TUNDE FAGBENLE: JEGA CAN BE REMOVED

In one breadth the president is telling us that he has no intention of sacking the INEC chairman, in another he is reminding us that it is, albeit, within his almighty presidential powers to remove the electoral umpire is he so chooses. “I appointed all the commissioners and resident electoral commissioners in INEC. They are my appointees. 

So if I feel that Jega is not good enough for obvious reasons, then I can by the provisions of the constitution that gives the person who appoints him the power to remove him, do so,” says the president.

One wonders why there should be need for that reminder of his “presidential powers” other than to prepare our minds for the eventuality of its exercise. 

But my brother, the irrepressible human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), tries to assure us that it will be outside the constitutional powers of the president for GEJ to unilaterally sack Professor Attahiru Jega as chairman of INEC. “INEC is created by virtue of provisions of Section 153 of the Constitution. 

The removal of INEC chairman is guided by provisions of section 157(1) and (2), says Falana, according to a report in The PUNCH of Wednesday Feb 11.

He said further, “The INEC Chairman cannot be asked to proceed on a terminal leave because he is not a civil servant and such is not provided for in the Constitution. He cannot be removed by the president without the two-thirds majority support of the Senate.”

I am not impressed or deceived by Falana’s position and the preemptive outcry of the opposition against the suspected intention of GEJ to relieve Jega of his post. There is a precedent to forewarn us. 

Or wasn’t there the case of a certain Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who as then governor of Central Bank of Nigeria beat his chest and shouted from the rooftop that no president of Nigeria has the power to remove him or send him on compulsory leave against his wish? 

Didn’t the same president Jonathan assure us that the sacking of Sanusi was not even on the cards? Were we not witnesses to what happened right before our very eyes the very next minute and in spite of all our grandstanding? 

Wasn’t Sanusi summarily sent packing overnight with not as much as a whimper from him or any of the many quarters that were threatening fire and brimstone were Sanusi to be removed, since it would be a pointer, we had said, that the government of Jonathan was guilty of the charge of missing 20 billion dollars as Sanusi had levelled against it?

The truth is that we are a funny people in a funny country. And those who lead us do so by our noses. They are pretty sure Nigerians are only good at barking they hardly can summon the will or courage to give bite to their protests, hence the reign of impunity on the land. Heaven will not fall, is the common refrain in the mouths and hearts of those who govern us. And, indeed, heaven never falls!

Something tells me Jega will be removed before the elections, and I am sure Jega himself is prepared for such eventuality; ready to hold his head high and his hard-earned integrity intact rather than succumb to any blackmail and act against his conscience.

TUNDE FAGBENLE: JEGA BEING TOO CLEVER BY HALF

As a matter of fact and despite INEC and Jega’s grandstanding, preparations for the elections were not (and still, are not) as reassuring as to be desired. With only a few weeks to the election more than a third of the total registered voters stood the chance of being disenfranchised out of no fault of theirs. 

The almighty Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) required for voting were not ready or physically available at various centres for collection, and if they were, the manpower to man the centres and hand them out applying all the procedures of authentication, was not available. And, in all probability, that percentage of those without PVC could not be significantly reduced.

This column of February 1 on the prospect of the postponement had anticipated such with a “naïve” endorsement that: “Certainly there is some logic in the argument. If 50, 40, 30, even 20 per cent of potential voters are denied their right to vote, by any act of omission or commission of the electoral umpires or authorities, such election cannot be considered fair or wholesome, and the credibility would be suspect.”

However, for anyone to hang the postponement on the issue of Boko Haram or insecurity in some parts of the Northeast is, in my opinion, being too clever. 

Defeat of Boko Haram or attaining security in the few security-challenged local governments cannot and must not be condition precedent for the election to hold; for, regardless of any promises to the contrary, those matters will still be there well beyond the new March 28 date, unless, of course, those that will clear the mess are, in the suspicion of some people, those behind the mess all along! 

Good thing President Jonathan cleared the air on that: “Nobody is saying that Boko Haram will be totally wiped out before elections can be held but in the next six weeks some serious advances will be made.”

TUNDE FAGBENLE: HOW FEBUHARI FELL TO THE CAT

The postponement of the elections from February 14 to March 28 is another such matter of admixture of game and truth. 

Right from the moment on January 22 that Sambo Dasuki, the National Security Adviser (NSA), gave such “free advice” suggesting that the election be postponed by at least a month, it was clear to those who are not in the business of deceiving self that announcement of the postponement was merely a question of time. And, again, it came against all outcries and threats not to dare!

One sure pigeon that fell to the cat of February 14 postponement is the popular APC hash-tag of “Fe-Buhari 14” that plays on the February date and the Yoruba word “Fe” for “Love”, to make “Love Buhari”. 

All of a sudden, that copy went up in smoke together with the millions of naira worth campaign materials. It may be an unintended consequence, but I would not put it past the hard schemers in the ruling party, PDP, to have conceived it. 

The momentum of the opposition APC was apparent and its lead in the polls more real than imagined. Pushing the election date farther was a plausible game plan.

JIDE AJANI: THAT IS HOW PREPARED INEC WAS

Between Attahiru Jega and his God, he knows what has gone down.
For this column, we also know, in details, what went down on Saturday, February 7, 2015.   But do Nigerians know?  Do Nigerians care to know? Do Nigerians want to know?  Do Nigerians need to know?

We take them one after the other. Nigerians in their millions, across the partisan divide, do not know what went down before Jega’s announcement of the postponement of the 2015 elections.

To the second question, Nigerians, across the partisan divide, and in their millions, do not care to know because the environment has been sufficiently poisoned by those whose stock in trade is political environmental pollution, using spheres like the traditional and social media, civil society groups and those who are the most vulnerable – the hoi-po-loi.

But don’t be deceived, some patriotic Nigerians would really want to know the truth about what actually happened.

However, do Nigerians need to know?   Yes!   Nigerians must be told the truth for, in the final analysis, when the drama between the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, has ended, people will have their conscience to deal with whichever way the pendulum swings and, thereafter, live with the consequences of their actions – be it a Goodluck Jonathan or a Muhammadu Buhari victory.

Jega’s conscience!   My conscience! Your conscience! Our  conscience!

We have a stake in the country Nigeria but we allow our emotions and desires becloud reason. Whatever we do as humans, conscience is supposed to serve as a guide.   But that is a mere supposition.   

That is why Nigeria is in a mess. And that is where scruples come in – for without scruples, unconscionable acts are allowed! That is why one of the most abusive qualifiers in the dictionary is the word ‘unscrupulous’. 

To be described as an unscrupulous individual decimates the humanity in that person. Therefore, in all we do, a tincture of scruples as a guide would go a long way in attenuating the debilitating influence of desire and emotion over reason.

So, what do we know to be true?

By Jega’s own admission, in his presentation to the National Council of State, he pleaded that “we could do with more days of especially hands-on training for Pos and APOs”, after earlier admitting in the same presentation that “timelines have been missed in respect of the supply/delivery of some of the non-sensitive materials to states”, while, thereafter, concluding that “a bit more time of additional preparation would enable us improve and perfect the current level of preparedness”.

As at the day of the postponement of the elections, apart from the now known security challenge, the following were the real issues confronting INEC:

*Training manual not ready *Presiding Officers yet to be trained *700,000 ad hoc staff not recruited yet *PVCs still being printed abroad *RECs yet to print Voter Register *Printers for Register still in Abuja *No full complement of ballot boxes *Presidential ballot papers to arrive February 12 *No information about other ballot papers *Fake printing inks sent to states from  INEC headquarters rejected *Many states yet to get balance of Card Readers.

Interestingly, Jega told the Council of State that almost everything was ready for the elections. He repeated the same thing during his postponement speech.

That this medium has consistently put Jega on the spot regarding his responsibilities does not in any way suggest that it enjoys haranguing the embattled INEC Chairman.   This is a national duty.  

Just about three years ago, it was this same medium – using this same platform – that went to town to extol the virtues of Jega’s paradigm shift in his drive to bequeath to Nigerians an electoral culture that could match that of any developed country.   

But once Jega lost focus, by allowing some of the people he appointed and with spheres of responsibilities and influence which make National Commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, redundant, it became our bounding duty to tell Nigerians the truth about happenings in INEC.

For instance, after months of serially exposing the evil in the lopsided allocation of 30,000 Polling Units (dashing the North over 21,000 and graciously, though in a whimsical manner, giving the entire South just a little over 8,000), with Jega and his co-travelers defending the indefensible sharing formular, and sometimes barefacedly telling lies, sending tons of rejoinders and even insulting the sensibilities of undiscerning and unsuspecting Nigerians, Jega buckled under the weight of public opinion.

Now, the chap in the Commission, an appointee, Jega’s staff, who engaged this ridiculous allocation, is the selfsame individual who is expected to freely, fairly and creditably allocate voting materials.

That is not all. There is the Chinese angle to all of these. Whereas Jega told Nigerians that everything was on ground for the elections and all systems would have gone by yesterday, information emanating from China where the Commission contracted suppliers to produce the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) has it that over 1 million cards, which were yet to be produced, will not be ready before Monday 16th February. This is due to a compulsory public holiday celebration in China which has upset the production deadlines anticipated by INEC.

Also in the field, poor information dissemination at polling unit levels, on the part of INEC, has resulted in many eligible voters wasting precious man-hours in search of elusive PVCs with many frustrated by the futile exercise. From the current development, it appears INEC may have indeed hidden behind the security concerns to disguise its lack of readiness for the election.

Moreover, it has also emerged that thousands of PVCs, which have been supplied, were poorly sorted, resulting in many PVCs being distributed to states other than the states of their owners. 

For instance, some PVCs meant for states in the South-West have been found in the South-South and vice versa while some PVCs meant for voters in the South-West ended up in other geo-political zones.

That is how prepared INEC was.

COL. GBULIE (RTD): THE NORTH HAD LOWER STANDARDS OF ADMISSION

In an attempt to catch up militarily with the South, the Northern politicians had thrown out all discretion. 

They had lowered standards of admission drastically, settling for the minimum. For as I recalled, all the Northerners in my intake had been trained at the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot. 

And they had become officers after barely six months of military training, whereas those of us who had been sent to Sandhurst had had to do two long years to earn the Queen’s Commission. 

The implications were quite clear – and most disturbing. Not only had these Northerners become commissioned officers before we were half-way through our first year at Sandhurst, they had all risen to the enviable rank of Captain before we could even appear at the sovereign’s parade which served essentially as a prerequisite for our passing out as Second Lieutenants.

By 1964 a group of young Nigerian officer-cadets, mostly Northerners, had been declared academically unfit and hence repatriated by the Canadian military authorities. 

These cadets were however pronounced commissioned by the Nigerian Federal Government no sooner than they had arrived at the Ikeja Airport. 

Consequently they had had to be absorbed into the Nigerian Army as commissioned officers, even though they had received no requisite military training.

 Zak (Maimalari) had held the rank of Captain in 1960. But before my return from the United Kingdom in 1963, he had soared to the top rank of Brigadier. 

In other words, he had risen from Captain to Temporary/Major, to Substantive/Major, to Temporary/Lieutenant-Colonel, to Substantive/Colonel and then to Brigadier, all within that short span of time. It was just scandalous.

BABANGIDA: THERE WAS A DRIVE TO RECRUIT OFFICERS FROM THE NORTH

There was a drive to get students or people from the Northern part of the country so as to balance the officer corps of the armed forces.

So there was a deliberate drive to recruit officers from the Northern part of the country and I was fortunate that the minister for the army happened to be from this part of the country. 

So one of his first recruitment drives was to come to our school; he talked to us and gave reasons why we should join the military. 

Then, we saw some demonstration by General Yakubu Gowon; he was a captain at that time, a lot of us got excited. We applied and were recruited.

My original thought was to be a civil engineer but when this military thing came, I jettisoned that and went in for the military.

GEN. TARFA (RTD): WE DID NOT HAVE WASC WHEN WE JOINED THE ARMY

BUHARI'S principal was my principal. From their school (Katsina Provincial School), the principal, Mr. West was sent to our school.

In those days when Nigeria was Nigerianising its military, many of the officers that you are seeing today did not even have their school certificates until long after.

When we were invited to go to Kaduna, we were given qualifying examination in English, Mathematics and General Knowledge, even before we took the school certificate exam.

Some did not even wait to take their school certificates because vacancies were already waiting for them.

It was after that qualifying exam that we were recruited into the army. By the time some had their school certificates, they had become officers.

For example, Gen. Babangida never saw his school certificate until when he was head of state.  I got my school certificate long after I became an officer.

But there was officer cadet qualifying examination. About 240 of us sat for that exam in Kaduna.