Why we don’t want card readers — Okupe

Is the president afraid of card readers in the forthcoming elections?The first person to raise objection to the usage of card readers was House of Representatives Minority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila on the floor of the House. And the House actually made a resolution against it. These are despicable characters, liars and people without shame or […]

Is the president afraid of card readers in the forthcoming elections?
The first person to raise objection to the usage of card readers was House of Representatives Minority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila on the floor of the House. And the House actually made a resolution against it. These are despicable characters, liars and people without shame or honour. The House must have seen something that made them feel card readers shouldn’t be used. Other people now looked at it and said these guys have a point. In all fairness, let’s look at the story properly and objectively. You’re doing an election in over 120,000 polling booths of the federation. So, there will be a card reader in each one of them? Now, INEC said they want to do a mock exercise this (last) Saturday. If the polls had not been extended, would they have been able to do that? Remember that Jega also imported certain machines that were abandoned, that we could not use for elections after the government had paid billions of naira for them. Those ones were imported and found to be defective, and they (INEC) did not use them. Now, these ones (card readers) have not been tested. They tested them in Abuja only once and they recorded 12% default. Abuja is a small sample. If you do a larger sample, it can increase or decrease. But if you take this 12% or let’s even say 10%, and if there are 120,000 polling booths, 10% will be 12,000 polling booths nationwide. Can you imagine the thing not working in 12,000 polling booths and the confusion it will cause? So, why are we using it for this type of very tensed consideration which is the most competitive election we’re holding in the history of this country and you’re going with an imperfect gadget you cannot vouch for? Is INEC itself not creating a platform for crisis? So, the talk about not using the card readers has substances in it, and there is no need for INEC to be belligerent about this matter. We’re all looking for the best for this country.
But many believe the use of the cards would forestall election fraud….
We’ve held elections before in 2011, we didn’t use it and the world acclaimed that election as one of the best. Why are we now doing test run on this very important thing? And if Jega knew he wants to use it like this, he should’ve used it for those governorship elections we did. He should’ve tried them and we would’ve seen defaults. All those people who are going to use them (card readers) are also going to use them for the first time. I’m also told that the card readers cannot work where there is no network. In this my office in Abuja here, I do experience lack of network for 10 hours. So, how can you bring such unpredictability to a very sensitive process? And you’re saying nobody can stop you from doing that! Does Jega himself have an ulterior motive? Does he have other plans apart from the one that we know? All of us should be working together to ensure the success of these elections. APC said they didn’t want it and if PDP and 12 other parties are now saying they don’t want it. Are we not the people Jega is serving?
Some say Jonathan does not deserve a second term…
If anybody says he doesn’t like Jonathan, I’d forgive him. If you say you won’t vote for him, it’s your prerogative. But if you say he’s not fit to come back, that’s a very nonsensical statement. Among those competing now, there is no better candidate than Jonathan. Besides that, among those who have ruled Nigeria to date, there is no better president. Whether it is morally, whether it is a matter of performance, humanness, humility, Jonathan will come on top. A sitting president must, in all fairness, be judged majorly by his performance. Jonathan has given absolute freedom and liberty to people to go about their businesses, to do whatever they like without any hindrance or harassment from government. You can say whatever you like against him and you’ll go to bed without locking your door; you’ll drive on the street without looking over your shoulders. We cannot take it for granted.  It is the most fundamental thing.
He promised that under his watch, the electoral process would be free and fair. He has comported himself, he has kept to his words. It has been painful because his party, the PDP, has lost, under his watch, more states. And he has been the first person under every circumstance to congratulate the winner. That’s also something fundamental to our democracy because democracy is nothing if elections cannot be free and fair and if people in charge cannot be as dispassionate as possible to allow genuine fairness to take place. For 30 years, the railways were quite dead. But in five years, Jonathan rehabilitated almost 95% of the total rail lines in Nigeria and our railways are once again moving. Let’s go to the aviation sector. Apart from total radar cover and improved safety measures in place, this government had fully restored and rehabilitated all the terminals. In four years, this administration has increased the number of motorable federal roads from 5,000 to 25,000. It has improved food production to such an extent that our import bill has dropped from about N1.6trn to about N600bn.
The president’s men are said to be prevailing on him to sack Inec chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega. Why should Jega be sacked before the polls?
I don’t think the president’s men are putting any pressure on him to sack Jega. Up till this moment, Mr President has said repeatedly that such a thing is not under his consideration. These are rumors, fabrications and imaginations of the opposition. This opposition is a dead wood. It’s no longer capable of moving or carrying on. Also, nobody is discussing interim government except the opposition saying the government is planning it. The discussion is not taking place anywhere except in the courts of the opposition. So, this opposition is confused, totally clueless and they’ve become overtly disturbed at the realization that they’re actually not going to win these elections. How else can you explain that five weeks to a major election, the candidate and the entire fabric of the leadership of the opposition would go on a junket to London and stay there for two weeks without any programme? It was until they reached London that they started to programme, lobby and desperately compel Chatham House to allow Buhari to come and give a lecture. And that was the only significant thing he did in all those two weeks that we knew. He didn’t attend all the town hall meetings and receptions planned for him. This group has given up on elections. So, all they do now is to concoct things, fabricate lies and try to create issues that don’t exist.
So no plan to implicate opposition leaders or freeze their accounts as is being alleged?
I can wake up and say Lai Mohammed is planning to rape my wife, kidnap my children, and destroy my car. Any human being can say anything. But most sensible people will see factual things. And if somebody who is not sensible is talking gibberish, a sensible person will ask him for evidence. They said we want to put money in Jega’s account and say it’s Tinubu that put it. When money goes to people’s accounts, are there no ways of tracing such accounts? And there are certain laws in this country limiting what you can pay into an account. These are just funny characters, aimless political wayfarers that will achieve nothing, but will stop at nothing in bad-mouthing people.
Will the various endorsements of the president in the South West translate into votes?
There was an ill-conceived idea and notion that Bola Tinubu was the leader of Yoruba. That is bunkum, it is not true. He’s the leader of APC in Lagos.  It has nothing to do with the Yoruba race. We know who our leaders are. Leadership is neither by voting nor by personal acquisition. Majority of our leaders have come together and said they’re supporting Jonathan in this election. The Yorubas are not frivolous people. We’re not nonentities. We’ve always been and will remain the conscience of this nation. For many years, we were the ones asking for the restructuring of this country and nobody listened to us. Even when our son was there, he didn’t listen to us.  Our late icon and leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo lived and died propagating true federalism.  And this is what our leaders have taken. They believe in true federalism and that is what Jonathan has allowed our people to do. In spite of all the insinuations and innuendos, he courageously put the National Conference in place where over 600 decisions were taken by consensus, not by voting. That’s the miracle. And Mr President has assured that he’ll implement the decisions of the conference. This is coterminous with the desire of the entire Yoruba race.  Only a bastard in Yorubaland will say he is against those decisions. That’s what the Yoruba demand and because this president says he’ll do it for us, they say we’ll support him.
The APC neither recognized nor participated in the national conference, and cannot implement the ideas of the conference. The APC is antithetical, in ideology, to what Yoruba stand for. It is against our interest and Awolowo’s ideals. When you talk about votes, I’m putting everything I have on the line; Yoruba people will not fail Jonathan. We, Yoruba, believe in true federalism, not because of money or other pecuniary subterranean interests, but because it’ll make our people grow better.