AFRIPOL.ORG IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
How Third Term cost Obasanjo Mo Ibrahim Prize By Suleiman M. Bisalla November 04, 2007
Barely two weeks ago, the former president of Mozambique, Mr. Joaquim Chissano, was announced as winner of the Mo Ibrahim inaugural prize for African Leadership. The prize considered as the largest individual award in the world comprises US$5 million over 10years and an additional US200, 000 annually for life.
"This is a nice top up to his pension", The Economist said in its October 22nd edition. But that is not the issue. What is important is the spirit behind it. The purpose behind the award is aimed at encouraging good governance and ameliorating the deeply entrenched corruption and abuse of power that have become the hallmarks of African leaders.
One of Chissano’s plus that gave him an edge over former President Olusegun Obasanjo and others was his decision to step down from power without seeking the Third Term tenure which the Mozambique Constitution allows him to.
It doesn’t look like Obasanjo was considered for the prestigious award in the first place. In an analysis on the award, The Economist says "Mr. Chissano was praised by the judges for setting a good example by retiring when his country’s constitution did not require him to, which should rule out Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Uganda’s Yoweri Musaveni and Zambia’s Robert Mugabe for future awards."
The committee that selected the winner comprises high profile personalities like the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who chaired it. Others include Obasanjo’s former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is now the Managing Director of the World Bank.
Also on the panel were Marti Ahtisaari, former UN representative in Namibia and ex-Finish President, Aicha Bah Diallo, former Guinean Minister of Education and head of the UNESCO Department for the promotion of Basic Education, former Irish president and ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson and a former Secretary General of the defunct Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) and ex-Tanzanian Prime Minister, Salim Ahmed Salim.
Aside Chissnano’s decision to shun the third term, Annan’s committee said it was impressed by his achievement in bringing peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress. In addition, Annan in his remarks said "it is his role in leading Mozambique from conflict to peace and democracy that President Chissano has made his most outstanding contribution".
But contrary to Chissano, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo became obviously intoxicated by the power he got in 1999 on a platter of gold. Towards the end of his constitutionally prescribed two terms of four year each therefore, he managed to convince himself that he was the sole Messiah.
Thus, rather than make way for a smooth transition of his government to another democratically elected one, for the first time in history, he preoccupied himself with a desperate bid to secure a third term through a contrived constitution amendment process. Several billions of naira was alleged to have spent on the project. Unfortunately when the agenda was aborted, not only the money was lost but a golden opportunity to right some obvious wrongs in the constitution bequeathed by military dictators.
In 1979, General Obasanjo who willfully handed over power to a democratically elected government was highly respected for setting an example for sit-tight African dictators. As a result, he was highly recognised on the international scene and trusted with sensitive global assignments on conflict resolution missions.
In 1985, he was made member and co-Chairman of the Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons on Apartheid South Africa. He was nominated member of the group that assessed the security needs of Commonwealth Frontline states and Mozambique and also member, executive committee, Inter-Action Council of former heads of states and governments.
Coming from this respected background, Obasanjo also founded the African Leadership Forum in 1988 to promote good governance. However he suddenly became so soaked to the skin with power at old age that leaving the corridors of power became a problem.
Analysts believe that he would have beaten Chissano to the award if only he had resigned shortly after the massacre of innocent Nigerians in Odi and Zakibiam by federal toops. But he rode on and in spite of subsequent crises arising from unpopular policies adopted by his regime that subjected common Nigerians to untold hardship.
More than anything, he is believed to have messed up the polity and presided over an election that was adjudged worse than those conducted by military dictators that preceded him.
Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born British businessman has obviously pondered over the obscure leadership style that has bedeviled the African continent since independence and offered to reward good leadership.
Standing as the biggest award in the world, the gesture obviously reflects the canker worm called leadership in a region that is ravaged by poverty amid enviable quantum of highly valued natural resource deposits.
Mo Ibrahim’s strong passion for a better African continent is said to have inspired him to sell "his mobile phone company, Celtel, to a Kuwait based firm, MTC, two years ago for $3.4 billion (1.8 billion British pounds) to encourage good leadership and governance in a continent that he thinks has been blighted by dictators and crooks for too long."
Nigeria shall be free…almost
By Bala Muhammad (balamuhammad@hotmail.com)
Freedom is the ability to act without restraint. It is also known as self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy. The achievement of freedom depends upon the resistance of the individual (or group) to oppression by another individual (or group). Freedom has often been used as a rallying cry for revolution or rebellion. This has several possible significances: the ability to act in accordance with the dictates of reason; the ability to act in accordance with one’s own true self; and the ability to act in accordance with universal values.
The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that the condition of freedom was inherent to humanity, an inevitable facet of the possession of a soul and sapience, with the implication that all social interactions subsequent to birth imply a loss of freedom, voluntarily or involuntarily.
On the other hand, the antithesis of freedom is oppression. It is the negative outcome experienced by people targeted by the cruel exercise of power in a society or social group. The term itself derives from the idea of being “weighted down.” The term oppression is primarily used to describe how a certain group is being “kept down” by unjust use of force or authority, or societal norms. When this is institutionalized formally or informally in a society, it is referred to as “systematic oppression”.
In exhorting Man to fight oppression, Allah asks rhetorically in the Qur’an:
What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of Allah - for those men, women and children who are oppressed and say, ‘Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!’? (Qur’an Nisa 4:75)
For Christians, Liberation Theology is a Catholic school of theology that focuses on Jesus Christ as not only the Redeemer but also the liberator of the oppressed. It emphasises the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism. This was practicalised in many Latin American countries where oppression was rife during the last century.
Elsewhere in the Qur’an, Luqman the Wise exhorts his son:
Turn not thy cheek in scorn toward folk, nor walk with pertness in the land. Lo! Allah loveth not each braggart boaster. (Qur’an Luqman 31:18)
In philosophy, we read Richard Lovelace’s poem which echoes the experience of oppression:
Stone walls do not a prison make/Nor iron bars a cage/Minds innocent and quiet take/That for an hermitage
It seems that despite the Qur’anic exhortation on the fight against oppression, and despite abundant examples of successful application of Liberation Theology, it may come to pass that in three days hence, unless the Election Tribunal says NO to PDP Power, a new helmsman for the nation would be sworn-in at Eagle Square, for the cost of nearly one billion naira (N820 million to be precise). Resulting from this swearing-in therefore, in four days hence Nigerians may likely wake up with a President other than Olusegun Obasanjo, who they have had for eight years. Would that be a relief!
In his final days as President, the outgoing helmsman has been blowing hot and hot (not cold). In his valedictory Radio programme The President Explains, the outgoing President revealed that he never really wanted a Third Term (yeah, yeah!). He told the nation that, had he really wanted it, he would have gotten it, and nobody could have done anything about it.
According to him, he would have successfully got the Constitution amended to enable him be elected for a third term if he had wanted it. “If I sought a third term, and I wanted it, I would have got it. I have not said this before. God would have given it to me. I did not want it. If I had wanted a third term I would have prayed for it, I would have worked for it and God would have given it to me. I know this because there is nothing I wanted that God did not give me”. Going further, the President in one fell swoop also solved the Bola Ige assassination, again. This time, the culprit may be a drug baron. The President disclosed that the police are working on a theory that the late Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice might have been assassinated by a particular drug baron whose case the Attorney-General’s office was prosecuting. The Ige family had immediately reacted, claiming that the President had insulted a dead man.
For reminders, Ige was murdered in his Bodija, Ibadan , home on December 23, 2001. The police later arrested and prosecuted Otunba Iyiola Omisore, former deputy governor of Osun State and some politicians, mostly from Osun State , Ige’s home state. Omisore and the other suspects were however discharged and acquitted by an Oyo State High Court in Ibadan . Ehindero had once said the police had closed the file on the Ige case as they had arraigned the suspects. He had blamed the Oyo State Ministry of Justice for not diligently prosecuting the case. To close the matter finally, Omisore went on to win a Senate seat from prison on the platform of the Fawaful Party.
Then the bombshell: Mr. President matter-of-factly said “We got free, fair, open, transparent elections.”
NO, said 48 Nobel Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Dalai Lama. These eminent and learned persons have called for the re-run of Nigeria ’s election, saying last month’s election was unacceptable.
In a statement released by Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in New York , the laureates proposed a conference of national unity by Nigerians to plan new elections to be held within 18 months. They further stated: “International and domestic monitors have determined that Nigeria’s recent elections fell far short of acceptable standards, having failed the test of a free and fair ballot. We, the undersigned Nobel laureates, are concerned that the new government’s lack of legitimacy increases prospects for violent conflict with serious consequences for Nigeria and the region.”
A few days later, the European Union (EU) in Nigeria also echoed the Nobel laureates by also saying a loud NO to what the President said about the elections. But more than the Nobel laureates, the EU called on its Commission to stop all aid to Nigeria “until fair and credible elections are held in the country.”
These statements, coming from people and groups who are known to be quite close to the outgoing President (as he had visited their countries not once or twice, but incessantly), is another nail in the coffin of oppression, and a plus for Nigerians seeking justice.
On his last days also, the outgoing President clumsily and rashly went on a spending spree by awarding contracts with no evidence of his famous Due Process. Then he went on to make appointments in almost all the Federal Government’s parastatals as to make irrelevant any visitation to Aguda House by those looking for appointments from May 29. Wisely, the Senate has refused to ratify the appointments. And then, to fool us all and take our minds off what is of greatest concern to us, the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) demolished some property of Col. (Dr.) Ahmadu Ali, Chairman of the Powerful Ones. One would rather have other types of demolitions.
But the greatest evidence so far that Mr. President is indeed leaving, is the piece of good news that he has moved out of his official residence in Aso Rock to another house within the Villa to allow for renovation of the official residence for his successor. According to presidency sources, the outgoing president vacated the residence Sunday night to a house that is called “Glass House”, a small house adjacent to the main residence. Prior to his movement to the “Glass House”, it was also learnt that his personal effects and belongings have long been moved out of Aso Rock to his Ota Farm.
Phew! O Tuesday!
Bala Muhammad is the director-general of the Kano State Directorate for Societal Reorientation. He taught Mass Communications at the Bayero University, Kano and worked with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Coporation (BBC).
HOW ANDY UBA/PDP/MAURICE IWU DID THE ELECTION RIGGING IN ANAMBRA STATE - EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
By Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D.
Yes, I'll make this categorical assertion: I'm somewhat in a unique, one-of-a-kind position on this subject matter. In deed, even an ENVIABLE position. Why? Because I have a "vantage position" on this. I've been privileged to have witnessed and observed, FIRSTHAND, RIGHT THERE ON THE GROUND IN ANAMBRA STATE, the recent purported April 2007 "elections" in Anambra State (and Nigeria), thanks hugely to the ASA-USA and its membership and leadership, under the wise and proactive guidance of its President, Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, M.D., which sponsored the ASA-USA Election Monitoring Team, which I was privileged to Head, to go to Nigeria and officially observe those elections in Anambra State this past April 2007. Today, thank goodness that God allowed me to have undertaken that sacred
mission, and to come back in whole and of sound mind to bear active witness to what I (and my team) saw, what we physically witnessed! Today, thank God that I can now make this one rather
sweeping and categorical statement about those "elections" without any fear of contradiction and with all confidence: I WAS THERE! I SAW IT FIRST HAND, I WITNESSED IT PERSONALLY! I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I KNOW WHAT DIDN'T HAPPEN!
Yes, because I was there, I can tell you what ACTUALLY happened in the April 14th and 21st "elections" (selections) of 2007 at least in Anambra State. Simply put, THERE JUST WERE NO DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS THERE. Rather, what there was there, was a NON-ELECTION.
Andy Uba's Teleconference With the ASA-USA
Recall this. On March 18 this year, a man called Mr. Andy Uba telephoned Dr. Nwachucku Anakwenze, the President of the ASA-USA, in Los Angeles, USA, from Nigeria. He wanted to be given an opportunity to have a discussion with the Anambra indigenes in the Diaspora in a teleconference. I was privileged to be one within the ASA-USA "inner circle" who deliberated confidentially on this request and had counseled that Mr. Andy Uba be accorded that opportunity. I strongly felt, for one, that the man called Mr. Andy Uba, though increasingly looming larger and larger than life in the public affairs of Anambra State (thanks to Olusegun Obasanjo), had been such an "unknown quantity" to most of us and most Anambrarians, as to necessitate that we should afford some direct dialogue with the man as a kind of starting point from which to commence the garnering, ourselves, of OUR OWN sense of Andy Uba, THE MAN, from the perspective of a firsthand, person-to-person information. Rather than merely continuing to operate merely through filtered secondhand assessments from his (Andy Uba's) army of paid agents and PR handlers and favor-seekers -- the LOYA EZIOKWUS in our midst.
And, thank goodness that on March 23rd 2007, we (ASA-USA) had that open teleconference with Mr. Andy Uba! And boy, does the fact that we underwent that teleconference with Andy Uba come in so handy and so useful and pertinent today! At one momentous point at that teleconference of March 23rd, Mr. Andy Uba was pressed to state his stance and attitude on election fraud and rigging by the clearly skeptical and incredulous participants of Anambra Diasporans who obviously felt that this latest "Uba brother" in the Anambra political arena, would do nothing else but only what his other two brothers before him, Chris and Ugochukwu, had done all too well before him, that is, RIG THE ELECTIONS in 2007! Mr. Andy Uba was then to tell the houseful of Ndi Anambra on the phone line (there were over 60 persons registered who dialed in to participate on that day): "I HATE RIGGING (of elections). I HATE RIGGING." He repeated it again and again. Mr. Uba argued that the fact of his having served Baba at Aso Rock as his chief domestic aide for some 8 years or so, was somewhat a concrete evidence worthy of particular note that he (Andy Uba) could not have been a crook. "If you know Mr. President, my Boss," he blurted,"You'll know that you can't last with him for even one week, if you're not straight." Andy Uba repeated it, once again, as though especially loving and cherishing the flow and sound of that phrase, "I HATE RIGGING!"
Well, OK, then. But what did we now find? Those "elections" have now come and gone. We're only left with THE QUESTION: Does Mr. Andy Uba still "Hate rigging."? Given what I, myself -- and innumerable many others -- had just witnessed and seen, first hand and personally, only recently of those "elections" Mr. Andy Uba was speaking about, and his central role in them, can Andy Uba now look me (or anybody, for that matter) in the eye TODAY and still tell me: "I HATE RIGGING"? Very doubtful. Very, very doubtful!
Simply put, Andy Uba's (and the PDP/Maurice Iwu's cabal) conduct of the April 14th and 21st elections
in Anambra State, brought the term "election rigging" to a novel, unique, resourceful, even revolutionary conception and level, never before attempted or even imagined in the annals of global electoral fraud and manipulation. Andy Uba's/Maurice Iwu novel conception of electoral rigging is not about the usual garden-varied art of manipulation of the votes involved in a voting operation that did, in fact, actually take place. It's not about having an election and then trying to manipulate the votes cast thereof. Rather, it is simply to conduct a NON-ELECTION, simply to have NO elections at all, and just go ahead and "write the results" as you see fit, artificially entering the figures that you desire and "declaring" it for the desired candidates as the "election."
HERE'S HOW THE UBA/PDP/IWU "NOVEL" HYBRID OF ELECTORAL RIGGING
OPERATES
What are the fine points, the dynamics and mechanics of this novel Andy Uba/PDP/Maurice Iwu kind of "elections" and electioneering fraud and rigging? This writer witnessed it first hand as a member of the
ASA-USA Monitoring Team to the elections, having just returned from Anambra State on monitoring assignment to those elections. Basically, the basic tool utilized in the Andy Uba/PDP/Maurice Iwu novel model of 21st Century Nigerian election rigging, and the bricks and mortars thereof, are the manipulative use of INEC's own elections rules and documents to craft out the "election" (rather, the selected) result and "winner" that is pre-designed before hand. Here, for example, is how it works. The Nigerian Electoral Act of 2006, the controlling operative law that is supposed to govern those elections and protect against
electoral fraud in them, principally provides that at the end of the day after the voting exercise is concluded, the Presiding Officer, who is the INEC operative who actually conducts the elections at the balloting place and physically takes in the votes from the voters, must record "the votes scored by each candidate" in the
official INEC voting Results Forms provided by INEC. Most importantly, it provides that "every [such] Result Form completed" by the INEC Presiding Officers (or other INEC officer) at the Ward, Local Government, State and National levels, "shall [i.e., MUST] be stamped, signed and countersigned by the relevant [INEC] officers and polling agents at those levels and copies given to the police officers and the polling agent, where available."
Here's how the relevant Sections of Nigeria's Electoral Act of 2006,
stipulate it:
64. (1) The Presiding Officer shall, after counting the votes at
the polling station or unit, enter the votes scored by each candidate
in a form to be prescribed by the Commission as the case may be.
(2) The Form shall be signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer
and counter signed by the candidates or their polling agents where
available at the Polling Station.
(3) The Presiding Officer shall give to the Polling Agents and the
police officer where available a copy each of the completed Forms after
it has been duly signed as provided in subsection (2) of this section.
(4) The Presiding Officer shall count and announce the result at
the Polling Station
And at Article 75 thereof, it emphasis again:
75. Every Result Form completed at the Ward, Local Government, State
and National levels in accordance with the provision of this Act or any
Guidelines issued by the Commission shall be stamped, signed and
countersigned by the relevant officers and polling agents at those
levels and copies given to the police officers and the polling agent,
where available.
In a word, what this law provides for and mandates, is that those all-important RESULTS FORMS which are supposed to record the RESULTS of the votes cast, MUST first have to be verified and then be "stamped and signed" by the INEC polling officer in charge of the vote that are cast or collated, and MUST then be COUNTERSIGNED by the party agents representing each candidate for the office, in order to officially verify and authenticate the votes of the day recorded on them as being a legitimate and accurate one, and must be so done at each level of the voting process -- at each polling station, each Ward level, each Local Government level, State level, etc. And HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT
POINT HERE: clearly, this single provision of the Electoral Act of 2006, is probably the single, most important provision of the entire law, as it is, for certain, the most prime machinery provided for under
that entire law for guarding against and preventing fraud and the manipulation of the votes cast in an election!
The HEART OF The Andy Uba/PDP/Maurice IWU ELECTORAL RIGGING "GENIUS"
But how did the Andy Uba/PDP/Maurice Iwu's new electoral rigging "genius" handle this fraud-prevention provision of this law? It's simple. They simply decided on a strategy of NON-ELECTION whatsoever!
They decided: "We'll just be sure (using the Maurice Iwu INEC's collaborators, paid PDP party thugs, and the cooperation of the Obasanjo-controlled corrupt army and police apparatus) not to have or to permit any actual voting or elections at all to take place, in the first place." Rather, all they'll do, is that they'll simply "write" the results and "announce" an election, complete with a made-up figure and a pre-ordained "winner," at the end of the day. They'll simply pronounce it the "election." And the principal instrumentality
in this whole grand novel strategy of electoral fraud and circumvention of the election law by which to practically carry it out? It's simple. They'll just make certain that that very all-important RESULTS FORMS
are never made available by INEC or provided to the INEC officers who conduct the vote-casting, and should be the ones who officially count the votes to be cast. This way, if the INEC polling officers in the
field do not have the physical RESULTS FORMS in hand, they'll have no form upon which they'll record the votes, and hence, they'll have nothing upon which their verified vote counts and their signatures will
be authenticated, and, of course, nothing upon which the witnesses to the vote counting, the party agents representing each of the contesting candidates, for example, will have to sign or countersign for purposes
of verifiability or authentication of the votes claimed! (CLUE: In all of the over-50 polling stations that members of my Election Monitoring Team and I visited during our observation of the elections in Anambra
State, there was NOT one - not one - in which we found any voting Results Form available or had by the INEC polling officers in the field. Not one! They were simply deliberately withheld.)
There you have it! There you have the increasingly infamous ANDY UBA/PDP/MAURICE IWU novel strategy of Nigerian electoral rigging and fraud of this 21st century! An "ingenious" strategy, eh? So, at least, they might have thought! But we shall see how "ingenious" that strategy really is. How much ingenuity there really turns out to be in that strategy in the final analysis. That's a matter which I shall address in my future expositions on the 2007 election.
Yes. I was there. I KNOW what happened. I KNOW what did not happen. I cannot be "told" by any living soul what happened in it. I KNOW! I saw it. I witnessed it - personally, firsthand. I was there.
For now, thank you all.
Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D.
Head, ASA-USA Monitoring Team to Anambra State, Nigerian Elections 2007
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