Why we insisted that President should appoint INEC Chairman – Ekweremadu

This week has been a significant one in the Senate. What can you say is the motive behind the massive review of sections of the constitution? First of all, we have demonstrated that it is possible for us to amend our constitution successfully. We have had many attempts in the past and it appeared as […]

This week has been a significant one in the Senate. What can you say is the motive behind the massive review of sections of the constitution?

First of all, we have demonstrated that it is possible for us to amend our constitution successfully. We have had many attempts in the past and it appeared as if we were jinxed, but if you recall when I started this process, I said to the journalists who came around that I don’t start what I won’t conclude, that I am not known for abandoning projects.

How difficult was it to do it?

First of all, I put my mind to do it and I was determined to succeed and I believe I learnt from past lessons. I learnt from the failures of the others. I felt I shouldn’t be put on the same mould with those who attempted and failed. I felt I should be able to do something different so that I can succeed and I’m lucky that I had a good number of our colleagues   who believe in what we are doing and are sincere about it. I had a setback, especially the issues of House of Representatives, bad leadership and others. It was a setback of nearly one year. But because we decided we were going to succeed, the idea of abandoning it was totally out of it. So we decided to ensure that we get to where we are today and you would recall that I also said that by March we would deliver and we have delivered.

Are you confident that the House of Representatives will accept some of the resolutions you have passed?

They don’t need to accept the resolutions. They can pass their own but it is for us to convince them how we got to where we are in terms of deciding on those specific provisions.  We have vivid justification for every decision we have taken in the Senate in respect of constitution amendment, so all that we need to do is to bring strong argument on how we arrived at what decision we took and of cause we are going to call state Houses of Assembly leaderships to understand these issues.

Do you think that at the conference level disagreement over chairman and co-chairman will not arise again?

We won’t have conference in the National Assembly. In any case, I don’t think disagreement will arise.

There is the amendment raising the qualification for a person to contest in election. You say tertiary level and it prompts the criticism that you will disenfranchise a lot of Nigerians, that after all leadership quality does not necessarily derive from a certificate. Why did you raise the academic qualification?

First of all, we try to define tertiary level very liberally to include degree, HND, OND, and HSC to improve on secondary qualification. And we are looking at year 2010. Every part of Nigeria should be able to produce somebody with at least Higher School Certificate who will be able to provide leadership for the part of the country either at the legislature or at the executive arm of government. The point is that you can go and put the fate of hundreds of millions of people   in the hands of somebody who cannot understand complexities. We believe that for us to compete globally we have to have leaders who are well educated or at least educated enough to understand the issues. About 30 or 40 years ago we would have had difficulty getting people from across the country who fit this qualification but in year 2010, I tell you there is no part of Nigeria that cannot bring some people with that qualification.

You look at what happens in other countries, for instance the United States. Somebody who has HSC can vie for position as governor or a lawmaker, do you take that into consideration?

 Yes, we did, because I just rightly said I can imagine somebody with First School Certificate or WAEC say he wants to be governor in America. That will not happen. So it is something they have taken for granted but we don’t take such things for granted in Nigeria. That is why we have to be strict on it so that we will be able to be doing exactly what others are doing. But we have to create some legislative structure that will help us to achieve that.

You removed the barrier on cross carpeting and people are asking questions. Why did you remove the barrier?

Initially, we thought we were going to reinforce it. Our approach changed upon deep reflection, after looking at the issues. We came to the conclusion that the issue of banning cross carpeting in Nigerian constitution will offend some other sections of the constitution, especially the section dealing with freedom of association. It was on the basis of freedom of association that the constitution says yes you cannot stop people from forming political party. If I don’t make mistakes, that is the reason why people are allowed to form political parties in the manner they like. It was on the basis of that the court came to the conclusion that Atiku could keep his job as the Vice president after he left PDP to AC. The idea is to ensure that people can express themselves freely. They can associate with whoever they want. That is also why we have said that we have independent candidates. So, if you are trying to liberalize the political space, the issue of not allowing people to go from party A to party B should not arise.

Now, in terms of comparative analysis we looked at other climes like America and UK. There is no place  in their laws that people moving from one party to another will lose their seats. There is no such provision in American or UK law and people do it every day without losing their seats. So, if we are looking to aspire to have a democracy such as that of America and UK, which is like a mother for all of us, we cannot do retrogressive things. We have to try to achieve what they have achieved.. So we try to find out what happens in other countries and we try to find out what our laws say and find out what is needful for us.

The issue is party discipline. You chose a very weak political party to contest an election and win. By the time you  are sitting there, you abandon it and join another party. So where does the issue of party discipline come to this agenda?

For us, it is the moral burden on the person who is taking the decision. We believe it is not for us to say we ban it because the constitution has provided for freedom of association. So, it is a challenge because that is also part of the constitution. For us to change it, we will face the question of  amending the part of the constitution dealing with freedom of association.

If you would have allowed the court to decide some of the cases instead of making it…and there was pressure on him to leave his seat as vice president but the court said he didn’t have to do that. So, what we have done now is in accordance with the Supreme Court on that case.

You have allowed indicted persons to contest election into the legislature. But you said they cannot contest into executive positions. Why did you take that position? Why do we have to allow indicted persons to contest election in the first place?

No, we didn’t say they should contest for a legislative and not contest for an executive seat. If you look at that section you will see that there are sufficient provisions in the constitution for those who have criminal records. All the issues contained on the ones we have deleted are already there in the constitution. So we felt it was unnecessary providing for it. But most importantly, it was something which some people abused in the past. You recall when Orji Kalu set up a panel to indict Obasanjo and his children in Nigeria because the constitution says if you are indicted and accepted by the state executive council you will not contest election. So it was abused. In that case there are provisions in the constitution which say if you are convicted for an offence you will not contest in election. These are still there and highly reinforced. So, we did not do anything contrary to the constitution. We did not create space for criminals. There is nothing like that. Everything we deleted there still has equivalence in the constitution.

Can you justify this idea that the president must appoint the INEC chairman?

We invited some people from other countries because for us Ghana is like a model. We believe Ghana is doing well and we need to find out how they are doing. We invited the Chairman of the electoral commission of Ghana and said to him, Looking at the Uwais report in terms of who will appoint the chairman of INEC and members of the electoral commission, what is your advice? He said that in Ghana it is the president who appoints the chairman and members of the commission and that it had always worked for them. He even told us that it was J. J. Rawlings who appointed him for the first time and J. J. Rawlings’s party lost election which he conducted and that at the last election he conducted, one of his roommates in the University was the presidential candidate and he lost. The point he was trying to make is that it is the quality of those you are selecting, not who is selecting them because even the NJC can appoint criminals. That is the problem, because we see NJC appoint judges. You know how many of them the NJC has had to fire on account of corruption. So, if now they appoint the chairman and members of INEC and it turns out tomorrow that those people cannot even be trusted and that they are people with lesser integrity than even those who were there, what will the NJC do? What would they do? Are we going to dissolve NJC? Because these are human beings. So, it is difficult to predict what will happen. The proper thing, however, is that the appointing officer should be able to look at the records of those he is appointing. What position did they hold before? How did they  fair in those positions? Appointing officers need to do background checks. The Senate will confirm as well to ensure that only people who are competent, who are qualified with integrity or people with proven integrity are appointed. That is what is important, not who is appointing which officer.

What do you do to ensure that the independence of INEC is guaranteed in the review of the constitution?

We have provided financial independence   for them. Before now the constitution said they have to make rules but the rules are subject to the approval of the president but now they can conduct their business without reporting to anybody. Therefore, both administratively and financially, as far as our amendments are concerned, the body is free to carry out its functions. Even the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) who before now were appointed by the president at his own will, we now say no, this should be subject to senate confirmation. Now, we are involved to do checks and balances. We can further reinforce whatever background work has been done by the executive in the appointment of the RECs by making sure that those who are to be appointed by the president are those who have the qualities we are looking at.

 

Many Nigerians believe that the process is better if the NJC recommends to the president the person to be INEC chairman, that it is better if the president then picks and sends to the National Assembly, instead of negating the recommendation of the Electoral Reform Committee by not involving the NJC.

It is the same thing. By prevailing law the NJC recommends to the president the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) and Supreme Court judges. That is what happens. That is the laid down process. The point I am making is that, in spite of that process, you receive complaints on judges who are corrupt. That process has not insulated the judiciary from undesirable officials.

But Nigerians are saying let us try it

 

 How can you try something that has failed? We cannot be trying something that has obviously failed.

How do you reconcile section 122 with the realities in Nigeria? You said no association should canvass for vote except political parties. If the senate president wants to be governor tomorrow, another person can support him and go out to seek votes for him.

We didn’t introduce it. It has been in the constitution. Through independent candidacy he does not need to have a party. Friends can decide to organize something for him. 

If a political party member has supporters outside and they decide to form a group and say they are canvassing vote for the member, what should happen?

If they want to canvass vote for him they should come and join the party. That is the point we are making. We don’t want a situation in which you go to church or mosque  to bring them into politics. You use the platform of RATAWU union and drag community leaders into politics. We want politics for politicians and that is what the law has been. The only exception we have made is independent candidacy. Since he does not have such a platform to create a level playing ground he can get a group to assist him.

Why do you make it so difficult for an independent candidate to participate in politics or seek election? Why do you say that he must deposit N100 million before he can contest?

When we have 57 political parties and he feels that none of them is good enough for him, he just wants to go for it alone, then it means he has all the resources to play with.

You may have a quarrel with your party, the PDP, because it has many foreign chapters  and you are saying that you don’t expect funding from abroad.

That is the practice all over the world. You cannot send money from here to America, for instance. That is why when they were raising money for Obama it was an issue here because they could not even send it. So, why do we now want to get people to bring money into Nigeria?

But Obama’s party doesn’t have office in Nigeria

It is not Obama’s party issue, it is American law that you cannot send money if you are not in America.

Do you stop Nigerians from forming chapters of the political parties abroad?

That is freedom of association, they are free to do it but we are saying don’t bring foreign money to our politics. We don’t want people to come and sponsor parties here because that will endanger our national security.

Even if they are Nigerians?

If you want to fund political parties or candidates, you come back home and do it.

What do you think about the INEC that wants Nigerians in the Diaspora to vote for Nigerian office seekers during elections in Nigeria?

I don’t know what INEC means by that because under the constitution you have to reside in Nigeria for you to register to vote in the first place. And I can’t imagine how you can vote when you don’t register. And for you to register you have to be resident in Nigeria. So, that aspect of the constitution needs to be amended before INEC can do what it wants, but I’m waiting to see how they intend to achieve it. I think they only play to the gallery.

What do you have to say about the timetable released by INEC?

We have said that election should be held between 150 and 90 days. So the implication is that, one there will be an early election and we hope by that process all the issues arising from there would have been concluded before swearing in and if it is not completed it will be done not long after. Secondly, it will give INEC enough time to hold election so that initially it was between 60 days and 30 days so they had a 30-day frame to do election, but now they will get like 60 days. That means if there is need for bye election they can deal with it early enough. They can even say okay we will deal with elections for the governorship this time and we will be able to prepare within another three weeks. They have sufficient time now. Within that timeframe, they can put their logistics together to do credible election.

Do you think the House of Representatives and the state houses of assembly will pass their resolution on the constitutional changes in time for the changes to take effect?

I don’t have to speak for the two sides. The one that I have is for the Senate and we have finished with that. But we hope our colleagues in the House of Representatives will show the same level of commitments. For the State Houses of Assembly, I’m sure they are waiting for us. The Governors Forum have set up a committee headed by Benue State Governor to liaise with us so that as soon as we finish we will be able to explain to them what we have done, then they will help us  talk to their Houses of Assembly. So, everybody is anxious to get this thing done.

No, the court has decided. The case of Atiku is an instance. As I said, when Atiku was the Vice president he moved to AC