Olufemi Aduwo is President, Rights Monitoring Group (RMG) and Country Director/CEO, Centre for Convention on Democratic Integrity Inc (CCDI), United States. He speaks with TOPE FAYEHUN on possible challenges shead of the forthcoming general elections
Barely 30 days to the forthcoming general elections, how do you assess the role played so far by NGOs and CSOs in terms of advocacy and public enlightenment?
There are many NGOs involved in election and electoral process in terms of voter education and enlightenment, and to the best of my knowledge many of them that are working with INEC have really embarked on electoral process in terms of voter education.
Take for example, at RNG and CCDI, we embarked on two or three days enlightenment in Oyo about two months ago.
On the issue of voter education,nI think to the best of my knowledge they have done so much well. But at the same time all these things we are talking about involves resources. One of the major constraints of NGOs in Nigeria is purely funding. How many of the NGOs have access to the foreign donations and funding? That is the problem. Unlike if you have an NGO now in America, it is just to go through the fund raiser, you will not even be the one to go and meet the organisation. That was the reason people like me two years ago supported the idea of registration and control of the NGOs in Nigeria which a lot people went against.
If NGOs are being monitored like churches what it means is that in that particular law you are allowed to access fund from big companies. Take for example, as a company you want to pay your tax to the federal government so you give RNG, let’s say about N500 million, it becomes tax free that is how the NGOs in America raise money. But when the issue was raised here, churches raised an eye brow.
On Monday in Lagos, a church organised a kind of debate for presidential candidates, that is fantastic. This and many other things we want them to do if funding is not forthcoming, and like I said those NGOs that are involved in election observation are less than 200 and serious ones are less than 10. So, to the best of their own capacity and ability they are trying.
You talked about having access to international donors and funding, is it that the government has put on some measures whereby they don’t have access to those funding?
I remember some years ago, some of the NGOs were being questioned by the EFCC on how they got funds. Today, in Nigeria even when you have some extra N30 or N40 million in your account some banks will call you for clarification. So, with that fear and if you are not a pro- government then you may keep asking a lot of questions. Are we not seeing in Nigeria where a lawyer collected a fee for his legal work and is being arraigned today in court? The NBA chairman collected money for his legal fee and there is no law against that but he is being arraigned. But there are also some where some NGOs allegedly divert funds. Some of them got money from the foreign donors and diverted it. Hence, the foreign donors too are even afraid to send money to NGOs in Nigeria because of this.
One challenge some of these NGOs are having especially foreign ones is undue interference in the international affairs of host nations just like about a month ago, the army moved against amnesty international over alleged interference. How do you react to that?
My NGO, Center For Convention On Democratic Integrity, by the grace of God we were accredited by UN with status two years ago which allows us to deplore five Nigerians to the UN office in Geneva, New york and in Vienna. So, we work with UN, and what happened between amnesty and the army has to do with lack of communication because there is no way army will tackle insurgency without casualties; once in a while you are going to have some casualties. It is normal, it happens. Check the America and Iraq war.
Today in the Northeast, in Maiduguri do you know you have more than 200 foreign and local NGOs? Some become billionaires overnight, getting money from donors and they are building houses.
I think the issue is we are not getting it right, army may not do what they ought to do by opening up to people; take some of these NGOs along, we want to see your challenges and then if you are a foreign organisation, you don’t just come and raise alarm. If you are dealing with Boko Haram, you don’t just come and raise alarm that Nigerian army are killing hundreds of civilians because some of these Boko Haram insurgents we are talking about are residing in town in Borno state, not all of them are in the bush. There is no way you do some of these things without casualties but it can be managed.
Elections are just about a month from now, how do you see the atmosphere?
As of today, we have a system where by in pre-election period many have been killed . So, we already have a pre-election crisis. For instance in Lagos last week, during the APC rally, some people killed. Today in the country, we saw what happened during the primaries in some states.
So, during election, nobody will tell you that there won’t be crisis. How to manage it is the problem. So, if somebody tells you that there is going to be a free and fair election without crisis, you have to think twice. If today in America they don’t do election without crises, and now we are talking about power change, it shows that there can be crisis; how to manage it is the question because in the ruling party itself there is a lot of inbuilt crisis. And one thing I believe we will see in this election is that we should be prepared for a lot of inconclusive elections. A,winner will not emerge in the first balloting. I’m not a prophet but because it has become a pattern of this INEC that elections are inconclusive. So, when you are going to do election of a state, you have inconclusive election; so we have to watch against that because when we have an inconclusive election it gives government the power to manipulate.
Read Also:
How do you access the preparation of INEC for the forthcoming polls?
If I tell you one thing you will be shocked. INEC cannot rig election without the backing of the military and the police. People that can manipulate the system are purely the police, we have heard what happened in Osun state those people that carried gun during the primary election in Osun army cannot stop them where were the police? In Ekiti we saw where police were the ones giving out money on the day of election, what do they do? There is a lacuna in the electoral law, electoral law says only presiding officers have the right to command police to arrest somebody, detain and taking him away at a polling unit. How many of these corps members who have the boldness to say look, Mr A and B you have to leave this place or police will arrest you, he will not do that and even when you arrest, how many of them have you seen put on trial and jailed?
The issue is very simple, some of these police guys you see there somebody you posted from Maiduguri to Ondostate for election purpose he arrest hand over to the DPO when they are going to court he has to be invited to come and be witness who will pay for his transport? That is why you never see any persecution of electoral kind of crisis. So if police and army can do their jobs we will have a free and fair election in Nigeria.
INEC Chairman recently said that the 2019 election resource will be transmitted mannually. how do you react to that?
You see I remember one of the commissioners said some months ago thatelectronica transfer incidental forms will not be used and later on it will be used since the so called card reader it is unknown to the law today. If anybody come there and there is a kind of registered vote, you saw the name and the machine cannot capture, what are you going to do? So sometimes INEC is giving a kind of conflict information and up till today we are hearing guidelines upon guidelines, this could have been resolve long time ago. We are hearing guidelines upon guidelines and people are afraid of these guidelines. INEC should not wait a year to the election for preparation the job of INEC for the past three years is to put their house in order. Apart from the fact that the president is yet to sign electoral bill i just remember a month ago, a commissioner in INEC said we will not use data form and Chairman came and make another statement so the issue of not signing the electoral law is entirely only God knows why they are presiding but everybody believe if that law was signed it could bring a lot of sanity in the system and then the so called the ECOWAS protocol we are trying to observe is either here or there because if we are going to observe ECOWAS protocol are not in this country when the ECOWAS court gave Dasuki bill did Buhari observe that? Is very bad and it could have been in their own benefit because he said if there is anything he want to leave behind as legacy is free and fair election but look at your body language does it show that president believe in free and fair election. We saw what happened in Ekiti and Osun is not about the issue of talking but action. I was a board member of INEC in 2010, I did Anambra election and Jonathan made sure Obi Obi election was not tampered with but today what are we seeing? Under Jonathan, opposition won more than 3 governorship election today what are we seeing? And the body language of the ruling party did not really show that they want to work towards free and fair election that is my comment until they change.
INEC has said they are going to work with efcc to monitor campaign funding. how do you react to this?
We should not go there it is irrelevant. As of today, for the past two months in our office we have four televisions and all what they monitor is advertisement in newspapers, radio and television. As of today none of these parties who have not spent more than what the laws says. Take for example, like Buhari, your ticket was bought by unknown people N45 million, we went to CAC to go and search is unknown to the law, why should you allow people you don’t know where they get their money for you that is talking about sanity and integrity. So EFCC cannot do that and then we leave in a system where the money in the formal sector is even more than the money in the bank so how are you going to regulate that one. So what they are doing now is that everybody will tell you my people bought ticket for me. It left for INEC themselves in collaboration with media to see how money is being spent on campaign and not only that, some of these things we are talking about is irrelevant. What America does is that when you raise money through public you disclose how you spent the money. American takes a nearly one year to do campaign you want to sell a market let us know who you are, what do you say in the campaign, people just go there and dance. In the place of Awolowo, he will be on the podium for three hours, marshaling points and issues. Today, what do you see? All these presidential candidates including Buhari that speaks more than 50 minutes in any campaign. Is a purely jamboree so the issue of monitoring will not work.
NOW THAT WE ARE HAVING MANUAL TRANSMISSION OF ELECTORAL RESOURCES. WHAT HAS THAT PORTEND TO 2019 ELECTIONS?
The law says that when we complete election you do collation at a polling unit, you move to local government you do collection and to state and collect and then you collect at federal so when you transmit to the federal because I was involved in the collection of federal election last time so they are not even transmitting they had to bring manual to Abuja. So electoral law recognized that collection because of today, the issue of electronic transmission is unknown to any law and if you do it somebody is going to take somebody to court. So the issue of this card reader now based on what we faced 2015 Buhari could have been so magnanimous to make sure he sign that law. So if we are going to have any challenges, the biggest one is for the president who refused to sign the electoral law.
QUOTE
INEC cannot rig election without the backing of the military and the police
