Conflicts from last general election polarised political parties in Benue –Ahire

[Mirror]

Prof. Philip Ahire is the Chairman of the Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC). He advocates the independence of state electoral umpires to enable them perform their duty without pressure from the executive arm. In this interview with Henry Iyorkase in Makurdi, the BSIEC boss defends the conduct of the council election which analysts described as below standard. Excerpts:

Elections into the 23 local government councils have come and gone but issues that characterised the exercise have refused to cease as observers described the conduct as below standard in recent times. What is your opinion on this?

The election conducted under my leadership was the most successful local government election ever in the state. I believe that everyone in the state and even beyond will tell you that. Besides, we have received letters of commendation by various groups of observers who came to the state and stayed here for a number of days and observed what we did in getting ready to conduct that election. Some of them stayed up to Election Day and saw what actually happened. Based on what they saw, they have written us letters of commendation and we (ourselves) know that we did our best. We adjudged that election to be very successful. You mentioned that there were discrepancies; there are usually discrepancies in any election anywhere in the world because it's such a massive activity involving different kinds of stakeholders. You will recall when I was preparing the minds of stakeholders towards this election, I tried to point out to them that they each had very crucial roles to play and that if the Benue State Electoral Commission did everything they are supposed to do but they, the stakeholders, fail in their role, the election would have discrepancies. I believe that some stakeholders did not live up to the expectation of the people. They did not do what they were expected to do when it came to their turn. Over all, the election was very successful and I believe that we should thank God for this.

BENGONET, the umbrella organisation of NGOs in the state has at various fora stated that the election was marred by irregularities arising from multiple thumbprintings, ballot snatching and so on. How would you react to this claim?

BENGONET is one of the civil society groups, in fact; it is the umbrella body of all the civil society groups in the state. In keeping with our commitments, we involved BENGONET and civil society groups in everything that we were doing. We believed that they were coming to observe what we were doing to make inputs, suggestions and report back to the public in the state to add value to the elections. We involved them just like we did to the media, political parties, religious groups and traditional rulers. All these are critical stakeholders whose role in the election was very crucial. But BENGONET behaved as if they had an axe to grind with us. They saw nothing good in what we were doing here. They wrote a report trying to discredit us in a number of ways which was contradictory with what some bigger NGOs that came here observed in the election and gave us credit. I don't want to say much about BENGONET. It looks as if they have some axe to grind with us but I am yet to establish the reason why the leader of BENGONET, Barrister Gbagir chose to behave the way he did. We involved, accredited, had meetings with them, gave financial support to go out there and monitor the election just as we gave other stakeholders and he went out there and gave a biased report...a report which you will see some positive things and ignore them and you will emphasise the negative things that you see is not a balanced one. That is what he did. But overall, other NGOs gave very positive reports about what they saw here; we are satisfied with that.

Can you share with us how much it cost your commission to conduct that exercise?

I don't have the figures here in mind. We just want to say that the state government provided all the funding that we needed to carry out that election. Election involves pre-election activities, sensitisation, mobilisation, public education, production of sensitive and non sensitive materials, Election Day commitments on security and other issues, mobilisation of electoral officers to go and do that election, recruitment and payment of ad hoc staff. And so for once in this state, we conducted and rounded off the election, paid up all the ad hoc staff and put the whole chapter to rest. We are very happy but if you ask me what figures of money were involved, I can't give you that one.

But to what extent can you estimate how much it cost the commission?

You see, we cannot even do that. Let me tell you the reasons; some activities like purchase of vehicles for each of the electoral officers in every LG; 23 vehicles were purchased. This was done by the Ministry of Finance but it is for us. Then there was purchase of eight Hilux vehicles for each commissioner and I. This was also done by the Ministry of Finance for us. All we needed was the vehicles and this was done. There were certain things that were done by the police, the SSS to support us from their budget. There were certain things we did from our budget here; there were things the state government did from its own budget, all contributing towards the success of the election. If you want to put a figure to it, you have to go to Police and say, how much did you vote to provide security? You go to SSS and ask them the same thing, to Army and so on. You saw them; they were all involved in providing security during the election. It is difficult to come out with the figure but everyone played his own role in terms of governmental institutions to do what they were supposed to do, so that together, we were able to give Benue State a very free, fair and credible election.

Can you suggest how you would want subsequent elections to be conducted given the hue and cry by participants in the last local government exercise?

I really appreciate that question because we must always try to improve on what we are doing. I do recognise that we could do better than we did. I have seen things that we did that worked very well and would want to sustain them. I have seen areas where more needs to be done. For instance, I believe that we need to train our staff to understand electoral processes very well. We need to train the ad hoc staff for a longer period. Their role is very crucial. They are not our full-time staff. We get, brush them up and then entrust them with responsibilities. We need to work on them more because their role is very crucial in the success of an election. Most importantly, we have to work with political parties closely. On Election Day, the contest ends up being between the political parties. When we have prepared all materials and deployed the materials to the field, the parties are out there and the way they go about ensuring victory for their party through foul and unacceptable means is something that is regrettable. We need to engage them in better discussions so as to appreciate their role and play by the books. I believe we have more to do in the area of working with parties to understand their role and to play by the books. Another area which we need to urge the parties to improve on is internal democracy. Many times, the problems that we have emanate from the parties failing to conduct their primaries democratically and allowing whoever wins from there to become their candidate for the election. After doing the primaries and getting someone, some godfathers will say they don't like that person and then they will change him and put somebody else. This becomes the root of problems. Some court cases are still on as we speak relating to the handling of primaries by the parties. If they can imbibe internal democratic processes and stick to whatever decisions are taken at their primaries, we will have no problems. Those are some of the areas that I believe we need to improve upon.

A few weeks ago, INEC threatened to sanction any political party going about campaigning. In Benue, do you sanction these parties in the state from campaigning?

There is a clear division of labour between us and INEC. INEC handles national elections and even the House of Assembly elections are handled by INEC. Those people you say are going about campaigning or indicating interest and all that are the purview of INEC. We have not even mentioned when next we are having local council elections so we are not in a position to call anybody to order now. Those people that are angling or campaigning and strategising are to be checked by INEC.

What portion of Benue State Local Government Electoral Law would you recommend for amendment?

The law has been recently reviewed and it is inadequate in empowering us to conduct elections. One aspect which is yet to be fully sorted out and this is the problem nationally, not only in Benue, is the aspect of funding state electoral commissions. Those of us in the state electoral commissions feel that the funding of the body should be first line charge on the budget. That is to say that we should not depend on ad hoc releases from the executive when they feel like giving us. Once the budget is approved by the House of Assembly, the money meant for us should be sent. We have a national forum where we discuss our affairs and have articulated that, that will be the best thing for us. We have passed this information to the National Assembly which is in the process of recommending that in the ongoing constitution review the state electoral bodies should be funded directly ... their funding should be first line charge on the budget. Once that is done, our independence will be complete.

In the course of your duty, have you at any time been pressured by any politician?

That pressure is not on the commission, it is on the parties, on the leadership not to recognise the candidate that won the election at the primary. A political party conducts primaries and candidate B emerges winner of the exercise. Then a godfather in that party says he doesn't like that candidate B, he is from that side, he is not loyal to him so he will prefer another candidate C to be substituted for B. Candidate C probably didn't even take part in the primary and then they bring candidate C and send his name to us. The pressure is not on us. No politician can come here and tell us what to do. I don't even allow that at all. We know what to do, we are not waiting for them and we will not take decision from anybody. I have said that and will stand by it. We just want them to uphold the outcome of their primaries and if they do that we will avoid all the controversies and court cases that come up due to illegal substitution of candidates.

What lessons would you want to share with citizens and the entire Nigerians?

When I was appointed to this position, I came with the determination to offer my widow's mite to my state but at the same time, I recognised that the odds were very serious. The conflicts arising from the last general elections had pitched the political parties against each other in this state in such an open conflict that everyone could see and that was a time we were asked to conduct local council election. People were transferring the acrimonies from the last general election to the election which we had not yet conducted. But God came in and calmed everything. I believe that God loves this state; we should continue to strive to do the right thing. The election has come and gone and we have very few court cases. We must carry all stakeholders along in every step, involve them and work with them. We need to do more public sensitisation, political education so that people would understand the essence of elections and their role in the process. These are some of the things we have learnt and I believe that as the date of the next election approaches, we will begin to do that.

Some critics say that all the seats were won by the ruling political party in the state, PDP. Do you feel that you were fair too other party candidates?

When we talk of fairness in the election, it doesn't mean democratic distribution of seats, that's not what fairness means. Fairness in election means that you subject all political parties to the same conditions; you provide a level playing field so that what you are doing to one party you are also doing to the other. Once the electoral commission has provided a level playing field, information, education and does not prefer one party to the other, and it has done its bit, it should not care what the result is. It is not up to me to decide how many seats another party will win. Once we have provided a level playing field and we have effectively and efficiently produced the materials and distributed them across the electoral field, we have done our bit. As you know, these results were announced on the spot in every polling unit; I didn't determine them, I didn't determine the results. For the first time in this state, I said when elections are concluded and the counting is completed, announce the results on the spot. The results were announced in each polling unit and the agents that were there all signed the result sheets effectively determining the winner even before I get to hear about it. I was in the office here, the results were announced out there and we upheld whatever was announced in each polling unit. I didn't determine who won the election. But let me just correct you a little, you said it was one-sided, one party won all. No, some other parties won some councillorship here and there. It's just that the other parties did not win chairmanship elections.

To what extent did the security personnel infl uence the success of the last election?

First of all, I must appreciate the state security apparatuses here because they really came to our support, the Police, SSS, Army, Air Force, and the Civil Defence and so on. They mobilised and came here, offered themselves and we deployed them as much as we could. But the area where we had challenge was within the wards. We had enough security in the state headquarters, major roads and so on but when it came to security within the wards that could cover each polling unit and so on, it was inadequate. The security was not adequate at that level and so that is where politicians from all political parties came in and kidnapped our boys, locked them up and did what they wanted to do. There was room for them to do that at the local level because of inadequacy of security. We believe that in the next election, we will try and appeal for the commanders of various forces to deploy more people at that level.

National Mirror

[Folami David]

We just need to know that politics is for the development of countries and states and not an avenue for killings and assasination!