Adewole Adebayo was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the February 25 presidential election. In this interview with JOHN SILAS, speaks on the move by the Senate to amend the Electoral Act 2022, appointment of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria by the President, among other issues. John Silas reports
What is your take on the resolution of the Senate to amend the Electoral Act 2022 in order to strengthen the electoral process?
One thing we need to know in legislation is that the eyes of the legislators are always at the back of their heads as they always like to solve new legislation with the problems of the past. So, the assumption is that the problem of the next election will be the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IREV) but from what I know, the problems will not be IREV alone. It will be another thing.
Let us say this is the beginning of the conversations of what we can do, legislatively to improve our electoral system. But the problem we have isn’t shortage of legislation. There are three things I observed. The first is that there is nothing in the 2023 elections, which I participated in that suggests to me that anything went wrong because of IREV. None of the petitioners has been able to complain that it is because of the problem with IREV that results that were declared at the polling units were different from the results that were ultimately used.
When you go through the filings and proceedings and judgements of the court, you will find it hard to find one record where they said that in this particular unit, this was the result but because it wasn’t immediately transmitted to the INEC website, the result changed, I don’t think you will find anything like that. So, that isn’t the problem. Like I said on October 1, 2021, and was widely reported in the media, they would just be disturbing you with issues of technology which on the day of the elections, someone might just decide to switch off in INEC and say it didn’t work.
Even if it is in the Electoral Act (assuming it is passed into law) that the result must be immediately transmitted, if on that day, there is a nationwide network problem, VPN isn’t working, the system is corrupted and things like that, the constitution would still want you to find out whether you can otherwise establish the actual winner of the election.
I think integrity at the polling station is what we should pay attention to. Things like making sure people don’t buy votes and cannot commit violence, making sure that the distance between the polling booth and the nearest third party isn’t less than about 100 feet, so that anybody who is voting cannot be in doubt that they are out of sight and out of hearing of the people. So, if a person decides to influence you by giving you money or anything of value, they will not ultimately know what you are doing in the ballot box area.
But if you commit fraud, buy and sell votes, you distort the outcome and electronically transmit that abomination to IREV, what have we gained? So, I think reform of character is what we are afraid of doing and we want to be toying with technology. Yes, no problem if you add the issue of IREV to the solution, but don’t expect that you can go to bed and say you have solved the election of controversy in Nigeria.
Nigerians have questioned the independence of INEC as all members of the board, including the chairman are appointed by the president. Its former chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, also wants the president to strip off the appointing power, what do you make of that?
There are quite a lot of things to strip the president of but who do you give it to? Remember that our founding fathers expected that we would look for the best of the best among us and make them president and that the president is our head of state, so that he would think clearly for the country and he would be one of the most honourable men in our midst who is willing to take up the job. For that reason, even in the most important position, constitutional positions that are more important than INEC.
For example, the Chief Justice of the Federation, President of the Court of Appeal, Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice of the Court of Appeal, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, the entire judiciary, the president is the appointing authority. If there are more sensitive positions that are even expected to be more independent than INEC are left in the hands of the president to select, then what is special about the INEC chairman and the commissioners? I think the problem isn’t about taking it from the president. But who do you give it to?
Is the nomination of the judiciary officers not different? The NJC, as we know, is empowered in the selection process before the president appoints. Isn’t that another way of checking the powers of the president?
Under the presidential constitution all over the world, the president is advised. Despite your advice, the president can take a good brilliant young lawyer with about 15 years of experience as Chief Justice of Nigeria. Your advice isn’t binding on him. The president has a lot of future appointments to make and if you want to go into a new system, where you don’t trust him to make sensitive appointments, then you go across the board and look at the appointments the president makes. In some countries, the equivalent of INEC, the electoral members are chosen from the political parties with the believe that if every political party has someone there, there won’t be any political party that would cheat the other.
But in our system, the chairman is chosen by the president. Even the Senate, they are assuming they don’t have a role to play. When the president appoints electoral or national commissioners or chairman of the commission, the person doesn’t go straight to the office, he goes to the Senate for Nigerians to ask whether this person is a good choice or not. But never in the history of the Senate have they rejected the chairman of the INEC or national commissioners except for Laureta Onochie.
So, if people are living according to good character and they are worthy of the offices they are occupying and the oath of office they have taken, the system we have now will work. The alternative is to say the same Chief Justice of Nigeria should appoint the INEC chairman, but the same Chief Justice is also an appointee of the president anyway. But if you say he (Chief Justice) should appoint the chairman of INEC, there would be instances where litigants complain even the empanelling of justices to hear their matter. I think more important is what has happened. Why can’t we find any more people of character who are above board?
Is it that our political system is so corrupt that we can’t find people who are above board?
That is the question we should be asking because one way or another, the person that is going to appoint INEC commissioners +or chairman would have to be a Nigerian. Whether he is the president, chief justice of Nigeria or senator, that person must be a Nigerian. I think it is the quality of the character of our leadership that we need to examine. It shouldn’t be a difficult role to fill if everyone is playing their roles. I will be more inclined if the Senate says whoever the president chooses, we would open that person to Nigerians and we are not going to approve that person except if that person proves to be a thoroughly vetted Nigerian that has the highest esteem, not the one they are trying deprive someone from the other arm.
For example, if you pass such a law that you want to remove appointing power from the president, supposing the president refuses to sign. And he says no, you cannot take my power from me. I will not sign it into law. What do you do? It is better not to be ticking the can to the other side of the blame game. Let the Senate look at itself as a chamber and ask itself an honest question. Have we in the Senate, done our best in vetting the nominees to INEC?
The National Assembly has the power to oversee INEC. It has the constitutional power to oversee INEC. It has the power to approve INEC emoluments and budget, including conducting a hearing to remove INEC commissioners or a chairman who is not living up to his performance. So, I think the system is robust enough if we can have men and women of character to come and run the system.
The economic team of President Tinubu is in full swing. In your view, have they lived up to expectations?
They are on top of the situation they created for themselves. There isn’t anything happening in the economy presently that I haven’t predicted. What they are facing now is what is called factor cost stabilisation. If they can deal with that, then they would have reduced most of the crises they have on their hands. The trajectory of the economic choices they have made cannot change anyone from where they are today. I predicted this.
There are many options. Economics is about choices. And the choices they have taken would naturally lead to this. Whoever is the president, if you take the choices they have made, you will have the same result. Economics does not discriminate against your politics, it looks at the facts. What is the state of affairs? What are the options? What are the alternatives you want to forgo?
So, you have to live with the consequences of your decision. Now, the exchange rates will not be stable. The price of commodities will not be stable. The price of factors of production will not be stable. The only way to sustain is to plan ahead for that instability.
Are you insinuating there would be a reversal or change of policies?
That would be the best, but they have ideological commitment. This was part of what we were trying to tell the voters about these major political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party that they have an ideological commitment to Brentwood prescriptions. You could see it in their language. What they are doing now is essentially what they said they would do.
