Former governor of Ogun State and a stalwart of the Action Congress (AC), Chief Olusegun Osoba, has accused the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) of rigging the 2007 general elections, praying that God would rescue the nation from the party.
"But I have faith in God. My God is not a God that would approve or sanction robbery. It’s just that we are always too much in a hurry. One day, there’d be divine intervention," Osoba assured.
He also accused the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) Prof. Maurice Iwu, of aiding and abetting the PDP in the alleged electoral fraud.
While calling for the disbandment of the INEC, he expressed disappointment in Ehindero over his recent comment that his men should not allow the masses to protest against the polls result.
"The IG disappointed me. On the eve of his departure, and on the eve of his retirement, he got himself involved in a lot of political mess," he said, adding, "Mr. Ehindero has my pity and sympathy. I just pity him."
Osoba, an Egba chief, also described as "unfortunate" the impression that Egba chiefs are not enthusiastic to welcome President Olusegun Obasanjo home after leaving office at the end of this month.
"This again is another unfortunate situation. I have been calling people back home in Abeokuta, to ask for arrangements being made for the return of Chief Obasanjo, and nobody seems interested," he said.
Excerpts.
One of your contemporaries, Alhaji Abubakar Audu re-contested the governorship of Kogi State. Did you also consider re-contesting in Ogun State?
I have never believed that there could be a smooth transition under a PDP-controlled government. I, therefore, did not consider it at any time that it was worth my consideration.
People felt that a coalition of ANPP and the AC would have defeated the PDP in Ogun State. Did you at any time try to facilitate a merger?
Was there an election last month? What happened in Ogun State and throughout the country was allocation of votes. The votes were pre-determined. It is, therefore, a useless exercise to look back and say that if ANPP and AC had joined forces it would have made any difference. PDP had made up its mind and it went ahead to allocate votes. You can also stretch it further and ask the question, Anambra State, which is not bigger than Ogun State in population, returned over one million votes. Does that reflect a free and fair contest, particularly, where the governor of the state, Peter Obi, former governor, Chris Ngige, and Ukachukwu of ANPP, all came out to say there was no voting in Anambra?
You said you have never believed there could be a credible election under a PDP government, why then did you support the Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, for the presidency?
Personally, I went out campaigning because I believe we would get to a stage where we might have to call out our supporters to insist on our right. If you listened to some of the statements that I made, I said AC was beyond being a political party. It is a mass movement, planned in such a way that if we have to come out and insist on our right as the people in Georgia did, as the people in Ukraine did, we would be better off. We needed a structure. To me personally, AC was just a vehicle, not for the election of 2007, but beyond 2007.
When the results of the presidential polls were released, were you surprised at the paltry figures Atiku polled?
I was not bothered. I was not worried. I was not shocked. I had always believed that PDP would do worse than they did in 2003. No votes were counted anywhere in Nigeria. There was no result. What you have is allocation of figures. I keep repeating it.
The PDP went out to rob the whole country, and they carried out a "successful" electoral robbery. To them, that is "success." But unfortunately for them, the entire country reacted negatively. Even the international community reacted negatively to the robbery.
What they have is not victory at all. How come they themselves cannot roll out the drums? They’re only gathering in their closet and shaking one another’s hands. Let them come out anywhere in the country and roll out the drums in the streets, and start dancing that they’re victorious. They’ll see what the reaction of the people would be to them.
In case they extend an olive branch to the AC, would the party participate in a PDP government?
We have discussed that and resolved that this is beyond just going to share in the booty. How do you share in the booty of armed robbery? If somebody has stolen, how do you share the booty? No. We’re not interested. That’s not part of the AC’s agenda.
You said there was no election throughout the country, how do you reconcile that with the AC’s victory in Lagos State?
The case of Lagos is different for many reasons. Lagos State is a city-state, just like Kano State is a city-state. The PDP knew that if they made any mistake of tampering with places like Lagos and Kano, the 300 casualties that we had would have been in thousands.
Second, there was a heavy policing of Lagos. In actual fact, we would have scored higher than we scored if the PDP government had not created fear in the mind of the people. If the PDP had not intimidated them, we should have scored a minimum of two million votes.
I know many people who felt there could be violence, mayhem, and they quietly locked themselves inside their houses. If there had not been intimidation and harassment on April 14, and election had been free and fair on that day, Lagosians would have come out in a larger numbers for the presidential election on 21st.
Take Lagos out of it; in fact, Lagos was able to really show to the world that where you practice democracy, Nigerians would get the fruit of their labour.
Aggrieved politicians have been advised to seek redress at the electoral tribunal. Do you think anything good would come out from there?
I have faith in the judiciary, particularly the way the Supreme Court had displayed its independence in the last few months. I, therefore, would not write off the tribunal.
But are you not worried that the tribunal is yet to commence sitting weeks after the elections?
I’m not. It’s not that easy. Even those who are going to go to the tribunal will have to collate their evidences, especially in a situation where the PDP ensured that Iwu’s INEC, which is a wing of the PDP, did not even go to the polling booths with the result sheets. They had to go home and start cooking up the result. And in some cases, they are still thumb printing ballot papers to match the figure that they released. It’s, therefore, not going to be easy to collate information, and that’s why the tribunal has not started sitting. It’s not the fault of the judiciary.
Was the Inspector General of Police’s threat to deal with protesters the reason the AC, which you describe as a mass movement, did not protest the result of the polls on May Day?
I think the public and the Press got it mixed up. Originally, we were going to use the May Day to just make a political statement on the current situation, but labour people said they would not want to mix politics with labour. The NLC president advised that we should let them celebrate the May Day without getting involved in politics, and that they would be involved at subsequent time when we decide to take any action. May Day was not planned to be a day for mass protest. It was to be a day to educate the public on what happened.
But what do you have to say about the IGP’s threat?
The IGP disappointed me. On the eve of his departure, and on the eve of his retirement, he got himself involved in a lot of political mess.
I was not happy that a lawyer, a highly educated man like Ehindero would decide that all cases, particularly political cases, should immediately be transferred to Abuja. This was the same thing we witnessed in March 2004 when Tafa Balogun locked up about 20 youngsters from Ogun State for three months, at the end of the day; they found no case against them. I pity Mr. Ehindero. I sympathise with him. I just pity him. That’s all I would say. I won’t say more than that.
The elections have no doubt been condemned. Some people are even calling for the resignation of Prof. Maurice Iwu. Do you share their view?
Resignation is a mild word to use. The entire INEC should be disbanded. I said it before in The Sun that Iwu is evil, and that nothing good can come out of Iwu. He and I met at Daily Trust annual dialogue, and I repeated my statement that nothing good would come out of this INEC. He felt upset that day. But today, my prediction has come to pass.
What is even nauseating to some of us is the manner in which he’s now pushing the monster of results down our throats, and damning everybody. It’s so nauseating and I hope in his sober moment, he would reflect and pray for forgiveness from God.
Given the recurring situation, when do you think Nigeria will get its elections right?
Not in the foreseeable future. The PDP has introduced another evil into our culture, the evil of electoral robbery. I feel sorry for the country because a government that is supposed to provide security has now gone to tamper with cultism, using cultists in our institutions, arming youngsters to openly, in broad daylight, rob people of the only right left to them, the right to vote, the right to change their government.
They’ve even taken it to a higher level. Those that you’d think are supposed to be responsible, decent, educated Nigerians got involved in the 2007 electoral fraud. In Abeokuta, for example, a deaconness, and a former commissioner in Ogun State, a former chief executive of a bank, and a top civil servant, were all involved in snatching, at gun point, the ballot box in one of the polling booths at GRA, near my house in Abeokuta. They didn’t even care who was watching them.
So, we’re now telling the whole world that robbery is now part of our culture in this country. We have graduated beyond 419. We have now turned our nation to a nation of fraud, a nation of armed robbers, who accepts robbery as part of our culture. What do you think would become of the products of this kind of electoral robbery? Governors who are the products of this robbery, would they have the right to query young students cheating at JAMB or NECO?
I read in the papers that some students were cheating at JAMB; I said that’s no news in any case. If their fathers can openly go and rob voters in broad daylight, that children rob or commit fraud at WAEC, JAMB, NECO is a child’s play.
Is the AC going to challenge Yar’Adua’s victory or have you accepted it?
The AC as a party is going to go to court. That was decided immediately after the election at a caucus meeting that we had.
Do you think any good thing will come out of it?
As democrats, we must explore all legal means to express our shock and displeasure. That’s the main reason we’re going to go to court, and expose the havoc that the PDP has wreaked on this country.
You said earlier that AC is future political movement, how soon would the AC take over the governance of the country?
I am not a prophet and I am not going to prophesy. I am, however, convinced that the entire country is in a state of mourning. You can see the mood of Nigerians. What happened in the last three weeks in the country has been a shock. There is disillusionment, some are beginning to lose faith in the government, most people don’t believe in the ballot box any more.
It is in that light that I know that some day, sometime, most Nigerians who feel this way would come together and look for a channel and an avenue, and that is when AC as a movement would gather steam. For now, the PDP believe they are riding high, and we are just watching them as they dance naked in public.
A lot of people have adjudged Alhaji Umar Yar’Adua as a gentleman and prudent politician. Take him away from PDP; do you think Nigeria can move ahead under his government?
I have always wanted us to remove the person of Umar Yar’Adua out of this mess. He, as a person, is an unfortunate victim of a cabal who just want to use his good name, his enviable pedigree and background, his good upbringing as somebody from a family with a good name to sell. I, therefore, would not want to drag his name into this situation at all.
You are an Egba chief, what preparations are the Egba chiefs making to welcome President Obasanjo back home in the next few weeks?
This again is another unfortunate situation. I have been calling people, back home in Abeokuta, to ask for arrangements being made for the return of Chief Obasanjo and nobody seems interested at all.
Yesterday afternoon, I spoke to one of his cousins, and that one said the family is not interested in welcoming him back to Abeokuta. It hurts me that the president has driven himself into such a situation that people are not that enthusiastic about his person, his philosophy as a politician. People are just not interested in his legacy.
I felt greatly hurt when I watched the president on television on Monday night (last week), speaking at the commissioning of the National Assembly extension complex, and I was shocked by some of the statements that came from the president.
For example, he said he’s happy that the situation is such that it’s not north and south that are quarreling this time around, that it’s not a religious crisis, that it’s not an ethnic issue. I held my head and told my wife that I wish somebody would save Mr. President from the world of illusion that he’s living.
He still hasn’t realized that the entire country is bonded together by the evil that they have foisted on us. He didn’t realize that the issue is beyond all the primordial factors, and that the entire country is united against his performance, against PDP, against his election. If a referendum is held tomorrow, 99 per cent of Nigerians would vote against this election, against PDP, against what has happened, and that’s what has united us together. We’re back as if we are on the football field, the entire country.
There’s no sector that has not felt the impact of this havoc, and Mr. President is not seeing it that way at all. It’s a big pity.
Is INEC’s problem, that of the system or the operators?
Both. I halla, halla and preached open-secret ballot system as the best mode for election in this country, which means election would take place simultaneously at every polling booth at the same time, and nobody would be able to move from one place to the other. Also, the auditing of the number of ballots issue would be taken before the election begins, to match the number of those accredited, so that the number of ballot papers that would be issued would match the number of accredited voters, and the votes would not exceed the audit and voting would take place at the same time. This would reasonably guarantee a level of fairness.
A future INEC must have representatives of all political parties to be involved in all the arrangement of elections.
And when it gets to elections, the number of printed ballot papers, the numbers issued out, the location of all the election materials must be endorsed by the political parties. It is only then that we can talk of a free and fair election.
Nigerians are capable of conducting a free and fair election. I have faith in my country. I have faith in the citizens of this country. There are more honest Nigerians than the fraudulent ones. It is only a little cabal led by a godfather that is holding the entire country to ransom and for how long they will hold us like that, only God knows.
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