Lawyer and social critic, Fred Agbaje, in this interview with ADEOLA BALOGUN, submits that the new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission may not be trusted with the conduct of the 2019 general election
After the successful 2015 general election, are you not worried with the way the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states turned out?
I am very worried. Apart from being a lawyer, I am a Nigerian who has one of the greatest stakes in the development of this country. It is shocking that barely three months or thereabout after the appointment of Professor Mahmood Yakubu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerians have suddenly woken up to another political lexicon which is ‘inconclusive election.’ The two elections are the ones Prof. Yakubu would be conducting and at the end of the day, we are meeting a brick wall called inconclusive election. In other word, it is like the INEC helmsman is becoming too fascinated with uncritical embrace of that phrase, inconclusive election. If to him, the phrase does not mean anything, to us as Nigerians, to the people who go out to queue up in the sun to vote in the inconclusive elections, it tells on them time wise, money wise. The economy is paralysed for the whole day and yet somebody will wake up from the wrong side of his bed and tell Nigerians that the election that they themselves have taken so many months to prepare for, is inconclusive. It shows the following: that the INEC helmsman is grossly incompetent; is not serious for the job; is ill prepared and does not know the gravity of what election is all about in this country. That is what I will call the height of insensitivity. I must say this, INEC must be held responsible for the death of Prince Abubakar Audu because the shocking announcement by INEC that the election was inconclusive must have taken its toll on the man who had traversed the entire Kogi campaigning. The man was already leading clearly only for somebody in Abuja who does not know the ABC of his office to declare such an election that so many people had staked their lives inconclusive. As far as I am concerned, that the new INEC man is still there today, is shocking to me. Because by now, I felt the Federal Government should have told him good night. The man should be thrown into the employment field; he should go and find something else to do. Like they say in the Yoruba part of the world that I come from, morning shows the day. If the two governorship elections that have been given to the professor to conduct have been found somersaulting, what do we expect to happen to the next general election in 2019? We are going to get the worst result. And if President Muhammadu Buhari, as part of his change mantra, does not change the professor at the helms in INEC, that professor will change Nigeria for bad. This is the stage where the Justice Uwais Report that deals with the appointment of INEC boss, should come in. This idea of the Presidency alone single handedly handpicking the headship of INEC, is not only morally reprehensible, condemnable, wicked but politically megalomaniacal. The post of INEC chairman should be advertised and let credible and qualified Nigerians apply and the man with the highest scores should clinch the job. The president who himself will find himself in the political arena in future should stop dabbling in the affairs and handpicking the INEC boss. It is politically unjust and that is the result we are seeing in Professor Yakubu’s mal-appointment and misappointment. Look at what has happened in the two governorship elections the man has conducted; it is nothing to write home about. The man should even resign; he should not wait to be shown the way out.
Some people will argue that the man was appointed very close to the elections.
I have never seen an army general who came back from the battle to complain that he didn’t know the terrain very well. He consented to the appointment and it is too late in the day to complain. That is what is called volenti non fit injuria, a common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not able to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict. All that could be afterthought.
Instead of blaming INEC, don’t you think those contesting in Bayelsa were desperate?
Is there any time that Nigerian politicians have not been desperate? Some political candidates see election in Nigeria as a do or die affair. Why won’t they be desperate? But you can understand why; so many of them are jobless, many of them are bag carriers to their godfathers. Their godfathers have told them that they would be backed up with fictitious votes. In other words, if any of the combatants is no longer interested, what of his backers? Are they prepared to back out? But the government should be blamed for the worsening unemployment in Nigeria. Crime rate is on the increase; a jobless man will look for a way to survive through any means. In the case of Bayelsa, why wouldn’t the two combatants be desperate? Don’t forget that the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, is solidly behind the incumbent governor and the government of the day which is APC is solidly behind the former governor challenging Dickson. Let’s see who will bend first. So in the situation like that, don’t be swayed by merely looking at the two candidates. If you are looking at Dickson and Sylva, then the more you look, the less you see. When they say a leave is dancing on water, don’t look too far, the person drumming for it is lurking nearby. They have their strong backers beating the drum for them.
Now in Kogi, the deputy governor candidate, Mr. Abiodun Faleke, has said he was not willing to work with the governor-elect that emerged after the supplementary election, how would the issues be resolved?
What is happening in Kogi now is what I call legal electoral acrobatism. The scenario is very interesting for lawyers and students of comparative constitutional law on one hand and students of political science on the other. It means that the categories of the people mentioned here can no longer sit down in the classroom to permutate. Election is no longer about permutation with the way it turned out in Kogi. I am one of the supporters of Faleke but I regret to say that he will miss out on some of us the way he is going. Of course, he is fit for the top job no doubt about that, but it is not every fight that you beat your chest that you will pursue to the logical end. There are some fights where you back out after making your point. Those who don’t know how to beat a retreat often end up being consumed by the war they themselves started. Look at what happened to MKO, when the chips were down, where were those urging him on? Faleke has made his point but for him to still continue to dangerously hold on to the extent of dragging his political party into it, that is a dangerous fight. Don’t forget that what is at play now is the provision of the Electoral Act and the constitution; the two must go hand in hand. Fine that Faleke had a joint ticket with the late Audu, nobody is disputing that and Audu was in clear leadership before he died as a result of INEC’s unsolicited pronouncement and political misadventure by declaring an election that was almost concluded as inconclusive. If his principal has passed on, Faleke has to remind himself that, what form did he fill for INEC when he was going to contest for election? As what? He filled the form to contest as deputy governor to Audu. He did not go through any primary to become the deputy governorship candidate. So if his camp is campaigning that somebody did not go through the process laid down by the Electoral Act by going through the primary for instance, did he go through one? Faleke was not part of the primary, he was handpicked as a deputy to Audu. So, if I were him, I would be grateful for that opportunity alone. If my party that deemed me fit to be a running mate to the late man, and the same party still believes that he should still remain the deputy to the candidate it picked from the primary earlier conducted as a result of political expediency, I think he should respect that. Faleke is behaving as a branch of a tree that thinks it is bigger than the whole tree. He was sponsored by the APC and since the same party has told him to wait, he should respect that. Faleke is now behaving as if he is bigger than the party, this is where I have a quarrel with him. The way electoral law and the constitution stand today on candidature, it is 99.9 per cent in favour of the party. Some of us have gone to court to challenge party candidates in favour of our own clients, the court has thrown away our case and said when it comes to who represents the party, it is the business of the party. That is why it is easy for the party to go and bring idiots, criminals to come and stand for election. And when you look at the rationale behind Rotimi Amaechi becoming governor, the Supreme Court held that that to all intents and purposes, Amaechi and not Omehia was the governor. It is not that I agree with that because it makes the party dictatorial but that is what the law says today. The other argument by Faleke that going by the provision of the Electoral Act, you must have participated in all the processes of election before you can become a governor or deputy governor. Fantastic argument but the converse of that argument is what Faleke camp has refused to appreciate. The converse of that argument again is, primary can only produce one governorship candidate and that candidate was Audu. Audu was in the field after his emergence from the primary, could Bello who was pronounced governor-elect now, say he was on the field campaigning too? So, it is not possible to have two governorship candidates at the same time, the second can only come in if the party chooses to fall back on him as what has happened in Kogi State when Bello was asked to come and finish the job Audu could not finish.
What of the argument of PDP which wants INEC to declare Wada that came second with the highest votes?
What would you have expected of a political party that lost in an election woefully? They must find an alibi to give. Very interesting, PDP has to call for that just as the APC fell back on its own runner-up in the primary. PDP was the first to join in the chorus of an inconclusive election because it is a loser like it happened in the Bible when Solomon was sitting in judgement over the fight over a baby by two women. When one of them said the baby should be cut into two, Solomon in his wisdom was able to know that she definitely could not be the real mother of the baby because no woman who had carried pregnancy for nine months would ask the baby to be cut into two. Right from history, it has always been the loser of an election that calls for cancellation of election results. I was not surprised that PDP joined INEC to chorus inconclusively and if INEC must accept the result, it should declare it winner. The question I want to ask the PDP is that they should show us what section in the constitution or the Electoral Act that permits INEC to do that. We are running a constitutional democracy which expects everything to be done according to the rule of law.
What do you think Buhari should do now when it seems Nigeria is incapable of holding any successful election?
First and foremost, Buhari is the sitting president and he must not be seen as interfering in the affairs of a supposed independent body like the INEC. That is the contradiction here; if INEC is truly independent, what is the business of Buhari appointing its chairman, particularly with the appointment of this professor who seems not to know his right from left? Buhari should be thoroughly embarrassed in his heart of heart now that the candidate he asked to go and head INEC is making a fool of the whole assignment. I think he has to save his face by getting the man out and I am sure the senate will support him but he must be careful not to be seen as taking side. As president, the buck stops on his table; if INEC conducts a successful election, the praise goes to him, same way when the INEC conducts a scandalous election, he gets the knocks.
After the successful 2015 general election, are you not worried with the way the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states turned out?
I am very worried. Apart from being a lawyer, I am a Nigerian who has one of the greatest stakes in the development of this country. It is shocking that barely three months or thereabout after the appointment of Professor Mahmood Yakubu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerians have suddenly woken up to another political lexicon which is ‘inconclusive election.’ The two elections are the ones Prof. Yakubu would be conducting and at the end of the day, we are meeting a brick wall called inconclusive election. In other word, it is like the INEC helmsman is becoming too fascinated with uncritical embrace of that phrase, inconclusive election. If to him, the phrase does not mean anything, to us as Nigerians, to the people who go out to queue up in the sun to vote in the inconclusive elections, it tells on them time wise, money wise. The economy is paralysed for the whole day and yet somebody will wake up from the wrong side of his bed and tell Nigerians that the election that they themselves have taken so many months to prepare for, is inconclusive. It shows the following: that the INEC helmsman is grossly incompetent; is not serious for the job; is ill prepared and does not know the gravity of what election is all about in this country. That is what I will call the height of insensitivity. I must say this, INEC must be held responsible for the death of Prince Abubakar Audu because the shocking announcement by INEC that the election was inconclusive must have taken its toll on the man who had traversed the entire Kogi campaigning. The man was already leading clearly only for somebody in Abuja who does not know the ABC of his office to declare such an election that so many people had staked their lives inconclusive. As far as I am concerned, that the new INEC man is still there today, is shocking to me. Because by now, I felt the Federal Government should have told him good night. The man should be thrown into the employment field; he should go and find something else to do. Like they say in the Yoruba part of the world that I come from, morning shows the day. If the two governorship elections that have been given to the professor to conduct have been found somersaulting, what do we expect to happen to the next general election in 2019? We are going to get the worst result. And if President Muhammadu Buhari, as part of his change mantra, does not change the professor at the helms in INEC, that professor will change Nigeria for bad. This is the stage where the Justice Uwais Report that deals with the appointment of INEC boss, should come in. This idea of the Presidency alone single handedly handpicking the headship of INEC, is not only morally reprehensible, condemnable, wicked but politically megalomaniacal. The post of INEC chairman should be advertised and let credible and qualified Nigerians apply and the man with the highest scores should clinch the job. The president who himself will find himself in the political arena in future should stop dabbling in the affairs and handpicking the INEC boss. It is politically unjust and that is the result we are seeing in Professor Yakubu’s mal-appointment and misappointment. Look at what has happened in the two governorship elections the man has conducted; it is nothing to write home about. The man should even resign; he should not wait to be shown the way out.
Some people will argue that the man was appointed very close to the elections.
I have never seen an army general who came back from the battle to complain that he didn’t know the terrain very well. He consented to the appointment and it is too late in the day to complain. That is what is called volenti non fit injuria, a common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not able to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict. All that could be afterthought.
Instead of blaming INEC, don’t you think those contesting in Bayelsa were desperate?
Is there any time that Nigerian politicians have not been desperate? Some political candidates see election in Nigeria as a do or die affair. Why won’t they be desperate? But you can understand why; so many of them are jobless, many of them are bag carriers to their godfathers. Their godfathers have told them that they would be backed up with fictitious votes. In other words, if any of the combatants is no longer interested, what of his backers? Are they prepared to back out? But the government should be blamed for the worsening unemployment in Nigeria. Crime rate is on the increase; a jobless man will look for a way to survive through any means. In the case of Bayelsa, why wouldn’t the two combatants be desperate? Don’t forget that the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, is solidly behind the incumbent governor and the government of the day which is APC is solidly behind the former governor challenging Dickson. Let’s see who will bend first. So in the situation like that, don’t be swayed by merely looking at the two candidates. If you are looking at Dickson and Sylva, then the more you look, the less you see. When they say a leave is dancing on water, don’t look too far, the person drumming for it is lurking nearby. They have their strong backers beating the drum for them.
Now in Kogi, the deputy governor candidate, Mr. Abiodun Faleke, has said he was not willing to work with the governor-elect that emerged after the supplementary election, how would the issues be resolved?
What is happening in Kogi now is what I call legal electoral acrobatism. The scenario is very interesting for lawyers and students of comparative constitutional law on one hand and students of political science on the other. It means that the categories of the people mentioned here can no longer sit down in the classroom to permutate. Election is no longer about permutation with the way it turned out in Kogi. I am one of the supporters of Faleke but I regret to say that he will miss out on some of us the way he is going. Of course, he is fit for the top job no doubt about that, but it is not every fight that you beat your chest that you will pursue to the logical end. There are some fights where you back out after making your point. Those who don’t know how to beat a retreat often end up being consumed by the war they themselves started. Look at what happened to MKO, when the chips were down, where were those urging him on? Faleke has made his point but for him to still continue to dangerously hold on to the extent of dragging his political party into it, that is a dangerous fight. Don’t forget that what is at play now is the provision of the Electoral Act and the constitution; the two must go hand in hand. Fine that Faleke had a joint ticket with the late Audu, nobody is disputing that and Audu was in clear leadership before he died as a result of INEC’s unsolicited pronouncement and political misadventure by declaring an election that was almost concluded as inconclusive. If his principal has passed on, Faleke has to remind himself that, what form did he fill for INEC when he was going to contest for election? As what? He filled the form to contest as deputy governor to Audu. He did not go through any primary to become the deputy governorship candidate. So if his camp is campaigning that somebody did not go through the process laid down by the Electoral Act by going through the primary for instance, did he go through one? Faleke was not part of the primary, he was handpicked as a deputy to Audu. So, if I were him, I would be grateful for that opportunity alone. If my party that deemed me fit to be a running mate to the late man, and the same party still believes that he should still remain the deputy to the candidate it picked from the primary earlier conducted as a result of political expediency, I think he should respect that. Faleke is behaving as a branch of a tree that thinks it is bigger than the whole tree. He was sponsored by the APC and since the same party has told him to wait, he should respect that. Faleke is now behaving as if he is bigger than the party, this is where I have a quarrel with him. The way electoral law and the constitution stand today on candidature, it is 99.9 per cent in favour of the party. Some of us have gone to court to challenge party candidates in favour of our own clients, the court has thrown away our case and said when it comes to who represents the party, it is the business of the party. That is why it is easy for the party to go and bring idiots, criminals to come and stand for election. And when you look at the rationale behind Rotimi Amaechi becoming governor, the Supreme Court held that that to all intents and purposes, Amaechi and not Omehia was the governor. It is not that I agree with that because it makes the party dictatorial but that is what the law says today. The other argument by Faleke that going by the provision of the Electoral Act, you must have participated in all the processes of election before you can become a governor or deputy governor. Fantastic argument but the converse of that argument is what Faleke camp has refused to appreciate. The converse of that argument again is, primary can only produce one governorship candidate and that candidate was Audu. Audu was in the field after his emergence from the primary, could Bello who was pronounced governor-elect now, say he was on the field campaigning too? So, it is not possible to have two governorship candidates at the same time, the second can only come in if the party chooses to fall back on him as what has happened in Kogi State when Bello was asked to come and finish the job Audu could not finish.
What of the argument of PDP which wants INEC to declare Wada that came second with the highest votes?
What would you have expected of a political party that lost in an election woefully? They must find an alibi to give. Very interesting, PDP has to call for that just as the APC fell back on its own runner-up in the primary. PDP was the first to join in the chorus of an inconclusive election because it is a loser like it happened in the Bible when Solomon was sitting in judgement over the fight over a baby by two women. When one of them said the baby should be cut into two, Solomon in his wisdom was able to know that she definitely could not be the real mother of the baby because no woman who had carried pregnancy for nine months would ask the baby to be cut into two. Right from history, it has always been the loser of an election that calls for cancellation of election results. I was not surprised that PDP joined INEC to chorus inconclusively and if INEC must accept the result, it should declare it winner. The question I want to ask the PDP is that they should show us what section in the constitution or the Electoral Act that permits INEC to do that. We are running a constitutional democracy which expects everything to be done according to the rule of law.
What do you think Buhari should do now when it seems Nigeria is incapable of holding any successful election?
First and foremost, Buhari is the sitting president and he must not be seen as interfering in the affairs of a supposed independent body like the INEC. That is the contradiction here; if INEC is truly independent, what is the business of Buhari appointing its chairman, particularly with the appointment of this professor who seems not to know his right from left? Buhari should be thoroughly embarrassed in his heart of heart now that the candidate he asked to go and head INEC is making a fool of the whole assignment. I think he has to save his face by getting the man out and I am sure the senate will support him but he must be careful not to be seen as taking side. As president, the buck stops on his table; if INEC conducts a successful election, the praise goes to him, same way when the INEC conducts a scandalous election, he gets the knocks.
Agbaje calls for INEC Chairman to quit
![Agbaje calls for INEC Chairman to quit]()
Reviewed by Vita Ioanes
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Monday, December 14, 2015
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