Some state actors’ utterances on Tinubu’s inauguration: where are our professional ethics & integrity?
By Godson O. Moneke
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Petitions against the last presidential election DECLARATION are ongoing at the PEPC sitting in Abuja. It is also common knowledge that at least three different suits are at the various federal high courts and even the Supreme Court seeking to stop the inauguration of the president-elect as the new president of Nigeria come Monday 29th May, 2023. Nigeria runs a constitutional democracy anchored on the RULE OF LAW as its CENTER PIECE.
This being the case, by the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the inauguration will be held provided that the courts do not rule otherwise. Lessons should be learned that it was Justice Ikpeme that declared the 1993 presidential election ILLEGAL setting the stage for its ANNULMENT by the then military leadership. All attempts by people who felt alarmed at Justice Ikpeme’s mid-night judgement to override it based on its ‘unreasonableness’ came to naught. People should also not lose sight of the fact that it was Justice Dolapo Akinsanya of the Lagos state high court that declared the ‘INTERIM GOVERNMENT’ led by Mr. Ernest Shonekan illegal paving the way for the General Sani Abacha led military government to assume the mantle of leadership in Nigeria.
It was because of Justice Akinsanya’s judgement that the then federal government withdrew jurisdiction on matters like that from State High Courts and vests them on the federal high courts as the first courts of RECORDS. A cardinal principle of democracy is that a judgment of court, no matter how unpalatable must be obeyed until set aside by a superior court. People, especially state actors, are also advised to refrain from issuing SUBTLE THREATS to the COURTS in matters before them through RECKLESS UTTERANCES. State actors, especially heads of Security Agencies, are PROFESSIONALS in their own rights and should be careful about what comes out of their mouths because they are SERVANTS OF THE STATE, NOT THE GOVERNMENT IN POWER. Because they are professionals, they should conduct themselves within the bounds of PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND INTEGRITY.
I say the above because, I am alarmed at the UNGUARDED UTTERANCES of some heads of otherwise respected SECURITY AGENCIES on the question of the INAUGURATION OR OTHERWISE OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT ON MONDAY 29TH MAY, 2023. The Security Agencies should be on STANDBY and ready to perform their statutory state duties to the extent allowed by the constitution and the law on that day. It is beyond their CALL OF DUTY for any of them to issue a press statement or make a CATEGORICAL THAT THE INAUGURATION MUST GO AHEAD ON THAT DAY without the necessary CAVEAT OR PROVISO or that no court of law can stop the inauguration slated for 29th May, 2023.
It is an unnecessary braggadocio which smacks of INDISCIPLINE AND LACK OF CONTROL and it is unfortunate. There is a limit to EYE-SERVICE for which people who because they are seeking for political appointments, genuflect before their benefactors or new kids on the block. People holding leadership positions in security agencies should know where to draw the lines because they are there to defend the constitution as they hold their positions in trust for the Nigerian people. The position of the president of Nigeria is a very important one which demands utmost circumspection in the choice of its occupant. The impression must not be created that it is available to the highest bidder or the smartest schemer.
No election anywhere is perfect but that is not an excuse for INEC to impose a caricature in the name of an election on Nigerian people. Electoral credibility is sine qua non to constitutional democracy and robbing an election of its credibility is akin to robbing salt of its taste. It is shameful for INEC to deny in sworn affidavits, solemn promises it publicly made to Nigerians in both electronic and printed forms. When INEC cannot resist the temptation of descending into the arena of conflict on behalf of one party to the contest for which it acts as the umpire and resorts to direct opposition to the other parties, it is shameful.
When INEC cannot display its NEUTRALITY for all to see then, we are in trouble. INEC is a NOMINAL PARTY IN ANY ELECTORAL DISPUTE; it must not be seen or suspected of being siding with one of the parties in a contest for which it stands as the referee. It should not take Nigerians for granted by behaving otherwise and showing partiality mindful of the fact that the money it used to conduct the election belongs to everybody including the parties to the electoral petitions without exception. As such, it has no right to use public money to defend the INTERESTS OF ONE OF THE PARTIES ONLY. That amounts to masking fraud in a scent of good fragrance. It cannot make a fraud any less a fraud.
The SGF-led Transition Committee is on course to discharge its mandate but it should do well to avoid unnecessary publicity since it is not in its place to determine the SHAPE OF THE INAUGURATION which is before the courts. It is needless grandstanding and eye service for the SGF to make such unguarded statements. This inauguration is very different from previous ones because this one involves a lot of constitutional issues which bother on the qualifications of candidates to stand for the election, perjury and the issue of 25% requirement for the FCT as adumbrated in my previous write-ups.
These were not issues before the courts in the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari cases in previous presidential elections. So, anybody who tries to draw a nexus and similarities between this one and the past four is being DISINGENUOUS. I had argued that the court is well placed to rule on aspects of the petitions where witnesses are not required once documentary evidence would suffice. I believe that issues such as the 25% requirement in FCT, which has aroused tremendous interest, Double Nomination and Perjury do not require a lengthy time to decide and should better be done by the court before INAUGURATION DATE.
The allowed adjudication period of 180 days was relevant when the election was TOTALLY MANUAL but now that the election is LARGELY ELECTRONIC, I do not expect the period to be more than 12weeks or 84days because it does not have to call as many witnesses which normally takes a lot of time. Therefore, I expect all the judicial processes to be completed before 29th May including the Supreme Court judgment on the matter. I recommend that PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SHOULD BE HELD NOT LATER THAN 5 MONTHS BEFORE THE INAUGURATION OF THE NEW PRESIDENT AND ALL ELECTION PETITIONS MUST BE DECIDED NOT LATER THAN TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE INAUGURATION OF THE NEW PRESIDENT.
The courts have to ABRIDGE THE PROCESSES. As I have always argued, it would be a grave injustice to inaugurate a president-elect when both the legality and the constitutionality of his election are still being challenged in the relevant court. This is responsible for the tardy performance of INEC in discharging its responsibilities to all STAKEHOLDERS, always thinking that it can get with anything including perversion of justice.
It is very audacious and brazen for anybody not the least a top official of the executive branch of government to thunder that NO COURT IN NIGERIA WOULD STOP THE INAUGURATION OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT ON THE 29TH MAY, 2023. Nigeria runs a presidential system of government comprising three branches at the federal level. The three branches are co-equal and independent. The judiciary is the branch charged with interpreting the laws and the constitution as well as adjudicating disputes among all branches of government, citizens and governments, tiers of government, citizens and citizens, non-citizens alike and all matters in which it has jurisdiction. That being the case, it is impudent for an appointee of the executive branch to speak so contemptuously and dismissively of the constitutional role of the judiciary in our democracy because he wants to be seen as contributing to the success of the president-elect and curry his favor no matter how flawed his election is adjudged to be.
It is important to let people in government know that until the current president hands over to a successor, he remains the president of Nigeria. Nobody should attempt to stampede him before the effluxion of his legal and constitutional tenure. Lessons should have been learned from the sycophantic practice of a terminated IGP who threw discretion to the winds and shifted loyalty and protocols to the then president-elect as soon as he was announced to the shock of the sitting president. It is not surprising that in trying to be in the good books of the president-elect, some political appointees of both the State and government are falling over themselves and issuing out unauthorized irresponsible and reckless statements.
In the judgment recently delivered on the Adeleke vs. Oyetola case, the Supreme Court stated that the Voters Register and BVAS are the only primary sources of voter’s data and information in any election. Whilst the voters register provides information on the population of registered voters for any election, BVAS provides the Sample of voters accredited to vote in a particular election.
Therefore, the information on those who are accredited to vote in the presidential election of February 25, 2023 can only be obtained from BVAS because a voter cannot vote unless accredited by BVAS. If INEC says that the information on the presidential election is no longer available on BVAS, it means that the information which it released on the last presidential election was CONCOCTED AND UNRELIABLE because the data was not obtained from ACCREDITED VOTERS WHO VOTED ON THE 25TH FEBRUARY, 2023.
It would be recalled that INEC had given both the court and the petitioners an undertaking that the RECONFIGURATION OF BVAS for the state elections of March 18, 2023 would not affect the information on the presidential election. If the courts find out that INEC deceived it and compromised the only source of information on accredited voters, it should not only NULLIFY the election but punish INEC for the brazen infraction. Now is the time for INEC to live its words and stop acting irresponsibly. INEC should not be allowed to take Nigerians for a ride. Any act of omission on the part of INEC should be resolved against it. INEC should act as a truthful organization.
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The propensities and predilections of Nigerian leaders to lie to the citizens are very worrisome. If they are not lying that they have distributed billions of Naira in cash to millions of needy Nigerians in less than 48hours, they are making endless promises about a magical Nigeria Air and spending billions of taxpayers’ money on what they know is a phantom project. Why would a government which has less than two weeks to the end of its tenure bent on securing an external loan of $800 million to spend on cash gifts it calls FUEL SUBSIDY PALLIATIVES rather than investing the loan in REGENERATIVE PROJECTS?
Why would Nigerian government be obsessed with giving unaccounted cash gifts and transfers to the so-called VULNERABLE NIGERIANS? What kind of ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT MODEL would warrant a government injecting over N21 Trillion into the economy by WAYS AND MEANS? What ECONOMIC PARAMETERS informed such a BIZARRE DECISION similar to folktales we read about a MINDLESS Idi Amin of Uganda? What happened to the monies purportedly recovered from CORRUPT POLITICIANS AND PROCUREMENT PROBE? Where they MISAPPROPRIATED and unaccounted for?
What happened to the billions of naira recovered from the legendary ABACHA LOOTS? Nigeria is an EMERGING MARKET which under normal circumstances should be witnessing economic growth like similar markets all over the world like CHINA, INDIA, ASIAN TIGERS, ETC. Why is it that the RUSSIAN ECONOMY is able to absorb the severe Western Sanctions against it on account of the UKRAINE WAR without BURSTING OR MELTING DOWN? Our political leaders are eager to compare Nigerian economic growth with growths witnessed in SATURATED AND HEAVILY INDUSTRIALIZED ECONOMIES OF EUROPE AND AMERICA which are almost approaching their POINTS OF INFLECTION in economic growth model instead of comparing our economy with similar EMERGING ECONOMIES around the world?
Our political leaders pay lip service to legacies. Rather, they prefer PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION OF UNEARNED OR STOLEN WEALTH. They are averse to doing the correct thing and embrace INSINCERITY like their skin and second nature. That is why INEC is proud to defend the HEIST it UNLEASHED on Nigerians in the name of elections. In saner jurisdictions, INEC should be hiding its face in shame but not so in Nigeria where anything goes. Nobody has bothered to compare the amount of money spent by this government, including the numerous unprecedented loans it obtained with the VALUE-FOR-MONEY ACHIEVED to satisfy him that the money has been wisely spent.
Nigeria is one of the MOST INDEBTED COUNTRIES OF HER TYPE IN THE WORLD. It is fraudulent to compare ECONOMIC GROWTHS in the US, Canada and Europe with Nigeria because they are almost self-sufficient, productive and net exporting countries unlike Nigeria. Why would our political leaders make dubious comparisons? This government is celebrating its end of two tenures in office during which period it has pushed more Nigerians into POVERTY than it met in 2015. It is leaving Nigerians with the most contentious and controversial election in history yet it is celebrating its tenures.
To the average Nigerian, Nigeria is a poor country but not where our political leaders are personally involved because they spend public money on themselves as if it is going out of circulation. This government told us in 2014 when it was campaigning to be voted into office that the idea of FUEL SUBSIDY WAS A FRAUD, yet it paid fuel subsidies throughout its eight years in office. When this government came into office in 2015, the daily consumption of fuel was about 35 million liters which it told us was on the high side, yet under its watch the daily consumption snowballed to about 65 million liters on which it paid subsidies.
Therefore, this government paid more money in fuel subsidies than any government before it. In spite of this, Nigerians pay more for fuel today than during previous governments. Oil theft grew to an unprecedented level under this government yet; the president made himself, the oil minister. Yes, there were pockets of infrastructure built by this government but at what costs? The value of naira against international currencies has depreciated under this government than at any time in history, yet this government is celebrating its end of tenure.
What kind of mindlessness and cruelty is that? It is on records that this government which promised us EL DORADO n 2014 never built a single refinery in Nigeria throughout its eight-year tenure and it is rather embracing Dangote’s private initiatives in refining as its achievements. Shameful!!! Isn’t it? Let the right thing be done because that is the template that ensures development for other countries, we now envy.
