GOVERNORS’ FORUM AND MAURICE IWU (1)

PHOTO: PROTESTERS ROOTING FOR IWU'S REMOVAL AT THE ENOUGH IS ENOUGH RALLY IN ABUJA RECENTLY.

If what the dailies reported in the last few days is true, then it is unfortunate indeed. The governors’ forum is reported to be rooting for the retention of Maurice Iwu, the controversial but remorseless Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) whose tenure expires in June this year. Our governors have once again pitched their tent against the people and against popular opinion just as they did during the Presidential vacuum created by the absence of the indisposed President Yar’Adua when the governors forum were not in support of invoking section 144 of the constitution by the Federal Executive Council and the dissolution of the Yar’Adua’s appointed cabinet members.

The cabinet has since been dissolved. I am aware that not all the governors are anti people but those of them who take strange positions for selfish reasons know themselves. How on earth can anybody support the retention of Maurice Iwu, the man who messed Nigeria up electorally, as INEC chairman?

I particularly find the comments of Imo State governor, Ikedi Ohakim nauseating and insulting to Nigerians that Maurice Iwu has performed well in INEC and had laid the foundation for future democracy of Nigeria. I ask Ohakim, which foundation has Iwu laid apart from how to rig elections? One had thought before now that it was only Professor Iwu, David Mark and former president Obasanjo who believed that the April 2007 election was the best thing to happen to Nigeria since Independence, but some governors who are beneficiaries of fraud and who again wants to benefit from another fraud in 2011 had joined the fray. 

In the last 5 years that Maurice Iwu had been at the helm of affairs in INEC, he had received as grant on behalf of his organization, a whooping 134 billion naira and yet there is no voters’ register properly so called in INEC. Over the same period, about 160 billion naira have been expended on election litigations while about 1,200 election petition cases are still pending at various tribunals in the country over an election he conducted in 2007.

In all of these, nothing hurts as the go-to-hell attitude of Maurice Iwu to Nigerians whom he had traumatised needlessly with the way his organization had been handling Elections. The support of some governors for Iwu to continue could only be interpreted to mean that they wanted him to continue to rig them into office because they cannot win in a free and fair election. Professor Iwu had been alleged severally by many candidates and groups of supporting one candidate against the other.

His organization, INEC had also been indicted in various tribunal judgments across the country especially in the Appeal Court judgment in Benin in the case of Mimiko and Agagu where INEC was lambasted for being an interested party rather than being an unbiased umpire and a nominal party in the case. It is clear that Maurice Iwu’s INEC is a tainted umpire in whom most Nigerians have lost confidence. Apart from being the nightmare of Nigerians on election matters, Maurice Iwu had allegedly awarded many phony contracts to his cronies and he is reported to be daily swimming in financial controversies. 

Recently, Maurice Iwu further enraged Nigerians when he publicly presented a timetable for the 2011 elections barely one week after the Save Nigerian Group (SNG) marched for his removal in Abuja. Apart from the fact that INEC as presently constituted does not form a constitutional required number to conduct any election in accordance with the Third Schedule, Part 1 of the constitution, Iwu as the head, is not a trustworthy character to lead a sensitive organization like INEC. Iwu behaves as if Nigerians are suffering from collective amnesia.

Before the 2007 general elections, there is nothing under the sun that Iwu didn’t promise Nigerians. He said the election would be a reference point for future elections by other countries including the United Nations. Instead, the election became the worst in the history of mankind and this is why almost 3 years after, there are still thousands of petitions emanating from that election in various tribunals.

Professor Iwu bragged up till the morning of the election that his e-voting method was rig proof. He went as far as saying that anybody who snatched ballot boxes was wasting his time because elections would be announced at each polling booth. But this was not the case. Iwu did not only deployed soldiers who aided PDP thugs and chieftains to snatch ballot boxes and scare voters away, those who snatched ballot boxes did not waste their time as Iwu had predicted because their candidates have emerged ‘winners’ across the country while they (ballot box snatchers) live happily ever after.  

Before the 2007 elections, INEC’s Direct Data Capture machine was found in late Lamidi Adedibu’s house and another one in Alao Akala’s aide house in Ogbomoso carrying out illegal registration. INEC promised to prosecute Adedibu and the IG invited him to Abuja for a chat but nothing was heard about the case till the death of Adedibu one year after. Iwu’s INEC would always join forces with the PDP in any case involving any other political party at the tribunal and he is always quick to declare seats of non-PDP members in a House of Assembly vacant at the slightest opportunity but would look the other way if it is not in favour of the PDP.

During the 1^st Petition against the victory of Mr. Segun Oni at Ekiti Tribunal between 2007 and 2008, the then Resident Electoral Commissioner Dr. Gabriel Okafor on the instruction of Maurice Iwu bolted away to avoid being compelled by the tribunal to produce election materials with which the petitioner would prosecute his case. The same thing was repeated at the present trial resulting from the flawed rerun election ordered by the Appeal Court.

It is also common in other states that whenever the tribunal ruled in favour of inspection of INEC documents, it would oppose it, even when the application to stay action is struck out, INEC would still make the exercise difficult. If Iwu’s INEC has nothing to hide it should be the one to procure forensic machines for public scrutiny of the success he claimed to have achieved in the conduct of the elections.