| And if the tribunal sacks the President? |
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| Written by Sonala Olumhense | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 17 February 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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And if the tribunal sacks the President? Sonala Olumhense Soon, the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal will announce its verdict on the election to the presidency last year of Umaru Yar’Adua. If justice is to be served, the court will void that election and call for another. Unless the court is going by different considerations other than the law and the facts, annulling the April 2007 election is a foregone conclusion. Many of us call Yar’Adua the president because he was constitutionally sworn in on May 29, 2007, not because he won the election that brought him to the inauguration. To be fair to the man, he has admitted as much. The court has very little option, therefore, but to void the farce that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission perpetrated last year. The following are very brief reflections on the prospects ahead of the key personalities who would be in the first line of offence (or defence). Beginning with the succession question, I believe Yar’Adua being relieved of the presidency could lead to Obasanjo’s next term (third, if you like), in office. The PDP is in ugly transition, and the only established office is the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Obasanjo holds it, which is akin to the chief kangaroo in kangaroo court. We know that constitutionally, next in succession to the president in the event of death or disability is the vice-president. This provision would not apply because Yar’Adua would neither be dead nor in coma. He would merely be out of work, and would take Mr. Goodluck with him. Next in succession would be the President of the Senate, David Mark (PDP, Benue). Mark is however currently embroiled in two crises of his own, the first part of which is for political survival. His election is being challenged by Usman Abubakar, the All Nigeria Peoples Party’s candidate. Citing comprehensive malpractice—alias massive rigging—and the negligence of INEC, the Electoral Tribunal has already nullified two of the three Senatorial elections in the state. That leaves the contest for Mark’s seat. Last month, court officials reported that certain officials of the Tribunal had tampered with exhibits tendered by INEC in the petition. That led to an investigation by the President of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, and the unprecedented summons to the Tribunal’s chairman and registry staff to Abuja. Mark’s job hangs by a thread, particularly if you consider that a total of six elections in the state, all of them involving members of the PDP, have been voided by the tribunal. The likelihood, therefore, is that David Mark’s election will also be nullified, and well ahead of the decision by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal. Even if he were to survive, the second part of the crisis is that he lacks credibility. There are many ugly allegations of corruption that he has failed to answer; for him to assume the presidency would deeply humiliate Nigeria. But Mark is an Obasanjo man. And for him to assume the presidency would be as good as Obasanjo returning to the presidential villa himself. What would be worse than Mark being sacked before the Presidential Tribunal sacks the President is having Mark assume the presidency before the Electoral Tribunal in Benue voids his election. He could actually serve for a couple of days before the Tribunal announces an unfavorable verdict, a situation that could see Nigeria having three Presidents in one week! But suppose Nigeria were to be lucky, and both Mark and Yar’Adua were to find their elections nullified—in that order—the acting president might be the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, or Dimeji Bankole, the 39-year old Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Bankole would be able to taste the presidency, but it is unsure he can touch it. Constitutionally, you cannot run for the presidency unless you are at least 40. Then there is Maurice Iwu, the Chairman of INEC. This is a man who will never get away from the terrible elections he superintended in 2007, and ought to have found the courage to resign. But what happens now? Iwu’s failure is also ours because he did not accomplish that monumental failure all by himself. There is no doubt that he was used by the PDP and the government in power, but there are important institutions in the country that are also culpable. They include the press and the police. But do Nigerians have confidence in Iwu’s ability to conduct better elections? I do not. As I have said, Obasanjo will be a great beneficiary of the voiding of Yar’Adua’s election. It is widely known that he is unhappy with Yar’Adua, who appears to be an “ingrate,” but if the interim period were to fall into the hands of David Mark, Obasanjo would have a good opportunity to dismantle the Anenih-Atiku PDP, and reinstitute his “authority.” Yar’Adua, should he still be interested in the job, would have to start over. Having tasted the presidency for such a short time, it is unlikely that he is sated. But he will have several problems. The first is clearly that the PDP will no longer be able to engage in the freewheeling rigging that has been its trademark for nearly 10 years. The second is that in the nine months he has been in charge, he has distanced neither himself nor his government from his predecessor. Only this month, he proclaimed Obasanjo to be his “leader.” The third is that it is unclear exactly whom Yar’Adua is trying to be. Here is a man with the full federal might in his hands, and all he has probably achieved is to convince the nation that he is a nice man. What about getting on with the job? What about the energy emergency he promised? What about his 7-point agenda? So far, he has given the impression that he expects eight—or at least four—years in office. That might not happen. He does not appear to be motivated by what he can accomplish in the time he has, preferring to wait to see if his election would be validated by the Tribunal. He is not helped by the fact that he has so much corruption and so many corrupt men around him. True, many of the scenarios were inherited from the previous regime, but the Yar’Adua period has offered no response. His entire impact may be measured by the fact that a new election will be greatly hampered by the extremely bad quality of our roads. Muhammadu Buhari: in the event of a new election, Buhari will emerge a much stronger candidate than he was last year, as Yar’Adua may have validated some fears and doubts about him that Buhari can exploit. Among them: Yar’Adua’s apparent reluctance to go after corruption in a major way. Atiku Abubakar: The departure of Obasanjo from the seat of power, and the awful revelations about his character and performance has made Atiku look considerably better in the eyes of Nigerians. But the damage has been done and it is difficult to see him in a new election. Chances are that he will work with Buhari in order to see how long Obasanjo will last in boiling water. IBB: Among those who must be salivating about a new opportunity to turn things to his advantage would be IBB. But it is unlikely that he would run, unless Yar’Adua decides not to. He would enjoy the role of kingmaker, a short-sighted political compromise that expiring Nigerian politicians, lacking the input to become statesmen, often seek. IBB would back Yar’Adua because should Buhari win, his scorched-earth approach to fighting corruption will place him in the same category as Obasanjo. Pat Utomi: In 2007, he was
the outsider who could have engineered a fundamental difference. He found, however, that Nigerian politics had not left the realm of
money and rigging. Since then, however, a young man called Barrack
Obama has emerged. His terrain might be the United States, but
globalization has made him an international and Nigerian subject. If anyone is to benefit locally from Obama’s emergence and message,
it is Utomi.
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Posted by Robot| 17.02.2008 01:31