Olisa Agbakoba, former president of the Nigerian Bar
Association, NBA, has warned the federal government and the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP against any attempt to forcefully evict Professor
Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
In an interview with Daily Independent on Friday,
Agbakoba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, urged the federal government to
kill the idea of sending the INEC Chairman on terminal leave before the conduct
of the general elections scheduled for 28 March and 11 April 11.
Agbakoba warned that any attempt to go ahead with the
removal plot would be unfortunate and not right, because everything must be
done at this crucial stage to make sure the polls are not only seen to be free
and fair but must clearly be seen to be so.
He revealed that any attempt to remove Jega now would
occasion the sowing of seeds of a major crisis, and that everything must be
done to avoid it.
Agbakoba, who insisted that it would be appropriate to
allow Jega conduct the polls before his tenure ends, also warned against any
further shift of the general elections, noting that such an action would spell
doom for the country.
The legal practitioner said Nigerians have a lot to
thank the All Progressives Congress, APC for, especially for redeeming them
from the impunity of the PDP, which had taken the people for granted for too
long.
He noted also, that if it had not been for the
emergence of a strong opposition party such as the APC, the PDP would have
continued to treat Nigerian people with disdain.
The senior lawyer, however, berated the APC
presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, for choosing to speak at
Chatham House in London while neglecting the debate that was organised here in
Nigeria.
Agbakoba said it would have been better if Buhari had
told Nigerians what he hoped to do and how he would go about his programmes
rather than speaking to foreigners.
“I think both major political parties (PDP and APC)
should stop all these twisting and all that. Let them go and face the people
and account for their good and bad deeds. We the people are the ones that will
determine whether they will get in or not and unfortunately, I have not seen
that in clear terms other than the hate messages,” Agbakoba said.
Speaking on the deployment of the military for
elections, the senior lawyer said it would be foolhardy for a country that had
been fighting a civil war for the past six years to avoid the deployment of
soldiers for elections, adding that the Constitution and the Geneva Convention,
which Nigeria is a signatory to, allows the deployment of armed personnel to
monitor elections, and that the uproar over the issue was unnecessary,
especially considering the internal war going on in the country.
Agbakoba expressed shock that Nigerians were only
talking about the inadequate distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs),
and not concentrating on other logistics issues as well as the manpower of the
INEC.
According to him, “thank God, elections were postponed
but the fact is that election on February 14 would have been a massive
disaster. We are all talking of inadequate PVCs and no one is concerned about
whether there is adequate ballot papers; whether there is adequate ballot boxes
and whether there is adequate manpower and expertise to man all the polling
boots across the country”.
He blamed the issues of internal democracy, which is
fast disappearing in all the political parties, on INEC saying the electoral
umpire has not been efficiently and effectively performing its regulatory role.
“I was a member of the Uwais Committee and part of our
recommendations is the unbundling of INEC. The commission is saddled with too
many roles aside conducting elections and that is why they are not doing so
well in other areas,” Agbakoba added.
0 comments