2015 Elections: Campaign Mudslingers Risk 2-Year Jail Term

The leaders and attack dogs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), who slander and assassinate the character of General Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan in utterances and advertisements  in the countdown to February 14, 2015 presidential election risk jail terms and fines. That is, if the Independent National […]

The leaders and attack dogs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), who slander and assassinate the character of General Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan in utterances and advertisements  in the countdown to February 14, 2015 presidential election risk jail terms and fines. That is, if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) invokes the letter and spirit of the Electoral Act (2010) as amended. The mudslingers also contravene the Abuja Accord signed on January 15, 2015 by all the presidential candidates in the forthcoming election.
A Kaduna-based Constitutional lawyer, Barrister Festus Okoye, told Sunday Trust at the weekend that, “The Abuja Accord draws heavily from Section 95 of the Electoral Act, 2010(as amended). Section 95(1) of the Act provides that “A political campaign or slogan shall not be tainted with abusive language directly or indirectly likely to injure religious, ethnic, tribal or sectional feelings”.
Section 95(2) of the Electoral Act also provides that “Abusive, intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendoes designed or likely to provoke violent reaction or emotions shall not be employed or used in political campaigns”. Section 95(7) of the Act provides that a political party or person who contravenes this particular provision commits an offence and is liable on conviction- in the case of an individual to a maximum fine of N1,000,000.00 or imprisonment for the term of 12 months and in the case of a Political Party to a fine of N2,000,000.00 in the first instance and N1,000,000.00 for any subsequent offence.”
Barrister Okoye, who is the leader of the Human Rights Monitor, added that “The challenge is that the agencies of government responsible for the maintenance of law and order have allowed impunity to thrive. Individuals are not investigated and political parties are not investigated. To compound the challenge, section 150(2) of the Electoral Act gives Legal Officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission or any Legal Practitioner appointed by it the power to prosecute offences provided for in the Act.  And the Commission has canvassed that it does not have the capacity and the resources to prosecute Electoral Offenders and that an Electoral Offences Commission should be set up. We must move quickly to set up a Political Parties and Electoral Offences Commission to deal with some of these challenges.”
The Human Rights Monitor, concerned about the slanderous comments that have tainted the political campaign, called on political parties to abide by the accord signed by the presidential candidates.
It said, in a press statement on Thursday, January 22, 2015 that, “We recognise the fact that this particular election will be the most highly competitive election since Nigeria returned to civil democratic rule in 1999. That imposes a burden on the political parties, the candidates and the handlers of the candidates to act with decorum and civility.
“We also want to state and emphatically too that adherence to the Abuja Accord is not an option of charity. The Abuja Accord is not a mere piece of paper that can be tossed away at the mere signing. It is a bond between the candidates and the political parties with the Nigerian people. It is the affirmation of the sanctity of the vote and a disavowal of violence. It is a renunciation of the use of religion and ethnicity as instruments of campaign. The candidates and the political parties have a binding obligation to adhere to the accord. We will monitor and document compliance before, during and after the elections. We will engage in advocacy to enforce compliance. We will collaborate with regional and international human rights and democratic organisations to ensure compliance.
“…The hate language being employed and the activation of the twin fault lines of Nigeria is sowing the seeds of anxiety, fear and apprehension in the minds of the Nigerian people. The candidates, their parties and handlers must tone down their rhetoric and allow the Nigerian people to make rational and informed choices.”
The Accord was signed at the end of a 2-day forum entitled “2015 General Elections Sensitization Workshop on Non-Violence” in Abuja, organized by the offices of the National Security Adviser and the Special Adviser to the President on Inter-Party Affairs. on Wednesday, 14 January, 2015. The thrust of the deal was to prevent violence before, during and after the elections.

THE MUDSLINGERS
With the presidential election less than three weeks away, campaign activities have intensified with an unsparing deployment and use of verbal attacks by members of various political parties to scuttle opponents’ chances and increase their own.
The ruling PDP and its main rival, the APC have been at the forefront of the bitter war of words, holding nothing back to sling mud at each other.
Their mutual attacks, started months before the general election, with the PDP, for instance, firing one of the earlier shots in the offensive across the bow of the APC, when its national publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metu, labelled the APC as a Janjaweed political party that was sympathetic to Boko Haram and frustrating government’s efforts to end insurgency.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to restate that we stand by our statements that the APC as a party with a Janjaweed ideology has been promoting insurgency and acts of terrorism through the actions and utterances of its leaders. Indeed, no amount of blackmail or propaganda can erase this truth,” he argued last year.
To counter such attacks, the main opposition, through its own national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, often tagged President Gooluck Jonathan as clueless and lacking the competence to tackle the insecurity in the country, especially Boko Haram activities in the North-East.
Over time, the broadsides have ballooned beyond the two spokespersons into handy attack tools in the hands of governors, other political office holders and even their hired attack dogs.
Recently, the Federal Government announced austerity measures to accommodate the fallen value of naira and fuel price plunge in the international market. The declaration by the Finance Minister, Ngozi Okojo-eweala, was greeted by a criticism from Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, who blamed the PDP administration for the downturn. “Largely because of their inefficiency, they have now come to say tighten your belt as austerity has come. Before you come to the citizen to say tighten your belt you must do your job first,” the governor harped.
On the other hand, it was the Abia State governor, Theodore Orji, who took a swipe at the APC, associating the party with terrorists and foreclosing any chances for its victory in the South-East. “Jonathan will not share the South-East votes with anybody. The All Progressives Congress here sounds like Boko Haram and you cannot see a well meaning Igbo son in the APC… Governor Rochas Okorocha knows he has missed the way and Ogbonnaya Onuh cannot even win his ward. So no other party is recognized here,” he told the opposition.
General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the APC, is one of the main receivers of PDP’s flaks, with the attacks centring on his age and military past. However, it was his age that was the subject of attack by Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, last week. “The North deserved to present a better candidate among the myriad of brilliant intellectuals they have and not an old horse like the All Progressives Congress’ presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, whose health is a concern to all Nigerians,” the controversial governor said.
Fayose followed the criticism up a few days later with equally controversial adverts in two national dailies that the opposition and the general public described as wishing the candidate dead.
At other times, Buhari has been linked to sectionalist agenda while heading the country as a military ruler. A newspaper advertisement accused him of clanging the late Odumegwu Ojukwu in jail, wanting him to die. Another one said: “The APC presidential candidate, who had contested the same election three times before and failed, manifested his hatred for the Yoruba people and Ogun State in particular with the detention of former governor of the state, the late Bisi Onabanjo, whose claim to was his popular column in the Nigerian Tribune, Aiyekooto.
“Buhari insisted Onabanjo remained in detention even when the courts did not find anything against him, ditto for other South-West leaders he ensured he humiliated and tortured for serving well their people, whereas those from his own region who were arrested were given preferential treatment,” it said.
Even President Jonathan’s campaign had spent so much time denigrating the former head of state for jailing people on account of corruption, a punitive measure that Jonathan said was less effective in tackling the vice than his tactics of applying “electronics” measures.
In return, some of Jonathan’s campaigns have been attacked for dwelling on the unimportant and not tied to issues of concern to Nigerians. Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, is among APC stalwarts accusing Jonathan of chasing shadows in his campaigns. “Our campaign will be issue-based. The president has a PhD in Zoology. How many farms do we have and how many people has he employed?” he asked, adding, “If you say the president has a PhD and Buhari does not have one, let them show us his thesis. You are bringing yourself to the level of those who are making those allegations. Don’t bring yourself to that level, remain focused on the issues and let the president meet you there.”
On some occasions, even security agents hardly resist the temptation to join in the fray, and queue behind the ruling party, as for instance, when the spokesperson of the Directorate of State Security (DSS), Marilyn Ogar, declared last year that whenever the opposition won an election there wouldn’t be bomb blasts, but when other parties won, there were always bomb blasts. In a similar fashion that was devoid of any veil, Metuh had said: “They know that it has become a recurring decimal that whenever the PDP or the Federal Government records or is about to record a major milestone, insurgents launch attacks on the people.
Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was not spared the tirade. “That man (Obasanjo) should not be allowed to be in the party,” Chief Edwin Clark was reported to have said about the ex-leader. “Obasanjo is defending him (Buhari) because he wants the APC to win. A man you dissolved his committee, PTF, could not account for N25billion and you are now saying that the man is not corrupt… Buhari and Obasanjo are the same. They are in a marriage of convenience just to remove Jonathan. How much corruption have you found in Jonathan that you are calling him corrupt?” he asked.
In the mudslinging game, there is also Chief Femi Fani Kayode, who, initially, was attacking from the APC camp, before jumping to PDP and aiming his shots at his former party.
“I don’t know what the minds of Nigerians are. All I know is that the level of discontentment for the government of the PDP in this country is unprecedented. Not only do I know that, I also know that in terms of the quality of leadership as far as I am concerned, if you compare the leadership of today’s PDP to APC, there is absolutely no comparison. It is time for change in this country…. As far as I am concerned, they (APC) present a far more credible leadership than we have in the PDP today,” Fani said of the PDP when he pitched his tent with the APC.
He was even more brutal about Jonathan, describing him as, “A president who has abdicated his responsibilities, destroyed his own political party, divided his country… abandoned his own people, brought ridicule to his own faith, cowers before  his officials… scorns the international community and breaks his solemn oath to protect and defend the Nigerian people.”
 But when he decamped to the PDP and was appointed the director general of Jonathan’s campaign, he launched an all out verbal war on his former party, the APC, and its presidential candidate, taking no prisoner. “It is to this end that we make reference to the findings of the Dr Haroun Adamu-led Interim Management Committee probe of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the APC, presided as Executive Chairman for a number of years, while General Sani Abacha was in power. The final report of that probe exposed nothing but monumental sleaze and the most pervasive and insidious type of corruption in the PTF while General Buhari held sway there. The report concluded its findings by recommending that the PTF under General Buhari and his entire team be asked to explain the circumstances in which N25,758,532,448 disapeared and could not be accounted for. As the chief executive officer of the PTF at the time, Buhari and no one else, must be held responsible,” he said.         

NIGERIANS REACT TO HATE CAMPAIGN
Not a few Nigerians have criticized the mudslinging that has characterized the electioneering campaigns by some supporters and actors of the two major political parties.      
For instance the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, chided the Catholic priest, Ejike Mbaka, over his comments on President Goodluck Jonathan on New Year eve. Mr. Odinkalu also condemned the Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, for placing a newspaper advert suggesting the death of Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, if voted into office.
According to Mr. Odinkalu the cleric (Mbaka)breached Section 95 sub section 3 (b) of the Electoral Act which states that worship centres, police stations, and public offices shall not be used in the promotion or attack on political parties or candidates, their programmes or ideology.
 “What we do not want is Nigeria being wasted by politicians seeking power. We are Nigerians, not savages; we are going to do an election not war,” Mr. Odinkalu said. Commenting on the advert sponsored by Governor Fayose, the head of the Human Rights Commission said the ad was clearly in breach of the Electoral Act, pointing out that Mr. Fayose failed his people with his advert.
 “People from Kano and Katsina may not vote in governorship elections in Ekiti but people from Kano and Katsina vote in presidential elections,” he said.
On his part, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja diocese said the candidates of the two major political parties who embraced each other during the signing of a peace pact on peaceful campaigns should prevail on their members to respect the spirit of the pact. He also criticized the issue of certificate and health status of one of the presidential candidates which were raised by opponents, describing them as deviating from the real campaign issues.
“President Jonathan and General Buhari embraced each other warmly with big smiles and that photograph has gone viral. I would like to believe that those smiles are sincere; but they should also realize that there may be others on both sides who may not share the same sentiments. This is where each of them must be a true leader to be able to bring in their members to the extent that such smiles, embrace and spirit that we saw on that photograph would be reflected in the conduct of the campaigns”, Cardinal Onaiyekan said.
While the ruling PDP has accused the opposition APC of embarking on campaign of calumny the opposition party has had distance itself from the ongoing campaigns of calumny.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the party had ensured that its campaigns were issue-based. He said: “Can you find one single advert of the APC that can be described as mudslinging? You should just find one single advert of the APC that can be described as mudslinging. If you can do that, then I leave my comment.
“On the other hand, you all saw what Ayo Fayose put as a wrap-around in main newspapers. Now, you can draw your own conclusion. Then, we will now know who is heating up the polity. We will now know who is involved in mudslinging.
“You cannot tar all of us with the same brush. We have so far run issue-based campaigns, even in our adverts. But they cannot do the same. So, please, don’t put us in the same brush”, he said.
Asked what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is doing to curtail the mudslinging, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr Kayode Idowu, said, “We’ve always told politicians to abide by the code of ethics.”
In spite of the condemnation of the hate campaign, the trend has not abated.