Hon. Eddie Mbadiwe was a member of the House of the Representatives from Imo State. In this interview with RUTH CHOJI, the Biochemist states that Nigeria has the capacity to overcome the Boko Haram insurgency for good, among other topical issues.
Are you satisfied with the way INEC is preparing for the forthcoming general elections?
The thing about INEC is that it must try to get people to have confidence in them. The major opposition party which is the PDP has said that the chairman of INEC should resign, which means they don’t have any confidence in him or INEC as it is now. If the main opposition party does not have confidence in him or the umpire, is it going to be a one sided elections? Until we have belief in our electoral system, we won’t go anywhere. When you put so much money and the results are just written, then it won’t work. In Imo State, for instance, the results were written in the Government House. Emeka Ihedioha went to court but due to some carelessness on the part of his lawyer, he lost. If that case was attended to properly by the court, Emeka would have won because there was evidence of people who were forced at gunpoint to write results and until this stops, we are wasting our time.
Some Nigerians are afraid that the security agencies may have been compromised. Do you harbour such fears?
Somebody once said that if you are going for election in this country, don’t waste your time with the electorate, just bring out money to buy INEC and the police, you will win the election because the police will protect INEC officials to write the results. This is not a joke because the current chairman of APC, (I don’t know whether he was drunk or he was in his right frame of mind) said openly that “people can go and vote, but they will write the results”. What does he mean by that? Is he INEC that they will write results? If that is the case, they might as well just go and write down the results without having any elections. So, Nigerians must come out and say, this must stop.
In the face of these challenges, what should the opposition parties do to ensure that things change for the better?
This is the responsibility of every Nigerian. They must come out and mobilise their people. They should come out en mass and guard the polling booths until the votes are counted and results announced. All results must be declared at the booths before collation. Because if the electoral process is not transparent, then the elections won’t be free and fair.
There are misgivings about Peter Obi’s emergence as Atiku’s running mate in some quarters in the South-East. What is your take?
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I don’t know what they are reacting about because the Electoral Act says the candidate has the right to pick whoever he wants as his running mate. Unless people who don’t know Peter Obi, he is one of the best people to run for any office including the presidency. May be those who are opposing him want to be picked but were not picked and so decide to oppose his choice. If you want a good candidate who can influence governance, then Peter Obi is the man. He is solid and incorruptible. He is a man who was governor for eight years and yet did not acquire one plot of land except the one he said he bought from one family in Onitsha whereas he could have sat in his office and called the Commissioner for Lands to ask for plots of land for his personal use. He didn’t do so.
Some South-East leaders are withdrawn from active participation in the ongoing PDP presidential campaigns. Don’t you think this will affect the chances of the party in the forthcoming elections?
I don’t think they have withdrawn, but it is more of consultation because most feel they were not consulted before Peter Obi was chosen. When I read such things I laughed because why must they be consulted to start with? I think the South-East will come round to supporting Atiku at the end because the PDP favours them. The leaders can’t stop the people from voting who they want and, believe it. I will join the campaign very soon because I believe there must be a change in government especially in Imo State.
What are the chances of Atiku in the 2019 presidential election?
Anybody who likes Atiku must tell him that there is a lot of work to do. He must not take anything for granted because some Nigerians have some misgivings about him. So, it’s hard work and he must get as many people as possible on board who can help to sell him. If we can do that, PDP will win. We cannot pretend that Buhari is not popular in the North but we also know that most people are tired of Buhari and the sufferings they have inflicted on Nigeria. Women will tell you in the market that they are tired of Buhari because they are worse today than where they were in 2015. People are suffering, as Fela said, ‘suffering and smiling’.
Nigeria has just been rated as one of the most terrorised countries in the world for the fourth consecutive year according to the Global Terrorism Index. What is your take on this?
The problem with us is that once we are so rated, we get the Minister of Information to issue a rebuttal, which is just politics. But we must face the fact and use it to defeat the terrorists. We have the capacity as a nation to finish Boko Haram once and for all. What I’m saying is that, there is the military solution and the political solution and both must go together. The military solution must have more reinforcement. The political one is for the Federal Government to interact with these people. They know them and they also know where they are. Nigeria has the capacity to end insurgency.
Talking about Imo State, the governor has attracted lots of attention to the state over his son-in-law’s governorship ambition…
Imo State has been in the news for the wrong reasons because the governor does not only want to impose his son-in-law but his wife and himself as Senator and the people have said, it will not happen. I’m appealing to Imo people to come out and fight this madness. They have acquired so much wealth and now he has forgotten anything about governance. He wants to buy INEC so he will fulfill his ambition in the elections. During the 2015 general elections, officials were taken to the governor’s office and from there, and they left without conducting any elections. So when people said Jega election was free and fair, I say it is not true because we know that it wasn’t free and fair. Let’s hope Yakubu will do better but from the way they are going, I don’t think it will be better.
