Vanguard of January 28, 2008
reported a certain Comrade John Odah of the Nigerian Labour Congress as calling
for the resignation of Maurice Iwu as the Chair of INEC. Fine, Mr. Odah is a
Nigerian and therefore entitled to public airing of his opinion on any national
issue. But when such national issue involves the ongoing debate on the reform of
Nigeria’s electoral systems and institutions, Mr Odah is no longer entitled to
an unfettered expression of his opinion, and even so publicly. He is however
free to hold such opinion privately and to express it to the hilt but only
within the boundaries of the privileged deliberations of the Electoral Reform
Committee (ERC).
The ERC is still working on the
important task of giving the nation a new electoral regime that will improve on
the gains of the very difficult 2007 general elections and strengthen the
institutions and laws for conducting future elections in the country. Under the
universal rules governing public conduct and utterances of those who serve on
such committees, members are seen as quasi-public officers even though of an
ad-hoc tenure, and thus barred from making public utterances that might have the
appearance of pre-empting the work of the committee or jumping the gun to go
beyond the letters of reference establishing the committee. Anybody who read the
letters of reference for the committee will agree that Professor Maurice Iwu’s
tenure as INEC Chair is not one of them. Therefore, Mr. Odah went beyond the
express scope of the ERC when he took words out of the mouths of the NLC and
called for Maurice Iwu’s resignation or sack. The NLC can push for such if it so
wishes, but Mr. Odah, regardless of his position as General Secretary of NLC
must not be part of such call for as long as he continues to serve in the ERC.
Other than calling for Iwu’s resignation which carries a veiled threat to
President Yar’Adua’s tenure as well, Mr. Odah should himself resign forthwith
from the ERC; otherwise other members of the committee which have been
embarrassed by his irresponsible behavior and inflammatory public remarks might
demand and compel his resignation or it might even get to a point where
President Yar’Adua will have no other choice than to fire Mr. Odah to pave way
for a more responsible labor leader to be appointed to the ERC to represent the
Nigerian Labor Congress.
To be sure, Mr Odah was
appointed by President Yar’Adua, who is in office on an election and result
declared by Professor Maurice Iwu. That means that by calling for Iwu’s sack,
Mr. Odah is also questioning the legitimacy of the very President Yar’Adua who
appointed him to the ERC. And taken further, Mr. Odah should know that
instigating the NLC to push for Iwu’s sack will not look credible unless he also
simultaneously pushes for President Yar’Adua’s resignation. So, one must assume
that the real and ultimate target of this latest attack from Mr. Odah is
President Yar’Adua because it is conceivable that once Mr. Odah is finished with
his threat to lead a charge to hound Iwu out of office, his attention will then
be directed to President Yar’Adua whose tenure was established by an election
and result declared by the same Maurice Iwu and the conduct of which Mr. Odah
wants Iwu’s head to roll. Whether Mr. Odah will then be patient enough to push
for President Yar’Adua’s sack by peaceful means or resort to suggesting some
other extra-constitutional means to accomplish his task remains to be seen. But
while Mr. Odah is at it, he should be told in clear terms by all who mean
Nigeria well that the reckless and veiled threats he loves to make are matters
that border on the national security of Nigeria. Maurice Iwu is just one factor,
but President Yar’Adua’s tenure as a consequence of the crucial 2007 general
elections is central to the national security and stability of the Federation of
Nigeria.
The ERC exists solely for the
broad and national purpose of making recommendations to reform the electoral
systems and institutions of the whole of Nigeria, and not that of Edo State
alone where the AC’s loss of the governorship still makes Mr. Odah as mad as
hell. So, for as long as Mr. Odah continues to dwell on the singular politics of
Edo state and what he may have lost there, he will be failing in his important
and broader national assignment as a member of ERC. No meaningful contribution
can be expected from a man who is so embittered and partisan to the point of
continually occupying his committee down-time with some desperate efforts to
hold brief for the AC and entertains himself with the same old wives’ tales of
fantasying on Maurice Iwu’s sack. It must be noted that Mr. Odah’s efforts are
merely futile because the AC can hold its own and properly press its case at the
tribunal or the courts of public opinion. The AC has its own capable partisans
and apparatchiks and so does not need a busy and desperate labor leader-for-sale
like Mr. Odah to make a public case against Iwu. The ERC should not be converted
to a forum for partisan brinkmanship or Iwu/Yar’Adua-bashing by those who
continue to engage in the crazy notion that Maurice Iwu alone should bear all
the blames for all the electoral woes that have betide Nigeria since its
founding.
The primary duty of a labor
leader in the caliber of Mr. Odah is to occupy his time with finding lasting
solutions to the myriad issues confronting the Nigerian working man if he is
reluctant to take his present assignment seriously and hanker down to quietly
working out a fine boilerplate for conducting the nation’s future elections. He
should not lend himself as a tool for politicians with all sorts of dubious
intentions because doing so will be to the larger detriment of the non-partisan
labor he represents. Thus, if Mr. Odah has had it and he no longer wishes to
represent labor in the ERC because he now wishes to be a revenge-seeking
politician, he should do the honorable thing by resigning his leadership of the
Nigerian Labor Congress and dive into the murky waters of partisan politics to
his heart’s content. Nigerians will not allow him free reign to use the Nigerian
Labor Congress as sword to threaten those he regards as his political opponents
or a shield to protect himself when he engages in unwarranted and malicious
aggression against Nigeria’s institutions and those charged with the difficult
task of overseeing them.
It is pertinent to note that
this is not the first time Mr. Odah has allowed himself to be swayed by naked
partisanship. It was reported then that no sooner was he appointed to the ERC
than he canvassed the bizarre idea that INEC be disbanded and replaced by the
ERC as the new body that will conduct future elections in the country. He was
then laughed off as merely lacking in proper knowledge of Nigeria’s
constitutional system. It is now clear that Mr. Odah still does not understand
that INEC and its chairmanship is a creation of the constitution and the ERC in
which he serves is not but was created merely at the pleasure of a President
that means Nigeria well, if not with Professor Iwu’s blessing as well. Thus, for
entertaining such fancy ideas of hounding people out of office, Mr. Odah
immediately comes across as someone who is limited in his understanding of the
ad-hoc nature of the ERC or the role he has so graciously been invited to play
in it. In other words, Mr. Odah has shown that he lacks the requisite character,
fitness and temperament to serve as a member of such an important committee.
Thus, if he does not resign, President Yar’Adua should see fit to fire him with
immediate effect if the committee proves unwilling to demand his purge from its
ranks. The least that Mr. Odah can expect out of his recent outbursts is an
official query to show cause why he should not be removed from the ranks of the
ERC forthwith.
Mr. Odah cannot defend himself
by any wild claim that he was merely restating the position of NLC. Eve if it
can be argued that NLC is free to take a stand either for or against Maurice Iwu
or President Yar’Adua or the 2007 presidential election, Mr. Odah is supposed to
recuse himself from any proceeding where such resolution is carried because not
doing so will clearly mark him out as partisan, irresponsible and dangerously
pre-emptive of an issue that is still receiving attention in a committee he
serves as a member. It is much like the law courts where a pending matter admits
of no public opinionating because it is subjudice. Anything contrary is
immediately deemed pre-emptive of ongoing proceedings and is therefore
sanctionable. As a former Chief Justice, an experienced Justice Uwais, who
chairs the ERC can be trusted to know what to do to protect the sanctity and
integrity of the proceedings of the ERC from any member who believes he can get
away with such unbridled contemptuous conduct. That Mr. Odah went as far as
interjecting scathing statements of his own means that he is no longer
interested in serving the overall interests of Nigerians as a member of the ERC
but is now engaged in a mindless political campaign and mean-spirited
personality attacks of his own.
Analogies can be drawn to so
many others from the civil society, labor or judiciary who serve in this
government either as members of some committee or as ministers or the like. Let
us take AGF Andoakaa for instance. If for any reason, the Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) of which Andoakaa is a member wishes to rise against Chairman
Iwu or President Yar’Adua, AGF Andoakaa, though a member of the NBA will not be
the one reading the resolution, not to talk of adding additional remarks of his
own. As a member of the ERC, Mr. Odah is a quasi-public officer for as long as
the ERC sits, and thus should exercise restraint or do what all conscientious
persons do by resigning if he disagrees with those under whom he serves instead
of staying put to continue to embarrass himself and the Nigerian labor which he
purports to represent.
Attorney Aloy Ejimakor is of Law Group,
Washington DC.
alloylaw@yahoo.com
