2023 general election

Atiku, Wike: Get back to the talk table

Published

2 years ago

July 20, 2022

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By Tunde Olusunle

For now, nothing serves as a more eloquent wake-up call to the two leading parties, the All Progressives Congress, (APC) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), than last weekend’s development in Osun State. The loss of Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola, the Governor of the state on the platform of the ruling APC, against the run of play, is very instructive. It more than adequately punctures the myth of invincibility woven around his mentor, some say first cousin, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Asiwaju of Lagos, and the APC. On the part of the PDP, the development is a clear attestation to the need for unity of purpose towards such surprising electoral displacement at the national level, come 2023.

Give it to Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Governor of Rivers State. More than any of his colleagues, he has very consistently and generously been forthcoming on the issues of support and rescue missions germane to the survival and sustenance of his party, the PDP. When he is not availing fiscal support for a plethora of legal tussles concerning the restoration of stolen mandates of members of his party, he is almost singularly funding conventions of the party. His heroic efforts towards the reelection of Godwin Obaseki of Edo State last year, are very well documented. Wike has been the poster boy of sustained loyalty and remarkable generosity to the PDP.

Wike’s anger about being jettisoned by Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and winner of the recent PDP presidential primaries, as his potential running mate for the 2023 presidential election is very legitimate. Especially against the background of suggestions from Wike’s camp, that he was actually offered the opportunity in the course of the first post-primary meeting of both leaders. The blitzkrieg of Wike’s work-rate and the mileage he covered in just two months of his declaration to contest the Number One position, meeting leaders, statesmen and party delegates, will yet interest scholars of Nigerian politics. He surely has a bright future ahead of him as a politician.

Man, however, must be guided not to play Louis XIV, the legendary King of France, who declared in vain-glorious triumphalism, in French: L’etat c’est moi, meaning: “I am the state.”
I expect Wike’s anger to have thawed by now, weeks after the breathtaking primary. So should the discontent of his allies and strategists, notably Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Ayodele Fayose, Ibrahim Dankwambo, and Company. This is not discounting the verve and passion with which Wike was supported by several other cheerleaders, backstage, underscoring the depth of sympathy invested into his ReNEW Nigeria political project. The NEW acronym is the abbreviation of Wike’s names: “Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.”

I have been privately apprised about a novel, thought-provoking and inspiring initiative in political strategizing initiated, funded and experimented by some of Wike’s friends. The model, is indeed worthy of emulation and deployment by the Atiku/Okowa ticket, moving forward, from what I gathered. Sometime soon, the likes of Kingsley Chinda, TJ Yusuf, Solomon Bob, Rima Shawulu, Chukwuma Onyema, Solomon Maren, will yet share with Wike about the profound, behind-the-scene intellectual perspiration that went into the exercise. Wike diehards, are understandably disoriented and unhappy, in solidarity with their friend and brother.

It’s at least one month since his Delta State counterpart, Ifeanyi Okowa, was named Atiku’s pairing ahead of the 2023 election, by the way. Instructively, behind the backs of some of these top stakeholders of the PDP, the party has reclaimed the governorship seat in Osun State. This validates the Biblical saying that God can raise up stones to do his bidding, where man falters, (Luke 19: 40). And in the Osun case, erstwhile beneficiary of Wike’s goodwill, Obaseki, joined his Bayelsa counterpart, Duoye Diri and former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to support Ademola Adeleke and deliver his victory. Life goes in circles, it oscillates in cyclical motions. Inspite of their absence individually and collectively from the Osun battleground, however, all PDP governors, pooled resources together in characteristic support for their own. Atiku reached out in the same manner too.

Now is the time to all congregate on the dialogue table to smoothen the jagged edges of recent developments and bad blood, between Wike and Atiku. In admonishing disaffected parties in the course of his global reconciliation efforts, former President Olusegun Obasanjo used to say: “If the need arises, I will lock both of you up in the same room and hold the key. Talk to yourselves, disagree with yourselves, box yourselves, agree with yourselves. Both of you should then knock the door together when you want me to open it for you. Let’s make progress therefrom.”

Atiku, please play the elder brother and statesman that you are. Lend credence to your global rating as a true mediator, pacifier and unifier. Get on your plane and go to Port Harcourt. Have a one-on-one, heart-to-heart discussion with your younger brother and co-PDP bulwark, Nyesom. Both of you are believers in a new Nigeria, where equity, fairness and justice denominate our sociopolitics. Dissent here, agree there. There are rumours Wike has committed to supporting a southern presidential candidate. This, it has been argued, is because the motivation for his plunging into the project was to avail the country a southern counterpoint to years of misrule the country has suffered especially under the incumbent administration. This could hurt his party, and let’s hope, not ultimately his own interests. Resolutions are better not made in fits of anger.

Expand the meeting the way Wike desires, to include allies of both sides. Shake hands and embrace each other with genuine warmth and passion. The infiniteness of the skies ensures that all birds can flutter and fly without grazing the wings of one another. The speedy resolution of the impasse between you both, is of paramount importance to Nigerians. They can almost not wait for you and your party to lead the dislodgement of the ruling party from Aso Villa, come February 2023.

In all of these, Waziri Adamawa, take due cognisance of the loud silence of certain critical stakeholders. Some may still be nursing hurts, arising from the outcome of the Saturday May 28, 2022 event at the Velodrome of the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja. Reach out to them, in all honesty and sincerity, rebuild rapprochement and get everyone under the very broad and accommodating umbrella, the logo of your party. Request, purposely, from your co-contestants at the primary, for operatives from their own campaign organisations, for incorporation into the Atiku/Okowa Project and get the train moving. Nigerians may yet give you and your party, an opportunity for penitence, come February 2023. Maybe just yet.

Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE).

2023 general election

2023 polls: Abdulsalami Peace Committee opens up on pressure to ask for cancellation

Published

3 months ago

August 17, 2024

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Abdulsalami Abubakar

The National Peace Committee (NPC) has opened up on pressure it faced to intervene in the 2023 Presidential Election results. During a report presentation in Abuja, led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the committee disclosed that it received numerous requests to push the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to halt results collation or cancel the election due to alleged violations of the electoral act.

Key issues included concerns about the 25% vote threshold requirement for the Federal Capital Territory, with some advocates calling for a runoff.

The NPC emphasized its role as a moral authority rather than a regulatory body, highlighting its mandate to promote peace and compliance with the law, without the power to arrest or punish violators.
The committee acknowledged a gap in public understanding of its functions and the importance of moral persuasion in fostering electoral integrity and peace.

Before presenting the report to the public, the committee had earlier met with the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and other management staff of the commission where it was briefed on the electoral umpire’s preparation for the forthcoming Governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states.

Other members of the committee are Okoh Ebitu Ukiwe (Vice Chairman); Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah (Convener); Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III; John Cardinal Onaiyekan; business icons, Aliko Dangote and Femi Otedola; Vanguard Newspapers Publisher, Sam Amuka Pemu; Ameze Guobadia; Idayat Hassan; Dame Priscilla Kuye; Gen. Martin Luther Agwai; Mahmud Yayale Ahmed; Channels TV owner, John Momoh; Roseline Ukeje; and, Fr. Atta Barkindo, its Head of Secretariat.

Part of the report reads; “As the election day progressed, criticisms and counter criticisms became abundant. The NPC was already being faced with a flurry of phone calls and the need to call INEC to order.

“The Peace Committee was flooded with requests for intervention. Both the Chairman of the Committee, General Abdulsalami A. Abubakar, the Convener, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah and the Head of NPC Secretariat, Fr. Atta Barkindo, were inundated with calls, requests, and petitions demanding the intervention of the NPC.

“Some of the requests wanted the NPC to prevail on INEC to stop collating election results because there were gross violations and lack of compliance with the electoral act. Others demanded that the tenets of the Peace Accord signed were not adhered to and therefore the Committee should call for cancellation of the election entirely.

“The most significant call was related to the 25% threshold for Abuja as the Federal Capital Territory. Some of the analysts who reached out to the committee asked that the final election result should not be announced because the resumptive president-elect did not score the required 25% as stated in the electoral act. If anything, there should be a runoff.

2023 general election

EU reports: LP says FG is feebly adopting face saving measures

Published

1 year ago

July 2, 2023

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***EU only hit the nail on the head

The leadership of the Labour Party has countered the Federal Government of Nigeria for discrediting the European Union’s conclusion on the 2023 General Election wherein it faulted the modalities by which the conclusion was reached.
It reiterated what it believed as the accurate testament of the European Union’s conclusion on the 2023 general elections which merely hit the nail on the head.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary Obiora Ifoh said,
“Eropean Union’s Conclusion on the 2023 general elections are nit Jaundiced but accurate Testament of the outcome of the FG and INEC alliance to change the will of the electorate.”
“We see this face-saving measure by the Federal Government which is coming days after the submission of the report as feeble and medicine after death.

“It will interest the government to note that the European Union’s report is only one out of numerous submissions by other international Observers who have described the outcome of the election as a sham and an exercise that did not reflect the will of the majority of Nigerians.

“Labour Party stands by the position of the EU observation mission. We have always said that this election was massively rigged in favour of the APC and their candidate.
“What the FG is saying is just an afterthought and a shameless effort to mask the obvious. Even the blind can see, the deaf can hear and they know this election was manipulated.
“Huge pieces of evidence abound for even the deaf and the blind to hear and feel. We are only hoping that the judiciary will dispense justice without fear or favour in the interest of the nation and posterity.
“Nigerians already know the true winner of the 2023 presidential election and no amount of slandering, denial, or rebuttal can change the fact that the party in power has no mandate of the electorate.

“We must also note that whatever position the INEC has taken is with active connivance with the Federal Government to deny the electorate and it clearly shows that INEC is not in any way independent.
“The Commission’s action is at the whims and caprices of the government and we know it. But Nigerians looking to the Judiciary for justice. That’s where we stand.”

2023 general election

FG tackles EU over report on 2023 general elections

Published

1 year ago

July 2, 2023

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The Federal Government has countered the European Union’s report on the 2023 general elections, describing the conclusions therein as “jaundiced”.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy gave the indication in a statement on Sunday.

“We urge the EU and other foreign interests to be objective in all their assessments of the internal affairs of our country and allow Nigeria to breathe,”
According to him, the February 25, 2023 presidential election was “clearly and fairly” won by Tinubu, the then candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC).

He also advised that the EU allow Nigeria to breathe and not meddle in the affairs of the country.

“We find it preposterous and unconscionable that in this day and age, any foreign organisation of whatever hue can continue to insist on its own yardstick and assessment as the only way to determine the credibility and transparency of our elections,” he said.

He said the presidency was not unaware of the “machinations of the European Union to sustain its, largely, unfounded bias and claims on the election outcomes”.

Alake further stated that there is no substantial evidence provided by the EU or any foreign and local organisation that is viable enough to impeach the integrity of the 2023 election outcomes.

“We would like to know and even ask EU, how it reached the conclusions in the submitted final report with the very limited coverage of the elections by their observers who, without doubt, relied more on rumours, hearsay, cocktails of prejudiced and uninformed social media commentaries and opposition talking heads,” he stated.

“We have many reasons to believe the jaundiced report, based on the views of fewer than 50 observers, was to merely sustain the same premature denunciatory stance contained in EU’s preliminary report released in March.

“We strongly reject, in its entirety, any notion and idea from any organisation, group and individual remotely suggesting that the 2023 election was fraudulent.”

The media aide said Nigeria has put the elections behind, and Tinubu is facing the task of nation-building.

“As a country, we have put the elections behind us. President Tinubu is facing the arduous task of nation-building, while those who have reasons to challenge the process continue to do so through the courts.”

On June 27, 2023, the EU presented its report on the 2023 elections in Nigeria to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The EU said the election exposed enduring systemic weaknesses and therefore signaled a need for further legal and operational reforms to enhance transparency, inclusiveness and accountability.

The EU also identified six areas for improvement in Nigeria’s electoral process moving forward.

Some of the key areas listed by the Mission are ambiguities in the law, the establishment of a publicly accountable process for the selection of the INEC members, ensuring real-time publication of results as well as access to election results.

It also highlighted the need for protection for media practitioners while decrying the discrimination against women in elective and appointed positions as well as impunity regarding electoral offences.