HOW MAURICE IWU SAVED NIGERIA FROM BEING ANOTHER KENYA
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By: Ugo Harris Ukandu, Washington DC
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Election is a
necessity for every democratic country because it is the only fair way for
making a clear choice between two or more competing opponents for public office.
But in Africa, we seem to be falling for an international conspiracy (in
collaboration with a few selfish African leaders) to perpetuate the long-term
aims of slavery and colonialism to divide and conquer Africans by tribe, creed,
ethnicity, religion and a ‘we-versus-them’ mentality. In every African election,
there is hardly a loser willing to concede victory to the opponent. Every loser
begins to believe that he won once the so-called international election
observers and monitors begin their usual mantra of casting aspersions on the
conduct of the election and the electoral umpire. These are the same observers
and monitors who prefer to stay in five-star hotels in African capitals and give
opinion and recite numbers on election preparations and results in rural areas
of Africa, and purvey wild statements that incite a nation against herself.
It is time to curb these activities, especially when these monitors/observers do
not know much about the local political or electoral dynamics of the African
locale. International organizations and other countries are welcomed to partner
in elections conducted in Africa if they come with the purpose of sincere
collaboration in advancing our democracy without threatening our stability. But
in any case, such as in Kenya where the foreign observers usurped the powers and
roles of national electoral umpires, Africans are supposed to summon the courage
to tell them off like Professor Maurice Iwu did before they go too far. Kenya
capitulated to excessive foreign interference and is now paying the ultimate
price for it.
In both Nigeria and Kenya, the EU offered some money, demanded pride of place at
meetings of national electoral umpires and wanted unchecked access to the
biometric data on all registered voters. In Nigeria, a patriotic Maurice Iwu and
a confident INEC refused the EU money and the demands based on sound national
security considerations. And this was the point when the EU at once began a
sustained international and local campaign of discrediting the Nigerian election
and INEC leadership. This sowed discord among the citizens of Nigeria, the
political parties and the contestants for office. Added to this were the other
problems Nigeria already had to deal with such as the militancy in the Niger
Delta as well as some in Kano and Yobe states. But Nigeria was to overcome
because Maurice Iwu refused to play wimp like his Kenyan counterpart, who has
become notorious for allowing foreigners too much leeway and now seems unwilling
to defend the result he declared.
INEC and Nigerian authorities did a very good job in saving Nigeria another sad
story in our history. Today INEC and Dr. Maurice Iwu have been vindicated when
you look at what is happening to Kenya primarily because the Electoral
Commission of Kenya (ECK) accepted the controversial demands Maurice Iwu had
rejected and thus paved the way for a situation that has made the foreign
observers the ultimate electoral umpires for a sovereign and stable nation like
Kenyan. For some peanuts and poor handling of her national security, Kenyan now
has to deal being turned against itself and for the first time in its
post-colonial history. Now with more than 700 people killed by mob and more than
three hundred thousand people displaced and turned to refugees, the same
two-faced EU is still on hand to help settle the problem they fueled. This has
become the lot of Africans every election time, except for Nigeria which,
through Maurice Iwu’s eyes, saw Kenya and rejected it before it happened.
According to a recent report by Reuters of January 17, 2008 on aid to Kenya:
“European Union should freeze all aid to the Kenyan government until the crisis
over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election is solved, members of the
European Parliament have said. The lawmakers, who criticized the EU executive
for disbursing 40.6 million euros ($NZ78.24 million) of aid a day after the
election, said the result was not credible and called for a fresh vote if a fair
recount was not possible. The European Parliament asks for the freezing of all
further budgetary support to the government of Kenya until a political
resolution to the present crisis has been found. The disputed election has
dented Kenya's democratic credentials and rattled donors. Post-election turmoil,
in which hundreds have been killed, has hit Kenya's economy as well as supplies
to east and central African neighbors. Although its aid is limited compared with
what it gives poorer African countries, the EU is one of Kenya's top donors,
providing 290 million euros between 2002 and 2007…...” unquote
As an African, I am sick and tired of the problems and havoc election has caused
Africans simply because we take some aids and economic assistance that don’t
mean much to our overall national development. Nigeria has matured to a point
where we must reject any attempt to dictate impossible electoral values to us
just because of some small foreign grants we can afford from a day’s oil
royalties. As a people, we have had our fair share of foreign-instigated
conflicts during our infancy as a nation and we can ill-afford such conflicts in
our present state of national maturity. In 1966, my father, my family, uncles,
relatives and thousands of my people and other tribes were butchered in Northern
Nigeria during and after an election which led to two bloody coups in rapid
succession. My heritage and faith as a person born in Northern Nigeria was
totally destroyed. Evidence is legion that another major part of the reason why
these had to happen was because we had easily accepted the overbearing
interference and influence of the British in our domestic politics and their
instigation of bitter tribal politics in what was supposed to be a healthy
contest amongst African brothers that happen to speak different languages. A
repeat could have occurred in 2007 if Maurice Iwu had not been around to ensure
that the transition took place despite all the international and domestic
conspiracies to scuttle it.
Thus, looking at Kenya, and how Maurice Iwu saved the day in Nigeria, these
questions arise in my mind: Does election or democracy really matter for
Africans, given that both are creating more and more problems for us? Is there
any other alternative for selecting our leaders in Africa in the face of this
mindset from the West that African elections are not credible? Are we being
herded to a corner where we can no longer be confident of our hard-won
sovereignty and then go wholesale to invite our former colonial masters back to
conduct elections for us? Is there no way we can have some sort of a tenured
electoral umpire (one that has delivered on a transition election) at times like
this when our nation is still in democratic transition?
While considering these questions, we must first deal with the problems which
are already identified as constituting some of the drag that has bedeviled our
difficult match to democracy. We must begin with the role of foreign election
monitors, especially the EU genre, which all together must be told clearly where
their role begins and ends. Their combined influence on local electoral
logistics must be curbed, otherwise we may fall into the situation that led to
the problem in Kenya where these foreign observers/monitors arrogated the powers
and reach of the national electoral umpires to themselves and began to call the
shots as though they are the final arbiters of all elections held in Africa, and
thereby undermining the local constitution and authorities. Election is one of
the most important and true tests of a nation’s sovereignty and coming of age,
and therefore any nation perceived as wobbling on delivering on her national
elections courts the disrespect and overlordship of other nations.
When these observers/monitors discredit the election authorities working under
the difficult conditions of over-heated transitions, it becomes humanly
impossible for the natives or ordinary people to respect the law and order in
place, if not the election outcome as well. How can you expect your citizens to
respect poll results declared by electoral umpires that have already been
discredited by all manners of foreigners with doubtful intentions towards your
country? No election is perfect and also cannot be expected to reflect values
foreign to the locale where it is conducted. The Europeans learned from their
mistakes and so, they should encourage Africans to learn from their own mistakes
as well. Disparagement or reckless assessments intended to isolate the electoral
leadership will never cut it.
Part of the effort therefore is to encourage aggressive information management
on the part of African governments of the day to counter any negative
misinformation that attempts to discredit our electoral umpires and the
institutions we have in place at the given point in time. Lessons can be learned
from India, Taiwan, South Africa, and other emerging democracies which have done
well at countering negative press and succeeded in projecting an acceptable
level of some electoral purity. And most importantly, we must understand that
electoral tribunals (and judgments issuing from them) are part of the overall
process of all elections even in advanced democracies. Therefore, we must
refrain from this infantile tendency to celebrate yet another nullification of
an election as further proof of how rotten our elections are. In our system of
phased electoral process, INEC is merely the agency of original jurisdiction
(much like a trial court with original jurisdiction), with finality of election
outcomes residing with the tribunals and other higher courts. Thus, it will not
be fair to call for resignation of an INEC boss merely because a result he
declared had been overturned without also calling for the mass resignation of
all trial judges whose judgments are overturned on appeal.
Ugo Harris Ukandu is of Nigeria Democracy and Justice Project, Washington, DC.
abujarock@yahoo.com
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