What is clear to all serious analysts is that certain powers within the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party circles are very frightened about the likely outcome of the presidential elections. That fear has been expressed in the enormous pressure brought to bear upon INEC to postpone the elections. It has also been expressed in flying kites that could lead to the removal of the INEC Chairman, and in the numerous court cases by different party surrogates to remove the presidential candidate of the APC from the ballot or stop the use of the permanent voters’ card or card readers. I do not know how they intend to scuttle the elections outcome. They themselves may not know and are simply trying out every trick in the book with the hope that one of them works. These people have no love for Nigeria and certainly no belief in democracy. Those of us who believe the love Nigerians have for democracy should be respected have an enormous task being on our toes as the tricks are tried out.
The latest trick to emerge is the sudden order by the Federal High Court in Abuja that INEC should immediately register a certain Young Democratic Party (YDP). Immediately after the ruling, the new party last Thursday asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to immediately make provisions to include it in the ballot and if the time for that is insufficient, to postpone the forthcoming presidential election scheduled for 28 March. The party argued that its interpretation of the court order is that not only should INEC register the party, it should also include YDP in the 2015 elections. The National Publicity Secretary of YDP, Mr. Ugo Nwofor, said there were only two options available to INEC, “either reprint its ballot papers and include the party with a view to accommodate the party’s candidates or shift the elections.” As is well known, there is no further room to postpone the elections a second time and still respect the constitutional provisions that would allow for elections and swearing in of a new government on 29th May. The obvious intention therefore is to create a constitutional crisis that would lead to regime breakdown and the installation of the long speculated interim national government.
The emergence of totally unknown political individuals capable of recruiting powerful well-known lawyers to push their case through a federal high court raises fundamental questions on who the powerful forces behind them are. Your guess, I assure you, is the same with mine. Maybe we do not have to guess, according to the Punch (7/3.2015), “Shortly after the press briefing, one of the brains behind the YDP was seen at the national headquarters of the PDP in Abuja on Thursday evening, where he said he had come to confer with some of its officers. In a confidential discussion with our correspondent, he said he had come to brief the party on the success of their legal work which made the court to order that the new party be registered. When our correspondent called him on the telephone on Friday whether they were planning a fresh legal option to compel INEC to comply with the court order, he answered in the affirmative.” Currently, YDP is making plans to fix a date for its convention so that it can choose a presidential candidate. Meanwhile, they expect all arrangements for the elections to be shelved while they shop for a presidential candidate. In normal countries, the justice system will not tolerate such blatant attempts to scuttle a democratic system but then this is Nigeria. As the ploy by this group is likely to be disregarded by INEC, the real plan might well be to leave room for subsequently challenging the elections after results have been announced to try and set aside the whole process on the grounds that a party has been denied its constitutional right to contest. I have no idea how they can go round the law, which states that the submission of candidates list for elections expires 60 days before the election.
Another front opening up on scuttling the elections is the war against Boko Haram. According to Newswirengr.com, Idriss Deby, the Chadian President has slammed President Jonathan for his refusal to fight Boko Haram over the last five-years. The report refers to quotes from Reuters claiming that officials from Chad, Niger and Cameroon are saying that lack of cooperation from Nigeria has for months hampered efforts to put together a regional taskforce against Boko Haram. Chad was therefore compelled to take unilateral action in January, under a deal that allows it to pursue terrorists into Nigeria, after Boko Haram violence started to choke off imports to its economy. Clearly, the stage is being set for a major breakdown in cooperation between Nigeria and its neighbours in the war against Boko Haram. We have already seen the anger with which the Nigerian Defence Spokesman attacked the Minister of Defence of Niger Republic after his comments that Nigerian soldiers run and hide rather than stay and fight the enemy. It would be really dangerous for our collective future if we have a breakdown of cooperation with our neighbours in the current context when finally Boko Haram is on the run. Our neighbours need to be encouraged to show us some respect while we need to engage in confidence building measures to reassure the. This is certainly not the time to compromise the war against Boko Haram through enflaming national pride and making an election gambit that we could deal with Boko Haram without our neighbours. Was it not the security argument that was used to postpone the elections in the first place?
Whether or not the security argument was valid, the postponement of the elections was an opportunity for the ruling party to try and reverse the momentum gained by the presidential candidate of the opposition by playing the money game. By extending the campaign time, they would exhaust the financial coffers of the opposition while their own coffers which draws largely from state resources would remain buoyant. Secondly, they had invested considerable resources in producing well-researched propaganda hate films designed to make Nigerians hate the APC presidential candidate and have been showing them on AIT and NTA in total disregard to the enabling law that prohibits showing such footage on television. There is no evidence that the momentum shift has occurred so they might be reverting to some of the earlier plans to scuttle the elections altogether.
I have argued previously that this is not the first time that Nigeria is confronting a situation in which an incumbent regime deliberately works towards subverting elections to maintain itself in power or handover to an interim regime it chooses. We all remember the various attempts by the General Ibrahim Babangida regime to subvert the 1992 elections through the Association for Better Nigeria and the courts and eventually handover to an interim regime. As we see layers of plans to scuttle the elections emerge, lets be comforted with one thing. The Nigerian people are very well trained in reading signs and indicators of planned sabotage of the constitutional regime. Even more important, they are determined to fight against the loss of constitutional democracy. They will continue to roll out the plans and the Nigerian people will continue to contain them. For the Nigerian people, the struggle of deepening democracy remains a matter of deep commitment and concerted action. The struggle continues,
