Nosike Ogbuenyi And Constance Ikokwu in Washington, D.c
17 December 2007
Lagos — The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, has again defended the integrity of the last general elections.
He also gave reasons why former vice president and presidential candidate of the Action Congress, Alhaji Atiku Abu-bakar, and his All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) counterpart, Major-General Muham-madu Buhari (rtd), could not have won the April 21 poll. President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was declared the winner of the election.
Speaking in Westminster, London, United Kingdom at the weekend during the presentation of INEC's official report of the election to Nigerians in the UK, Iwu said both Atiku and Buhari had issues to contend with before the presidential poll, which made it obvious they could not have won the poll.
But in separate reactions last night, Atiku described Iwu as a troubled man while Buhari dismissed the INEC chairman's statement as a sad commentary on the nation's electoral pro-cess.
The forum was organised under the auspices of the Nigerian High Commission in the UK.
Iwu said from the observation of INEC through its Political Parties Monitoring Unit, both AC and ANPP were not veritable platforms before the poll.
According to him, ANPP was factionalised to the extent that some of the governors elected on the platform of the party decided to work against Buhari's interest.
AC, on its part, came out of a troubled Alliance for Democracy (AD), with only a few months to the election and could not have prepared properly for the election, he said.
Iwu said most of the parties that stood for election in April election did not have offices in up to 500 local government areas of the 774 in the country, adding, "Elections are not won on the pages of newspapers.
"What we had before the election were campaigns on the pages of newspapers and not on the field. How do you win election when the people who are to vote for you do not know you and can't even identify with your party because there were no offices in their areas for them to know you are with them?"
Iwu said the former vice president's case was further compounded by the fact that he was only cleared to stand for the election by the Supreme Court just five days before the election.
He attributed this to different positions taken by the courts on the powers of the commission to bar candidates from standing for elections.
Iwu said as at the time the Supreme Court gave its verdict that the commission could not bar candidates from standing for elections contrary to the provisions of the constitution; the Court of Appeal had told INEC it had the powers to do so.
"It was this position of the Court of Appeal, which was the highest court to have made a pronouncement on the issue, that we followed until the Supreme Court upturned it," he said
Though he admitted there were logistics problems with the elections, Iwu said it would be wrong for anyone to say there were no elections in the country.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Electoral Matters, Hon. Musa Sarkin Adar, who also spoke at the event, supported Iwu's position that the elections were credible.
Adar said it was unthinkable before the election that the PDP was going to win in Sokoto, his home state.
He said also that if the elections were massively rigged in favour of the PDP as claimed, then states such as Lagos and Bauchi should have fallen into the hands of the party.
But AC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, berated Iwu saying the INEC chairman's statement was a confession that there was no level playing field in the last election and that the statement had further strengthened Atiku's case at the tribunal.
He said it was wrong to say Atiku only had five days to campaign for the presidential poll, adding that the former vice president started campaigning and preparing for the election several years back and he enjoyed tremendous goodwill across the country.
Also, Media Consultant to the former vice president, Dr. Adeolu Akande, said the position of the law was clear on the role of INEC.
According to him, "INEC is saddled with the responsibility of conducting the election and declaring a winner and not to engage in pre-election analysis.
"Its obvious from his comments that he is not trained to do that. Iwu is a troubled man. We sympathised with him.
"As Shakespare said of Macbeth after he murdered his friend, Malcom, 'all the oceans of the world cannot wash blood off the hand of Macbeth.' Presenting a fake report around the world cannot retrieve Iwu from the ignominy he has brought on himself."
The ANPP presidential candidate, speaking through his spokesman, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, described the April general elections as a total sham, which is crumbling by the day.
He said: "It is a sad commentary that Maurice Iwu is still on self glorification when the election tribunals have proved that his conduct of the elections was bedeviled by crass ineptitude and unreserved partisanship in favour of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. He should descend from his Olympian Height because the house of cards he assembled is crumbling by the day.
"Election is not only about the President but the Senate, House of Representatives, governorship and the rest. It is evident that Buhari was rigged out because if there were free and fair election the Nigerian people could have voted out the PDP. Iwu cannot see that there is a dichotomy because he is blindfolded by his partisanship."
Two weeks ago, Iwu had caused a stir in the country when he said during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the April elections were better than the June 12, 1993 poll.
Meanwhile, the INEC Chairman will tomorrow present a report of the April election to the world, at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, D.C., United States (US).
Expected to attend are international media organisations as well as Nigerian Press based in the US.
The event will be moderated by the Publisher of online-based Times of Nigeria, US, Mr Sunny Ofili.
Ofili explained the importance of the gathering thus: "the media presentation is an opportunity to review what happened, how it happened and why it happened and lessons learned so that the subsequent elections will be better organised.
"It is sort of a review of the whole process and an opportunity for INEC to tell its own story to the world media and that is why this event is being hosted at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington."
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