BEFORE MAURICE IWU GOES, HEAR THIS. By: Aloy Ejimakor Now that elements of opposition politicians led by Barrister Femi Falana (SAN) of the NCP have taken the anti-Iwu (and anti-system) battle to the judiciary, let us pause a moment to hear some enduring home truths. It is only when this whole renewed anti-Iwu vigor is glanced off recent history that we can begin to understand why such anti-Iwu aggression persists; and also why it is surely going to continue to roil long after Iwu has gone. First, rewind back to pre-2007. You will see that throughout the time-line to 2007, entire segments of the media were deployed to the purpose of discrediting the outcome of the elections. Elements of local and foreign intermeddlers who passed off as either monitors or observers were engaged in a well-coordinated, well-financed campaign to discredit the elections even before the first ballots were cast, culminating in the failed incendiary truck and the desperate legal action commenced to compel Iwu to annul the results. Like now, Iwu was also then the poster-boy for everything they claimed was wrong with elections that never even held. Those arrayed against the elections figured that they will succeed by personalizing their attacks around the person of Maurice Iwu, mostly because their sponsors reckoned that Iwu was intent on carrying through with an election they were ill-prepared to win. Evidence of this is legion and can be found in the malicious publications that were sponsored on Iwu's long-settled professional standing; and for the first time, these people began to question Iwu’s internationally acclaimed contributions to the complex sciences and the stature Nigerian gained on account of that. They even went as far as questioning Iwu's basic academic qualifications several years after such have been accepted by renowned institutions where Iwu had made tenure, including University of Nigeria where he became a Professor at the young age of 34. The same campaign has once again started and the clear intention is to discredit the 2011 two years ahead of its schedule. You don’t have to look far to see that these people have one thing in common, and that is: they are all politicians who have no structural base to win elections. Quite frankly, I don’t see any electoral preparations on the part of Femi Falana’s NCP and Balarabe Musa’s PRP that will give them any fighting chance (against the PDP) in 2011. So, they figured that they might as well begin early to create credibility problems as a launching pad for the post 2011 litigations and media attacks they are again poised to unleash on the system. They forget easily that INEC will survive Professor Iwu and the attacks they are levying on one man and the institution he heads contribute to great lengths in making Nigeria unstable and hurting the country's standing in sub-regional and global affairs. As regards President Yar’Adua and the PDP, they need to know that there is a helluva of a political liability that abounds if the President is seen to be too eager to placate an unserious opposition by even considering replacing an experienced INEC leadership too close to final calls for the next election. I call the opposition unserious because it is unlike in Ghana and the United States, which have been compared with Nigeria, where the opposition is large, organized and steadfast. In both countries, their elected and electable members don't jump ship to the ruling party, and not in droves like they do in Nigeria. Pray, how can the opposition supplant a ruling party that is fast swallowing entire ranks of opposition politicians? The other day it was two ANPP governors from the North; recently, we hear of Atiku decamping from AC to the PDP. So, you can see that at the geometric rate the Nigerian opposition is decamping to the PDP and the fractured parties they leave behind, there will be no opposition party of substance left in 2011 to have a fighting chance of winning against PDP. The only opposition party that has remained steadfast is Orji Kalu’s PPA, which explains why Orji was disappointed with Atiku’s recent moves to eat crow with the PDP. To be sure, even if Maurice Iwu's tenure is left to sunset in 2010, these politicians will still latch on to his replacement to explain why they had to lose 2011 - a sort of a sad replay of why they had to lose 2007. Considering this emerging scenario, it will not make any sense in replacing Iwu with a new Chairman, especially since replacing him might give the unwitting impression that the President has finally capitulated to those who love to taunt him as lacking political mettle, besides the more important point that such eleventh hour replacement will further complicate the same issues we are trying to overcome. Therefore, whether Iwu goes or not, we must bear in mind that INEC does not function in a vacuum of institutions but rather in the midst of many institutions. INEC does not have the powers to arrest electoral offenders, the police does. INEC does not have the national intelligence mandate to detect early conspiracies portending threats to our elections, the SSS and to some extent, the NIA does. That means that anybody pointing fingers for electoral offenses need to point them elsewhere, and not at an INEC leadership that has no legal and coercive mandate to prevent election-day violence and other machinations deployed by politicians who would rather spoil it all for the rest of us by hiding under a Maurice Iwu that has become an easy target for venting opposition impotence in the midst of a virile PDP. Ejimakor is an attorney and analyst alloylaw@yahoo.com
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