It was vintage former Governor of Edo State and Chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor as he appraised preparations for the 2015 general elections, especially the conduct of the ongoing political parties’ primaries, the role of the electoral umpire, the judiciary and the electorate.
Osunbor, who called for a new order to achieve transparent and credible elections next year, asserted that the conduct of the current party primaries to pick their candidates for the forthcoming elections was far from satisfactory.
He said: “What would ordinarily be a simple process of nominating candidates through internal mechanism at party primaries has become a major source of acrimony among the major political parties. More often than not, party candidates emerge through imposition and manipulation by party leaders who hijack election materials and compromise party officials sent to conduct the primaries with little or no regard for the preferred choice of rank and file party members.”
The eminent Lawyer, Professor of Law and Senator, told the audience at a Public Lecture to mark the 2014 edition and 4th Nigerian Pilot/Newsworld Magazine Annual Awards in Abuja, that if the activities of insurgents in the country were aimed at preventing the conduct of the 2015 general elections, the Boko Haram sect had already failed.
According to him, even though the country never witnessed insecurity of this scale and magnitude, that “those who are banking on the insurgency to precipitate constitutional crisis that may halt 2015 election will be disappointed at the end of the day.
“If the motive of the Boko Haram insurgents is to prevent the 2015 general elections from holding so as to create a political stalemate and precipitate constitutional crises, they will fail. I personally believe that the elections will hold but the security challenges may linger on.”
“Given the pattern of insurgency in Nigeria and similar problems elsewhere in the world, there is no reason to believe that the challenges will end now or in 2015,” he said.
Osunbor lampooned those who have been criticising the military over the handling of the activities of insurgents, stressing that, “No patriotic Nigerian will indict our military that is fighting a most unconventional war and (by many accounts) with weapons and ammunition less sophisticated than those of the insurgents who are believed to have at their disposal arms and ammunition looted from Libya after the fall of Ghadaffi. Nevertheless, Nigerians are perplexed as to why our highly acclaimed military has not been able to deal a swift deathblow on the insurgents and terrorists.”
He also debunked insinuations in some quarters that the federal government has not been funding the military adequately, stressing that the Ministry of Defence Budget in the past five years is a total of N218, 448,550,784 billion.
“Under the civilian administration since 1999, the defence budget has been funded far in excess of what was obtained during military rule. This is a fact often acknowledged by military officers themselves.
“It is therefore puzzling why, in spite of the huge budget for Defence, our military operations are hampered by obsolete and inferior arms and ammunition such that they are unable to inflict a quick and decisive defeat on the insurgents.
“It was sad to see on television recently the wives of soldiers and widows of soldiers protesting the poor state of ammunition handed to their husbands to confront the better armed insurgents. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the Defence appropriations for arms, ammunition and military hardware in recent years have not been judiciously implemented or utilized.
“If that is the case, the National Assembly should take some blame because it would mean a failure in the exercise of its oversight functions. This should serve as a wakeup call for members of the National Assembly to take their oversight functions more seriously and ensure proper and judicious implementation of budgets, including military procurements.
Osunbor, who dwelt on the topic: “Nigeria After 2015: Issues and Challenges,” said that the 2015 general elections will test the strength of our democratic system to the limit, to overcome periodic upheavals that have come to be associated with every successive general election.
“To make matters worse, no general election in Nigeria has ever been conducted in an atmosphere of grave security threat and insurgency as is prevalent in parts of the country today.”
He identified two current problems which consequences may become manifest in 2015 and beyond.
“They are: Intra-party crises arising from party primaries and the process for the nomination of candidates for the general elections; and the Independent National Electoral Commission, its management of the process leading to the general elections as well as the conduct of the elections themselves.”
Osunbor emphasised that “It is regrettable that the check introduced by the Electoral Act 2011 (section 87) which requires that primaries must be properly conducted (and monitored by INEC Officials) has not yielded the desired results.
“It is rather late in the day to remedy this unhealthy situation before the elections in February. It is in the interest of good democratic practice after 2015 to ensure that party candidates who eventually become elected office holders are products of a truly credible and transparent democratic process.”
On the role of INEC, he said that “Despite its below par performance in some governorship elections in recent times, hopes for more successful performance in 2015 remained high. Regrettably, recent developments have cast a pall of doubt as to whether INEC under its current leadership is not pursuing an agenda inimical to the conduct of a free, fair, transparent and credible election.”
“First, is the deployment of National Commissioners to head departments in INEC in such a manner that those directly involved in election operations and activities are said to come from one section of the country.
“Second, is the allocation of additional 30,000 new polling units with 85% or 22,000 going to the North and 15% or 8,000 going to the South and in a manner that defied any shred of logic. This blatantly lopsided allocation, unfortunately questions the integrity and credibility of the election umpire.”
“It is instructive that outside of INEC, this allocation received no support from any quarter whatsoever. At a well publicised press conference, elders and politicians from the Southern parts of Nigeria under the aegis of the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly and led by eminent elder statesmen- former Vice President Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief (Dr) E. K. Clark and Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi – expressed their loss of confidence in INEC’s impartiality and ability to midwife a credible general election. Nigerians were relieved when, subsequently, INEC announced the suspension of the new polling units after much needless damage had been done to its credibility.
“Third, it is reported that Resident Electoral Commissioners from a section of the country that did not go along with the policy on the suspended new polling units have been issued queries.
“With general election less than three months away, it is regrettable that INEC appears to be preoccupied with these kinds of distractions when it ought to deploy all its time, energy and resources to planning for an election whose acceptability will surpass its 2011 performance. INEC and its leadership may have meant well but this is not the perception of large sections of the public.”
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