. He confirmed to us that the National Assembly was divided in respect of the plans by Obasanjo to shift the handover date from May to October 2007. The argument is that the presidency is working on members of the National Assembly to accept that elections planning are shoddy. The background would therefore necessitate the shift of handover date to October 2007.
There are deep issues of intrigues in the polity, with the PDP apparatchik also worried that the governors that lost out in the presidential primaries are lukewarm in their support for Umar Yar'Adua. Furthermore, it seemed true that despite denials, attempts have been made or the idea has been contemplated to even drop Yar'Adua as the PDP's presidential candidate, as part of the elaborate political manipulation going on. There was the added fact that some aggrieved political tendencies were also trying to push the Senate to look at the option of impeachment of the president and his deputy, an act that would still lead to the deferment of the elections. It is similarly note worthy that the anti third term camp has become divided and it is reported that even many of them might not oppose the plan to shift the handover date from May to October 2007.
Just about two weeks ago, one of the Lagos newspapers reported that Abike Dabiri of the House of Representatives had told a forum that the National Assembly has been divided along three lines, namely those who want a shift of handover date to October, those opposed to it and those that have so far not committed themselves one way or the other. Incredible as it might all be, this is where Obasanjo's desperate desire to remain in power has landed Nigeria. But just as we defeated the third term agenda, we must build a huge national coalition to defeat whatever legal mumbo jumbo would be manufactured to justify the elongation of Obasanjo's stay in power by even an extra day, beyond May 29th, 2007. Nigeria is not a banana republic, we have not been re-colonised and Obasanjo will NEVER, EVER be allowed to toy with our fate. We are totally fed up with him and are merely tolerating him, with the hope that after May 2007, he would meet his fate in the nation's judicial system for all the crimes he has perpetrated since 1999. But he has the audacity to attempt to enlist the National Council of States in his perfidy!
The issues are clear. No matter what, the elections MUST hold in April 2007 and Obasanjo MUST GO by May 29th, 2007; he should vacate Aso villa for a newly elected president. INEC had four years to prepare for the elections, and I was reminded by a member of our Editorial Board, Honourable Edoaga, that there was no preparation that INEC can make in six months for new elections, which it did not make in four years. If we fall into the trap that Obasanjo has carefully constructed for Nigeria, and we allow them to shift the handover date from May 29th, 2007 to October, we should be prepared to lose our democratic process. Obasanjo will construct other red herrings to ensure that he stays in power even beyond October 2007.
What is the "logistics (that) gives cause for concern" which Bayo Ojo, the Attorney General was talking about? Has he or other members of the government seen the size of ballot papers used for Indian elections before? They are often very unwieldy because they cater for a multiplicity of national, states and local political parties. But because there is a genuine willpower to achieve democratic governance, India continued to print those massive ballot papers for its elections. No mention of some dubious "logistic concerns" which they did not or could not envisage for four years, until a few weeks to elections. Now they know that there are fifty parties (as if it was not they that registered them); they are just realising that time is too short to print 100 million ballot papers. NO WAY, ELECTIONS MUST HOLD IN APRIL AND OBASANJO MUST GO BY MAY 29th, 2007!!!
It is imperative to remind members of the National Council of States that they owe it to Nigeria that they must not be enlisted in any scheme which allows the elongation of Obasanjo's tenure by whatever guise. The Nigerian people spoke emphatically when we rejected tenure elongation last year. Obasanjo's desperate desire to escape justice for his criminal conduct of state power must not be allowed to induce you to abetting a treasonable conduct against the best interest of the Nigerian people.
This is the same advice that we shall extend to members of the National Assembly. Your profile with the Nigerian people improved remarkably when you helped to scorch the serpent of third term, and it is the same profile that is expected from you, in the new effort to achieve tenure elongation by stealth, using the alleged shoddy preparations of INEC to conduct elections. Together with the Nigerian people let us resolve that elections MUST hold, karfi da yaji, in April 2007 and Obasanjo MUST go, by May 29th, 2007. Civil society groups, political parties, and the mass democratic movement: labour, students and youth organisations, should heighten vigilance to ensure that ELECTIONS MUST HOLD IN APRIL 2007 and Obasanjo MUST GO by May 29th, 2007. Neither the National Council of States nor some legal abracadabra must be allowed to keep Obasanjo in power for an extra day.
CHIEF AWONIYI: ONE YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK
On Monday, 12th March, 2007, it would be exactly one year since the attack on Chief Sunday Awoniyi, Chairman of the Arewa Consultative (ACF), and distinguished elder statesman. It was Allah that saved his life, because it seemed clear that whoever the attackers were, they had not gone to steal from his house because they had been shown where money was in the house and they refused to touch it. They hit him on the head and left him for dead as he passed out. Obasanjo visited to commiserate (only after he had been told that Vice President Atiku Abubakar had gone before him), and he ordered the Inspector General of Police to find those who carried out the attack. One year after, nobody has been arrested for the crime and Obasanjo did not get back to Chief Awoniyi nor has the Inspector General reported the progress made in the investigation to find the attackers. Such is the state of security of lives under Obasanjo's presidency. We thank God for sparing Chief Sunday Awoniyi's life
OBASANJO'S "70TH BIRTHDAY"? : WHAT HYPOCRISY
This week all manners of officials of state, heads of government institutions, governors and private sector mandarins have been falling upon themselves to waste public and private funds to congratulate Obasanjo on his "70th birthday"! What hypocrisy for God's sake. Obasanjo does not know when he was born, does not have a birth certificate and on the authority of his own son Gbenga, Obasanjo is OVER 70 years old! So why on earth would highly revered personalities like ex-President Shehu Shagari lend his credibility to a fraudulent celebration, which does not exist, a phantom? Obasanjo's "birthday" is a sick joke, a burlesque and the advertisement spaces purchased to celebrate it should be treated as corruption by the EFCC (if the body itself did not "congratulate" Obasanjo through the same route on his "70th birthday"). But did you see the monster on the cake that Obasanjo invited Alhaji Shehu Shagari and others to cut? It was befitting of a charade, a non-existent "70th birthday".
SENATOR ANISULOWO, PDP AND ILLICIT SEX
I have not stopped laughing since last Sunday, when I read the report in SUNDAY SUN. I even spoke with Louis Odion, Editor of the newspaper, just to be sure, because he had written a very juicy commentary on the subject on the back page of the same edition. Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, you might recall, had decamped from the PDP to the ANPP; not much in that you might say, until you have read the reason she gave for losing her bid to return to the Senate, via the PDP. She lost, said the Distinguished Senator, "simply because I refused to offer my body in illicit sex". If you think the PDP was only in the business of securing power and are in a do-or-die mode to retain it, you would have to think again, because apparently unbeknownst to all of us, but especially husbands who have wives in the party, there are strenuous efforts to see the nakedness of their wives; and we have the "good authority" of Senator Anisulowo in these matters, "PDP (is) full of filthy men who only support women politicians that could offer themselves in illicit sexual affairs among other immoral acts". To make matters even more cake-cuttingly interesting (if you catch my drift!), Mrs. Anisulowo left a tantalising description of the person who demanded the "illicit sex". "The man refused to support me because I refused to offer him my body. The man does not even appeal to me (the senator did not tell us if the story might have been different if the man had "appealed" to her!)". She went further that she could not offer her "body to a filthy person. It is their stock in trade in PDP. I refused to do what my children would not like to see me do (but would they have SEEN her?)....I left the party (PDP) because of immoral acts....I can't give my body to any idiot, any filthy person". So when next you think of the PDP, maybe you would give a thought to the plight of Distinguished Senator Iyabo Anisulowo's anger that a venerable old woman like her would still be attractive enough for "illicit sex"; so she lost out, not because she was disloyal to the party in the senate, nor did she refuse to contribute to party finances and neither was she found wanting by her constituents. More poignantly, she lost the PDP ticket, because she refused to partake in PDP's "bend-bend game", as Fela Anikulapo Kuti would have described it. "Fi-Di-Fi? Fawa!!!".
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