Playing Games With the 2011 Elections - Reuben Abati 260710

8/9/2019 Playing Games With the 2011 Elections - Reuben Abati 260710

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/playing-games-with-the-2011-elections-reuben-abati-260710 1/14

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Playing Games With The 2011 Elections

By

Dr. Reuben Abati

“We are faced with the choice of either compiling a new voters’ register in less than 8 weeks

or…salvaging the existing register in 16 weeks. Either of the two presents a very difficult

choice indeed” – Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman, Thursday, July 22.

And what kind of election will be held in 2011 without a proper voters’

register? The difficult situation in which Nigeria has now found itself with

regard to preparations for the 2011 elections was foreseeable, indeed it was

foreseen and the present difficulty was well foretold, but the political

leadership while paying lip service to electoral reform from Yar’Adua to

Jonathan did not address the subject with the urgency it deserved. The

National Assembly also fiddled. Immediately after the 2007 elections

conducted by the Maurice Iwu-led INEC, one of the major revelations, from

the observers and the evidence adduced at the various election petition

tribunals, was the problematic nature of the voters’ register which was

constructed to disenfranchise many Nigerians and encourage rigging. The

government of the day merely talked about electoral reform and did not

bother to do anything about the voters’ register in particular.

The Uwais Committee on Electoral Reform had also paid careful and detailed

attention to issues of integrity in the electoral process, but the Yar’Adua

administration toyed with the recommendations, and the National Assembly

CROSSROADS with Dr. Reuben ABATI on Sunday’s 1




went ahead to ignore the central recommendations of that committee. The

urgency of the electoral reform that was needed was further borne out by the

various by-elections, re-run elections and the last gubernatorial election in

Anambra state, a product of the staggering of elections arising from election

petition cases; in Anambra, the voters’ register was yet the issue with less

than 10 % of the total number of registered voters reportedly captured by

the process, and the majority were unable to vote because they could not

find their names on the voters’ register despite a so-called earlier verification

exercise. It is a shame that eleven years after our return to democratic

rule, Nigeria has not been able to prepare a credible voters’ register.

The impression is now being given that Constitutional Amendment is the key

issue of the moment; in the amended Constitution as proposed, elections are

now supposed to take place 150 days before the end of the tenure of the

incumbent President and Governors and not later than 120 days which

means that elections for 2011 should be held by January 2011. Previously,

the extant constitution being amended had indicated in Sections 132 (2) and

178(2), a window of between 60 and 30 days, which means that the

elections would otherwise be held not later than March/April, given the old

calendar. This is what the Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria Labour Congress

(NLC) and other groups in civil society are now clamouring for in order to

allow INEC to prepare a proper voters’ register. INEC itself is asking for a

number of amendments in the Electoral Act to give it enough room to

manoeuvre, and up to four months within which to compile a new voters’

register.

Senator Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy Senate President, purportedly speaking on

behalf of the Senate has said that the requested amendments would be

effected as requested and that there can be no extension of dates, because

the National Assembly does not want to be seen to be seeking a tenure

elongation for President Goodluck Jonathan – whatever that means -although

the nature of it is suggested in a Nigerian Tribune story: “Why elections may





not hold January 2011” (July 24, p. 4). The confusion that has arisen is the

fault of the National Assembly. Its members deliberately played games with

the constitution amendment process; what should have been the first major

task of the Assembly following its inauguration in 2007 was sabotaged by

needless quarrels over the chairmanship of a joint constitution review

committee, conveniently, they left the main assignment till the last moment.

In 2002, this was exactly how the PDP-dominated National Assembly waited

till the last minute before it amended the Electoral Act, the same was the

case in 2006, and now the trick is being played again in 2010. With the last

minute confusion that we are now all confronted with, it is not strange at all

that some politicians are now proposing that familiar cop-out: “the doctrine

of necessity” (The Guardian, July 4, p. 2). It is the failure of leadership that

we are saddled with.

The original idea behind early polls was to give enough room for election

petitions to be determined in order to prevent as much as possible the kind

of situation, as seen, whereby, the wrong persons occupy a stolen seat for

close to three or more years before the relevant election petition case is

resolved. This was a major concern for civil society because of the

disruptions to the system that it caused. But now the same civil society has

been pushed, due to the failure of the lawmakers, to ask that the relevant

sections of the amended 1999 Constitution should become operative in 2015.

On the question of the early determination of election petitions, we may be

on our way back to where we were, because of a “doctrine of necessity”! It is

a shame that we have the wrong set of people in high places who do not

believe in electoral reform or constitutional amendment. The present

situation is entirely contrived, the same lawmakers who are now so active

trying to effect this or that amendment are totally mischievous: why did we

ever expect that election-riggers who got to office through fraudulent voters’

register and means would propose laws that would deny them future stolen

benefits?





The concern over a credible electoral register should not have brought us to

a moment such as this. We are paying a heavy price, and it could be heavier,

for the lack of statistics in the country, our poor data collection processes and

the grand corruption that defines everything else Nigerian. The compilation of

a voters’ register needs not be a special event each time a general election

approaches requiring as much as N55 - N72 billion! In civilized societies, the

voters’ register is compiled and updated and verified through records of

births and deaths and a national identity programme, even employment

payment records and other financial records. But here, in Nigeria, we have

no such records, we don’t have even have a credible national population

census data base. There is nobody, no department that can give an accurate

figure of persons who have turned 18 since the last election and who are

eligible to vote; many of such persons do not even have any means of

identifying themselves.

Whenever there is a general election, a hasty attempt is made to compile a

new register and yet on election day all kinds of strange names show up on

the voters’ register including Bill Clinton, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson and so

on, and they are recorded as having voted. This pattern of corruption is

widespread. For our democracy to work, there must be in place a national

integrity framework which will compel persons to act as citizens not as

vagabonds. We tend to believe that we can build a house without a

foundation. The foundation to the perennial voters’ register crisis is to have

in every local council a well-organised registry of births and deaths. It is

sheer irresponsibility that at this stage in the game we are still thinking of

voters’ register and dates. There should be clarity to the Nigerian madness.

Are we going to spend so much money again only to get the same old

results?

Attahiru Jega has told us what we already know that the voters’ register

prepared by Maurice Iwu’s INEC was fraudulent and that the processes

leading to the production of that register were criminal at best. The Daily





Trust (July 23) quotes him as saying “fake voter registration equipment

purchased for the 2006 registration exercise were responsible for the

problems with the existing register…as soon as the contract was signed with

credible partners, they were abandoned and fake equipment was purchased,

some with expired licences and that was what affected the voter registration

exercise in 2006.” We need to add that the problem is not with the

“registration equipment” but the greed of the officials involved in this scam.

This is definitely not a good testimonial for the former INEC Chairman,

Professor Maurice Iwu. In some other societies, this will call for full-scale

enquiry and sanctions. Who signed the contract? For how much? And how

much was diverted? By whom? With whose authority? If Professor Jega has

stumbled on any of these details, he should hand over the information to the

appropriate agencies for action, and to the Nigerian people, so we may know

those who do not want the country to make progress with democratic rule.

On the question of the voters’ register, he adds in a public statement (see

The Guardian, July 24, p. 52), the following words: “in the course of our

retreat in Uyo, we closely looked through the existing voters’ register,

sampling over 1, 000 polling units from randomly selected 19 states. What

we found were massive inadequacies, including under-age registrants,

hundreds of blank or blurred photographs and multiple registrations by the

same persons.” While swearing in the new INEC Chairman on June 30,

2010, President Goodluck Jonathan had told him: “We have given you the

free will to operate and we don’t want Nigerians to hear that your legs and

hands are tied. Nobody has tied anybody’s legs.” Jega seems to be saying

less than a month later, that his legs, hands and neck are tied, and so he

speaks of a “near-impossible” task which he is nevertheless determined to

give his best shot.

The sub-text of all that explanation is that the only way he can make any

difference is to start afresh. It is a shame that in Nigeria, we have to start

afresh every time a new man takes office. Nigeria is run on an ad-hoc basis,





without continuity or sustainability of programmes. The other indication in

Jega’s early cry for help is this: no one should hold him responsible if

anything goes wrong with the 2011 general elections. He has served notice

of the difficulties he faces. He needs for example N55- N75 billion within the

next two weeks if he must meet the time table for a new voters’ register.

Where will N75 billion come from in three weeks? Outside the budget? A

supplementary budget? And won’t the lawmakers spend all the time passing

that? Prof. Jega has also had to reorganize the staffing of the Commission:

some 1, 000 plus persons who had been recruited had to be laid off

immediately. Where would he find the good men and women to conduct

credible elections?

But even if Jega compiles a new voters’ register and gets the N55 -72 billion

that he wants (this is too high though- ha ha wetin?), that won’t solve all the

other problems with elections in Nigeria. Before Jega went public with the

constraints that he faces, Donald Duke, former Governor of Cross River

State, and now a Presidential aspirant, had blown the whistle on electoral

fraud when he revealed how elections are rigged with the help of electoral

officers, the Resident State Electoral Commissioner, and the state

Commissioner of Police (“How Governors Rig Elections, by Donald Duke,” The

Guardian, July 18, pp. 72 -73). It is a terribly shocking exposure, fraught

with such brazen self-indictment, class suicide and criminal indictment that

should have pushed the security agencies to act.

Duke’s report of how electoral officials collect vehicles, money, and other

incentives from the sitting Governor and the ruling party and how the party

in power in the state is invited to supply presiding electoral officials for an

election in which it is fielding candidates clearly shows how since

1999,Nigerian leaders have treated every election as a joke. Donald Duke in

his expose says he and his colleagues dismiss civil society activists as

“woolly-eye dreamers.” Duke and his friends must be laughing again: they

may well be saying: what does it matter whether the election is held in





January or April? And what does it matter if Jega prepares the best voters’

register ever? Will that stop electoral officials from collecting cash and

delivering the votes?

The biggest problem with this country is that while others are toiling to make

it better, so many other Nigerians are busy trying to cheat the system and

sabotage it; unfortunately, the public sphere is dominated by that kind. It is

now up to President Goodluck Jonathan to take personal responsibility for

ensuring that the 2011 elections are credible although most sadly, the

lawmakers have thrown to him a suspicious sop with their ordering of

elections which places the Presidential election first; without doubt, this is

with the mind to blackmail the electorate and other stakeholders

For comments, send an e-mail to the author at [email protected]

See page 8 -14 for:

How Governors Rig ElectionsBy Donald DukeSunday, 18 July 2010, From Alifa Daniel, Asst Political Editor, The Guardian, Abuja


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




How Governors Rig ElectionsBy Donald DukeSunday, 18 July 2010, From Alifa Daniel, Asst Political Editor, The Guardian, Abujahttp://www.guardiannewsngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17205:-how-governors-rig-elections-by-donald-duke&catid=73:policy-a- politics&Itemid=607v

A comprehensive expose on how elections are rigged in the country has beenunveiled by one of the insiders in the political process and former Cross River StateGovernor, Mr. Donald Duke.

Last Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Duke gave a blow by blow account toa gathering of pro-democracy advocates, including the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), of the modus operandi of State Chief Executives and Resident Electoral Commissionersto thwart the mandate of the electorate, not just in states controlled by the PeoplesDemocratic Party (PDP), but all the others.

In his opinion, it is not just a question of replacing the Independent NationalElectoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, but getting a critical mass to come out tovote and ensuring that votes count.

The Guardian today delivers excerpts of his extempore speech:

“Let me start this way. Professor Maurice Iwu is truly an enigma; he enjoyed the

limelight. He enjoyed all the attacks, thrown and meted at him, he remained

undaunted. I think, he belongs to the school of thought that believes that badpublicity is better than no publicity. So, even though he was being attacked and

scolded and all sorts of things were said about him, he didn’t shy away from evengoing to the United States and talking to Nigerians in the Diaspora about his work,

he didn’t shy away from it. I was told he organized a rally to ensure that he willcome back to do the work he was appointed to.

Why do I call him an enigma? The truth is, the chairman of the Independent National

Electoral Commission has little or no bearing on the success of elections, that’s thetruth. To me, it’s actually immaterial because he is head of the administration he

takes the brunt. The best he can do is perhaps, draw up a blueprint but theimplementation of that blueprint is outside his control. So, if elections are rigged in

say -Taraba State- we don’t do that stuff in Cross Rivers State (laughter). Every onelooks at Iwu and he proudly says we did this or that. Hogwash!

Let me now take you through the process of an election. We have a hundred and

twenty thousand booths in Nigeria. At the hierarchy, you have the Chairman of INEC,then you have the zonal Commissioners, then you have the Resident Electoral

Commissioners and they are the heads in every state the zone as the name implies;we have six zones in Nigeria, so you have six of them. Then you have the Resident

Electoral Commissioners and there are 36 of them of course, and Abuja. Then foreach local government, you have an electoral officer. Beyond that you have a

hundred and twenty thousand polling booths, headed by presiding officers. The

people think that at the end of the elections, the PDP would just decide who wins andwho doesn’t and announces the results. I think the process is a bit more

sophisticated than that.

This is what happens; the Resident Electoral Commissioner is usually from another

state. The electoral officers, they move around. They are usually from that state, butfor the conduct of elections itself, you would probably move from Cross River to

Akwa Ibom or to Abia, but these musical chairs don’t mean nothing.


http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17205:-how-governors-rig-elections-by-donald-duke&catid=73:policy-a-politics&Itemid=607v








When the Resident Electoral Commissioner comes before the elections areconducted- of course when he comes to the state, usually, he has no

accommodation; monies have not been released for the running or conduct of theelections and all that because we always start late. He pays a courtesy call on the

governor. It’s usually a televised event you know, and of course he says all the rightthings. ‘Your Excellency, I am here to ensure that we have free and fair elections and

I will require your support.’ Now, at that courtesy call, most governors, at least I did, will invite theCommissioner of Police because he is part of the action and he sits there.

After the courtesy call, the Resident Electoral Commissioner now moves in for a one-on-one with the governor the says, “Your Excellency, since I came, I’ve been staying

in this hotel, there is no accommodation for me and even my vehicle is broken downand the last Commissioner didn’t leave the vehicle, so if you could help me settle

down quickly;’ and the governor says, ‘Chief of Staff, where is the Chief of Staff here?’ And the Chief of Staff appears. Governor says: ‘Please ensure that the REC is

accommodated–put him in the Presidential lodge, allot two cars to him, I give youseven days to get this done. Then the relationship has started; I am going to share

some of these things with you so that we don’t leave here with any illusions. A lot of

us, folks who have gone through an election or have been elected for one thing oranother, see groups like Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the CLP as woolly-eye dreamers,you have to come down to the backsides, since I am now a hybrid between both. I

want to bring you both down to backsides. Let me take you down to what happensso that you can change it because if you don’t change it, we here won’t suffer but I

think of our children will.

We the elite, I am one of them, we send our kids to the best schools around theWorld, when they come back they are misfits, they cannot fit in and so ultimately we

are designing a system that would destroy us in the end.

Let me take our minds back to Somalia. Somalia is mono-religious, mono-ethnic;

they only have clans (but) they have one tribe. What has happened there? It’s afailed state because the elite in Somalia were so disconnected from the people that

once they had some money, they buy houses in England, Washington and all thoseplaces; they were not investing, putting their best foot forward and I think that was

what Pastor Bakare was talking about. If you want to be in a contest, you put yourbest foot forward; at the end of the day, there was such a disconnect that even till

today, they cannot bridge it. Let me tell you, the last recognized President of

Somalia is buried in Lagos-Siad Barre.

We are multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-problematic. The reason why mostpeople worry about us is if we explode, who will contain us? Let me also say this, I

know what I am saying now is an aside, I will go back to the elections. When weconducted the census in 2006 or so, the raw figures said we were over two hundred

million; when they went and processed the figures it came down to 140million.

When you look at those figures and compare to those we had in 1991 at a growthrate of 2.1 or something like that, it is really just an extrapolation, because we were

too embarrassed to admit our true numbers. If we get it wrong, we will fail likeSomalia; in Somalia, half of them are in Kenya, Ethiopia, and a few are in Europe

here and there; who will contain us in all of West Africa and Central Africa and forthat it is imperative not just for ourselves but for the rest of the continent that we

get it right.





Now, back to the elections, once that relationship has been established between the

governor and the REC, if you are a governor who is ‘A Governor’, maybe two nightsafter you just pop by at the governors lodge and see the REC and say ah, ‘ah REC

how are you doing? Are you OK?’ He says, ‘ah! Your Chief of Staff has beenwonderful. He has been very nice to me; he supplied me the vehicles and everything

is Ok’.A few weeks to the elections, the REC sees the governor; you probably have on theaverage about three thousand five hundred, four thousand depending on the polling

booths in every state. So, REC goes to the governor and says, ‘Your Excellency,

could you please give us the names of about four, five thousand people so that wecan hurriedly train them, we need them as Presiding Officers.’ You need experience.

A good coach is one who has played and has lost matches in the past?

The REC now goes down and says, ‘we need to conduct a training programme for thepresiding officers and em, headquarters hasn’t sent us any money yet, you know.’

And the governor is like: ‘How much would that cost?’

REC replies: ‘N25million for the first batch, we may have about three batches.’

Governor: ‘Ok, the Chief of Staff will see you.’ Now, the Chief of Staff, you call him: ‘Make sure, that we arrange N25 million thisweek and in two weeks time another N25 million and Seventy-Five million in all.’

Chief of Staff: ‘Your Excellency, how do we do it?’ Governor: ‘Put it under Security Vote.’

In other words, its cash, ok, now, cash in huge Ghana Must Go bags – some of my

colleagues will shoot me- (turns to the audience) is any former governor here?(Crowd replies no!)

Good. Cash is lodged in huge Ghana Must Go Bags for the REC and of course, to be

fair to them, they call their electoral officers and say the governor has been very

benevolent; he has given us this and that. I say three batches because they havethem in Senatorial districts. So, you have one in Calabar, you have One in Ikom and

Ogoja, those are the headquarters of the Senatorial districts. Each one costs twenty-five million. Of course, the sums are not properly retired. I don’t know how much of

this twenty-five million worked. But, there is a rapport this is going on.

The governor now turns round and says: ‘call me the party chairman.’ The party

chairman appears and the governor says: ‘INEC requires 50 thousand people forconducting the elections. See to it that we meet their needs.’ The chairman goes and

you hear in the evening on radio and television: There will be an urgent meeting of all chairmen and secretaries of XYZ party at the headquarters. They should report

promptly at 10am (because) matters of urgent interest will be discussed. End of announcement. Now we have texts messages, so its easier, in no time everyone is

here.

It’s a very short meeting, please go back and within 48 hours submit from each localgovernment two hundred and fifty names of trusted party members. So in a week

the deed is done. The names, sometimes even passport photographs if required aresent to INEC.

And the training programme is carried out. Let me pause a bit, this is at party level.

They are usually civil servants. They may be teachers, whatever, but they are party





members. The remuneration, for each of them for the elections from Abuja is 10,000Naira for the day’s work. But the state in its benevolence gives 50 to 100,000 Naira

to each of these folks right before this election.

This is even where it gets even more interesting. So, you have each of the three orfour thousand polling booths; they are manned by party stalwarts. They are usually

party stalwarts. You don’t send any peripheral member. The remuneration fromAbuja has not arrived but that of the state was received 48 hours prior.On the day of elections, each polling booth has no more than five hundred ballot

papers - that is standard.

There is not a polling booth that is more than five hundred. So only two hundred

people appear here, three hundred there, one hundred there, fifty there, fourhundred there, at the end of election what happens. The Presiding Officer sits down

and calls a few guys and says, ‘hey, there are a few hundred papers here, let’sthumbprint. This is the real election. Well, this is not a PDP thing. I am not here to

castigate the PDP; it’s a Nigerian thing. This process may sound comical and jovial, ithappens throughout the country, whether its Action Congress or APGA it’s the same

thing. We are all the same. They start thumb-printing, some are overzealous. So at

the end of the day you find some voting more than the number of people that wereregistered to vote.

Other wise they do it, you have 95 percent turnout. You start wondering where werethe voters, I didn’t see so many people. And the election results are announced; XYZ

party wins and it takes a week for this paltry ten thousand Naira for each presidingofficer to arrive.

Listen to this before you ask your question: Who is the most important person in anelection? – The presiding officer. And if there are a hundred and twenty thousand of

them (booths) there are a hundred and twenty thousand presiding officers, they arethe most important people in the elections, not the Chairman.

So, as long as we keep applying that same method, you will get the same results. Itscrazy to think that because you substitute Iwu for Jega all will change. In other

words, Iwu is a crook, Jega is a saint. Jega is great, he has an impeccablereputation. Iwu was great, now he seems not so great. Ok, they are both professors,

they have reached the peak of whatever discipline that they profess. The point isthat it is the system and the personnel and the chairman has little or no control over

that.

Where are we now, we don’t even know when the elections will be. The Constitution

amendment seems to be stalling somewhere. So it’s either in January or in April.Sometimes, we behave as if we invented democracy. We always want to draw new

rules. We should know the day of elections. It should be fixed. We should know thaton so and so date I think, America is the 4th of November or so and if it falls on a

Sunday it doesn’t make a difference. The point I am making here is that date isfixed, you know; because in a democracy, election should be a norm, not an event.

In our democracy, election is an event.

It’s like, we are going to spring on to you with fire works, hey, we are going to havean election, we are all running around- I know most politicians are broke right now,

so we are all running around the field.





Secondly, if you have your ears to the ground there, are whispers that may be, weneed to postpone this thing. The whispers are there. In a democracy, you postpone

an election? You postpone things you didn’t plan for, not things that are there in theConstitution, that says you must do this, that and that, you can’t but –you know two

ways of moving forward. This is where I like what SNG and CNP are doing.

We need a critical mass of Nigerians to get out and vote. It is important because themore ballot papers that are legitimately used on election day, the fewer available tobe used to rig the vote, that’s the truth. Don’t keep to yourself and think that they

will announce results. They are more sophisticated than that. And that’s why the

aspirants who felt cheated and had the resources to employ forensic personnel, likethose elections had the elections upturned in Edo and Ondo, because they could

establish multiple voting by thumbprint.

So, if it’s an AC state the procedure is the same. I remember a state, that state willremain nameless. I hear the story that the then President was so determined that he

must change the leadership of this state and he called the IG and said, ‘look, thatGovernor is a security breach. Let's have elections and flush the governor out, and

the governor knows he is under siege. A week before the elections, a new police

Commissioner arrives. And you know if you are a governor and a new PoliceCommissioner arrives before elections, you know something is wrong somewhereand he spends two, three days without going to see the governor, which is again a

breach of protocol. The day he decides to see the governor, the governor says, Iwon’t be at the office. However, if he gives him a particular address they may

discuss. Then the chap goes there and smartly salutes and it’s in a highbrowneighborhood of the city. (Shouts of Ikoyi rent the air.) ‘No! It’s Yobe!’ (The hall

explodes in loud laughter).

The Commissioner of Police walks up to the governor and smartly salutes and says: ‘Your Excellency, I just came to introduce myself. My name is Mr. So, so and so. And

the governor goes: ‘Ah, you are welcome. I heard you were here two or three days

ago and I was wondering whether I won’t see you. Anyway, you are welcome. Haveyou settled down?’ ‘Yes I’ve been given accommodation and all that. And the

governor asks, ‘where was your last posting?’ He tells him, he says fine.Governor: ‘That car over there, this is the key and this is your house.

The Commissioner of Police now says: ‘Your Excellency, this Obasanjo is a very bad

man. He is a very, very bad man. If you see all the things he has planned for you eh

Olorun maje.’

How do we move on? How do we get out of here? What I have done is I’ve triedgraphically to paint a picture of a process. How do we change this process?

One, I think, since we cannot change attitudes as quickly, we must ensure mass

participation. In an election where there is a very high turnout, the results areusually genuine. The most celebrated election in Nigeria, June 12, 1993 what

happened? People came out. The more people who come out to vote the fewer–theremay be mago, mago here and there but there wouldn’t be much in such a critical

manner to upset the will of the people. Beyond that, if you don’t vote in an election,you have no reason to criticize the government and I tell folks everywhere that guys,

I would say, I have lived my life. You guys have not and you are all criticizing Nigeriabut did you vote in the last election? Most of them say no then I say, you’ve lost the





moral right to criticize what the government does because you were not part of theprocess.

Is there a way out? I think there is. I think we need to employ technology. It's just a

suggestion and I want to share with you. I have said this in one or two fora and I’veheard people say it has not been done in America or the West why should we do it

here? I say they don’t have the attitude we have here. Necessity is the mother of invention. It is not necessary for us to do what I’m about to suggest.

For the purposes of this, 3455, this number is for a phone and that number is unique

to you and valid for that election or the set of elections. And each party has anumerical equivalent. AC could be 1, the PDP could be 5, the Labour Party could be

3, whatever. And on the date of elections you decide that your number even if youdon’t have a phone, you can go to a centre where they have a bank of phones and

once you put in your number 3455 it recognizes you, it cannot be duplicated. Its onlyyou that has that number and for that election on that date, once its used it cannot

be used by anyone else. Then you can do this one from your house or anywhere,and any time between the hours of 9-12. When it says which party, you say 3 or 4

whatever the number, they ask you, ‘are you sure you say Yes’. You press it then

you’ve voted. With that, I think we can conduct election but people say ah, it’s totechnological and I say, why do you always underestimate the people in the ruralareas? If you send them money this way, won’t they be able to cash it? Why is it

that when it is to conduct their civic responsibilities it becomes high tech? I knowthis country, I ran a state for eight years, I know the nooks and crannies of my

state. We are not the most enlightened of states in the country, but you see, I had adeal with MTN and Glo to ensure that every community in Cross River State has a

base station; for that I gave them sites free of charge; so, virtually every nook andcranny of Cross River has a base station. Even the most rural of places; even in

Bakassi when we still had control of it. And they all use it.

They still use it to call their folks in the urban centres to say send us money. Why is

that when it comes to civic responsibility it is high tech? Because the politicians don’twant to use it, that’s the truth.

I am not saying this is a perfect system, it can be fine-tuned, that will ensure that

within an hour or two every one has voted and the results are near perfect.Of course, once you design a system, there are those whose work is to un-design the

system. There are people like that and they work backwards. Once you have that we

also think the same way. How do we work backwards, where can this be faulted? Itcan be faulted in many ways. The service companies if you are able to break-through

the integrity of the system, you know, here and there; but I think we are going tothink outside the norm.

The point I’m trying to make is we have to think outside the box. I want to

commend the federal government, each time the government talks about elections,it keeps on talking about credible elections with brilliant sound bite. But it must go

beyond the sound bite and lets not kid ourselves, by thinking that by putting a Jegathere that all is well. With Jega there, all will be well if he is able to design along with

his team a system that is virtually fool proof. In other words, he himself mustunderstand the system of elections, he needs to know how it works and how its been

holding.

As I speak to you, we’ve not started voters’ registration. That exercise will take any





where from three to four months. It will take at least, ninety days to run through itscourse, another six weeks to tidy up before it is published; lets not kid ourselves.

You can have elections anytime, but you can’t have credible elections in January. So,for those thinking we can have elections in January, I think we have to rethink the

process; we cannot have credible elections in January. We may have elections but itmay not be credible. Where are we? We need to get out of these holes; we need to

traverse the length and breath of this country. We need to recruit an army of peoplemay be 5, 000 in each state, two hundred young men and women who will reach our(people), give each of them a task to ensure that he registers at least a hundred

person. That alone, will bring twenty million people into the fold. This is what they

did in the Obama election.

Fortunately, I was monitoring the Obama election, whether you attain voting age ornot, you are able to send text and move around and get people to vote. It's one

thing to register, some folk tell me, ‘how can I go to line up for hours to vote for thisperson’. This is again what pastor Bakare was talking about, if people are not excited

about the candidates they will not come out. ‘Look at the four people running, theyare all clowns. I’ m going to watch television; I’m not going to vote because either

way a clown is going to win’.

So, we have to get involved in the process. We can’t all run for offices, we allcan’t. ...”

End.


Playing Games With the 2011 Elections - Reuben Abati 260710

Documents

Transcript of Playing Games With the 2011 Elections - Reuben Abati 260710