Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

07 February, 2010

Ignoring substance, chasing facades

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was not a candidate in the 2007 Rivers State gubernatorial elections. He received 0% of the vote, not surprising, as he was not on the ballot. He was nevertheless declared the winner .... of a poll in which he was not a candidate. Worse still, his “victory” was conjured from thin air by the Nigerian Supreme Court, a bady supposedly the ultimate custodian of law and justice.

Jacob Dada, of the University of Calabar's Faculty of Law wrote an excellent two-part summary (first part, second part) of a Supreme Court ruling that tortured language and legal logic to explain away what could best be described as a malevolent magic trick.

The apex court's decision is all the stranger because Amaechi's lawsuit did not seek his elevation to the governor's mansion; the Supreme Court awarded to him something he was not ostensibly seeking in the first place. The Court justified itself by saying that if the PDP candidate (Celestine Omehia) won the election, and if Rotimi Amaechi should have been the PDP candidate, then it was Amaechi that really won. This "logic" wouldn't make sense to a child, yet 100+ million Nigerian observed it without reaction.

If a citizen casts a vote for Omehia, how does that imply the citizen wanted Amaechi? How do you know that same citizen would have voted for Amaechi if he been on the ballot instead? We have all seen polls in real democracies (the kind with competitive, credible elections) that show a party would win the election if its nominee is XYZ, but would lose if its nominee was ABC.

In answer to this question, the Supreme Court argued it is the party (in this case the Peoples Democratic Party), that wins elections, not the individual candidate (in this case Celestine Omehia). By casting a vote for the PDP candidate, says the Supreme Court, the citizen was indicating support for a blank, empty space named "whoever is the PDP candidate". As such, a citizen's preference for "the PDP candidate" is tranferrable to "whoever is the PDP" candidate, and if the Court decided the "whoever" was Amaechi not Omehia, it means Amaechi won the election.

But this still makes no sense. Worse, it is unconstitutional, which is scary because the Supreme Court's principal function is to protect the people by upholding the constitution.

Ours is NOT a proportional representation system, nor is it a parlimentary system, either of which gives parties the power to impose leaders on the electorate based on internal party politicking. Constitutionally and legally, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, citizens choose a candidate, not a party. Essentially the Supreme Court lied.

For another thing, a more important thing if you believe in rule of law and the power of judicial precedent, the Supreme Court's ruling that citizens elect parties and not individuals means Governors Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State and Mahmud Shinkafi of Zamfara should have resigned or been removed the moment they ditched the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to rejoin the PDP. Yet they are both in office today, and the lower courts don't seem to mind. The truth is Yuguda and Shinkafi are properly in office (albeit their are duplicitous, untrustworthy and lacking in scruples or principles), while Rotimi Amaechi is not (which is all the more disturbing as the federation's top court is responsible for the unconstitutionality).

By the way, why has no one been charged and/or convicted of the major crime of electoral fraud? The Supreme Court ruled that Celestine Omehia had been fraudulently declared the winner of the PDP gubernatorial primaries in Rivers State. A crime was committed.

More importantly, investigating Omehia's alliance of political machines for election rigging within the PDP structures could shed light on whether or not there was rigging in the wider general elections of 2007. And it is important to determine if the actual gubernatorial polls were rigged, because if Omehia did not really win the general election then "whoever is the PDP candidate" did not really win either, so the already-nonexistent basis for the Amaechi governorship becomes even more nonexistent (if that is scientifically possible).

The losing candidates (or should I say losing "parties" per the Supreme Court?) in the 2007 Rivers gubernatorial polls challenged Omehia's "victory" at the Election tribunal. Had they won their case, it would mean the "Mr PDP Candidate" had not really won, and the Supreme Court's magic trick of swapping one PDP candidate for another would be rendered moot. Given the fact that rigging is something the Omehia machinery was very familiar with (per the Supreme Court) there is at least a prima facie reason to investigate.

Add to this the nature of the 2007 "election" in neighbouring Bayelsa State, which used to be the southern half of Rivers State before the partitioning of states' creation.

Elections in these two states have been among the least democratic in the 11-year history of the Fourth Republic. Most of the oil-stealing "militants" operating in the region used to be party-political thugs who worked for the electoral "victories" of PDP politicians within the party and in the general polls; they branched into oil-theft because it was more lucrative. The Nigerian media has long given sensationalist (and uninformative) coverage to the political assassinations of famous people, like the late Marshal Harry, who before his death the kingpin of Niger-Delta godfathers, but because they under-report the lower-level, less-eye-catching viollence that affects regular citizens, no one knows just how violent our politics can be. In the Niger-Delta, politics (and oil theft) has been especially violent in the last decade or so. An ex-classmate of mine from secondary school, a mother of two from Bayelsa, was killed for being a leader in the women's league of one of the political parties (not PDP); another one-time acquaintance of mine was subject to arbitrary and unlawful detention on the orders of ex-Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State because he had compiled a dossier implicating the governor in corruption.

If that is too circumstantial for you, note the fact that the rigging in Bayelsa in 2007 was so egregious, the Appeal Court was obliged to void the 2007 Bayelsa gubernatorial elections, stating "no election took place in Bayelsa". Though no election happened, the INEC/SIEC declared Timipre Sylva the winner of the elections that never took place. Again, no one has been charged with any crime. Instead, there was an interim administration (led by the Speaker of the Bayelsa Assembly), followed by a repeat election ... which Timpre Sylva won a "second" time ... with 98.3% of the vote.

Ladies and gentlemen, Timpre Sylva, said to have won a 2007 election that never happened, did go on to win a 2008 election with 98.3% of the vote.

But you didn't have to look south to Bayelsa for inspiration to investigate the result of the 2007 Rivers State gubernatorial elections. If the Celestine Omehia machinery rigged the internal PDP primaries, and the losing parties in the 2007 general elections claim he rigged the general elections too, at the very least you have to investigate it, right?

Ah, but the Supreme Court didn't just award Rotimi Amaechi a governorship he never won. The apex Court also deftly made it impossible for either Omehia's or Amaechi's "victories" to be challenged in court!

These lawsuits and appeals filed by the losers in the Rivers State gubernatorial polls named Omehia as respondent, not Amaechi, because Omehia was the candidate, not Amaechi. When the Supreme Court gifted Amaechi the gtovernorship, Jacob Dada (first part, second part) wondered how this would affect the losers' lawsuits. The statute governing election disputes imposes time limits for each step of the election challenge process, and the time-limit for these steps had expired by the time the Supreme Court gave the election to Amaechi. Dada wondered if the tribunal would allow the losing candidates to amend their filing to replace "Omehia" with "Amaechi" as respondent, since the time-limit had passed.

What actually happened would have been comic if it weren't so tragic. Clifford Dagogo summarizes it here in the Daily Sun.

Basically, the losing candidates in the 2007 Rivers gubernatorial polls applied to the Election Tribunal for leave to amend their filing to join Amaechi as respondent. The Tribunal told them it wasn't necessary because the lawsuits substantively questioned the result of the Rivers State election, and inasmuch as Amaechi's magical win was predicated on Omehia's supposed win, the issue could be litigated as was, without any need for amendment. In other words, no need to change the filings because if Omehia rigged the election, then Amaechi's victory would be invalidated as a consequence.

This is what the Tribunal told the petitioners. The Tribunal said it was not necessary to join Amaechi as a respondent.

The petitioners then presented a wealth of evidence that the 2007 Rivers election had been rigged.

The Tribunal went on recess.

The Tribunal then came back from recess and dismissed the case because Amaechi was not named as respondent. The Tribunal said Omehia was no longer the governor, so why was the petitioners' challenge aimed at him.

Did you catch that judicial sleight of hand? The Tribunal blocked the joining of Amaechi as a respondent, saying it was not necessary, then dismissed the case because Amaechi was not a respondent, saying is was necessary.

And thus Rotimi Amaechi became governor of Rivers State, without being a candidate in any election, without earning a single vote, without his "victory" being subject to challenge in a Nigerian court of law. The Supreme Court of Nigeria said he is the Governor because Omehia won. The Tribunal then dismissed any challenge to Omehia's so-called "victory". And that was that.

For the record, I am NOT arguing on behalf of the losing candidates. They probably rigged too, but just lacked the resources the PDP has at its disposal (not least of which member of the supposed "militants" other branches of the government are fighting).

There is a greater point I am trying to make.

Right now in Nigeria, the media are making it seem like the most important issue facing Nigeria is the question of whether or not President Umaru Yar'Adua (or more correctly his aides, coterie and hangers-on) will yield the "Acting Presidency" to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan. You hear all sorts of talk about how Nigeria is paralyzed, how there is instability, how the very unity of Nigeria is at stake. You hear people arguing about whether power-brokers from a region of the country are doing this or that. You hear street gossip about the First Lady Turai presented as "news". You hear endless debate about whether Jonathan can run for the presidency in 2011 or whether another candidate from the Northwest must run. Blah, blah, blah.

The fact is they are chasing facades, meaningless shallow exteriors meant to deceive the gullible.

The story of Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers State governor, exposes the sham that is Fourth Republican democracy. Because of this sham democracy, Nigerians have no right or ability to choose their own leaders via elections.

We need to have ELECTIONS where the PEOPLE choose their LEADERS, instead of spending our time arguing about a President and Vice-President who were the beneficiaries of "do-or-die" politics in 2007.

Rivers State and Bayelsa State have two of the biggest budgets among Nigerian states, in large part due to "oil derivation" revenue, extra funds transferred from the Federation Account to oil-producing states proportional to their share of overall production.

Nigerian governors are like little emperors, operating without any check or balance from their state legislatures or from opposition parties, and in Rotimi Amaechi and Timipre Sylva, you have two men in control of vast budgetary revenues, neither of whom were actually elected to the job by the citizens whose money they are spending. The people of Rivers and Bayelsa do not get to use their votes to choose priorities for spending, to punish failure or reward initiative; billions are being spent and nobody can hold the spenders to account or so much as ask them to justify their spending.

This is the problem.

I wish President Yar'Adua a speedy recovery from his health problems, but I must be honest and say that I never asked for him or for Goodluck Jonathan to be in charge of the vast federal budget. I have no confidence that either one of them has any cogent plan for moving Nigeria forward. Indeed, since 1999, I have heard nothing to inspire me from any of the leading Fourth Republic presidential candidates (Olu Falae, Olusegun Obasanjo, Mohammedu Buhari, Emeka Ojukwu, Atiku Abubakar), nothing that would earn my vote; they have all been around for decades and their decisions and actions are a crucial part of the story of why we are where we are today.

There is no point to complaining about candidates you don't like. What you are supposed to do as a citizen is go ahead and support the candidate you do like. But how can you do that when the system is designed to make "elections" impossible, replacing them instead with glorified "selections", where competing powerbrokers and political machines fight themselves for the right to impose on the citizenry someone they choose, whether we like it or not.

Yes, I know virtually every country in this world (even the so-called democratic ones) has a local version of political, economic and social elite who essentially restrict important politicals jobs to people who won't rock the boat, whatever that boat may be (if you are not 100% guaranteed to maintain the existing system in your country, whatever that system is, you won't be president of anywhere, be it the USA, China or Saudi Arabia). But that sort of thing works for countries that have already completed the 20-year or so process of industrialization and development; for them "stability" can be a good thing.

For Nigeria, "stability" might as well be called "stagnation".

I am not interested in the Yar'Adua/Jonathan saga. For some reason we Nigerians allow ourselves to get distracted unimportant stuff like this, and then complicate the unimportant stuff further with pervasive perceptions of regional, religious and ethnic undertones. People are spending their time wondering if "the North" will do this or that to protect Yar'Adua or to position ahead of 2011, and whether "the South" should do this or that to protect Jonathan or position him for 2011.

Someone should tell all these people that come 2011, both "the North" and "the South" will still be stuck with unelected leadership that wastes billions in public funds. All of Nigeria will be stuck with no electricity, healthcare, infrastructure, employment, etc. The whole country will still be marginalized ... are will still be arguing with itself over meaningless inanities.

Nigerians and foreigners like to tell the story of how Nigeria earned $300 billion in oil revenue with nothing to show for it. Whether the number is accurate or not, it reflects the belief that we earn lots and lots of money and spend lots and lots of money, but cannot truly say that we have received value for our money. What do you think causes this? It is difficult enough to achieve fiscally responsible government where the politicians and bureaucrats actually face checks, balances and institutions of accountability; where there are no checks, no balances, no law enforcement, no constitutionality, and no accountability to the people of any kind, fiscally responsible government is well nigh on impossible.

Human beings are not inherently good beings. If there is no law, no enforcement of said law, and no accountability, people's first reaction is to satisfy their own rational self-interest.

Our political, economic, social and cultural leaders are all very good at acting in their own individual and collective interests. It is time we the people started working, thinking and acting in our own self-interest.

We live in a country where even the Supreme Court can look us all in the eye and tell us unabashedly that the people of Rivers State have no right to vote for the governor they want, and can make up the most comically ridiculous of excuses to explain their action. The cases of Rivers State (and Anambra) stand out of the pack, but the same factors militate against the people in every state and in the federal republic and large.

Neither Umaru Yar'Adua (I wish him the best of health) nor Goodluck Jonathan will institute the sort of reforms, restructuring and transformation we the people need. It is time we change the conversation, and start focusing on things of substance, importance, significance and strategic necessity.

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