By John Azu<\/p>\n
\n
Professor Shehu Abdullahi Zulu (SAN), a Professor of Petroleum Law and Policy of the School of Law at the Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja; former chairman of Governing Board of FUPRE under the Buhari administration, and a leading academic in the North speaks on fears that the opposition may boycott the 2027 general election over the discrepancies in the voter register and other concerns about INEC, the issue of paying for appointment and other issues around the election. Excerpts:<\/p>\n
\n
*Professor, in the last few weeks, there have been intense activities around the political scene. What have been your observations so far?*<\/p>\n
\n
Well, I think it’s not just particularly my own observation, but what is the observation of Nigerians altogether? Because national politics hinges on an electoral process, which eventually will produce the next set of national political leaders.<\/p>\n
\n
So, myself and other Nigerians have been watching with a lot of anticipation, curiosity, and anxiety. Curiosity in the sense that people want change. Anxiety because so far, if we are to be honest with ourselves on general perception about the credibility of the process, there is nothing reassuring about what we have observed so far within the melting pot of national political politics.<\/p>\n
\n
*Specifically, what would you have wanted to change in the last four years?*<\/p>\n
\n
I think it’s not about what I would want changed, because the truth is a universal phenomenon. What is right? Like Dr. Maya Angelou, the author of the book titled Every Child of God Needs a Tribal Nation, said in a series of autobiographies, what is right anywhere is right everywhere. If we are to conduct an objective evaluation of the current political-election trajectory in the country, we will only be left with one conclusion, that the body politic has not come through to produce true leaders that people have agitated for, people have yearned for, and people have in some ways hoped to elect for.<\/p>\n
\n
I think if you look at the political parties across the board, you’d be left wondering, why has Nigerian politics never changed? It’s still the old genie in the bottle. By the way, notice that nothing has changed by way of injecting level credibility within how we do political business and how we even invoke the electoral process, which is the third simple norm to produce the next generation of political leaders. That has not changed.<\/p>\n
\n
And anybody that will be honest with all this stuff will tell you this, the current political and economic trajectories of the country are simply not sustainable. The electoral process, once again, has not been tinctured with so much vantage integrity that people will pin their hope on the outcome of the 2027 general elections. That’s exactly what I meant.<\/p>\n
\n
*Can we look at what has been coming out of the electoral umpire, the INEC? There have been several allegations, both on the generation of AI as voters, the sharing of PVCs by private individuals, confusion over the polling units of voters, so many allegations flying around?*<\/p>\n
\n
Well, I think in my position as a senior educator in Nigeria, as someone who has followed with rapt interest the political engineering of this country, probably for a couple of decades gone by, I have come to the conclusion that beyond the rhetorics, beyond the faltering assumption that INEC is an independent electoral umpire, I think it’s anything but the truth. It’s not independent and it does not behave in what it does in discharge of its own mandate as being an independent electoral umpire.<\/p>\n
\n
This is worrisome. Why? So many allegations have been flying about, preparatory to the upcoming general elections, and they have been targeted at the lack of credibility of the electoral umpire. These are very serious allegations, but we are in a different climate, if it were to be, in a society that views leadership as it should, and a society where people’s concerns matter.<\/p>\n
\n
I believe by now the supposed electoral umpire, INEC, would have made up time to address those allegations. They should not be treated as social media scaremongering. They are very serious allegations that go to the very essence of INEC as an electoral umpire.<\/p>\n
\n
That is one side of the issue. The other side that is quite worrisome is the degree of desperation on the part of politicians. Unfortunately for the country, what you have as politicians are careerists, people who would rather preserve their political ascendancy in a particular electoral position and continue to perpetuate themselves, than to fear that they have a mandate to serve the people, and after giving their possible best, they should leave the stage, particularly when the ovation is so loud that they have not performed to the level of legitimate expectations of Nigerian electors.<\/p>\n
\n
Unfortunately, that is not the case. We just have people who believe that in order to access power, they would have to manipulate the electoral process, or they have to key into the electoral process. It may be manipulated in order to emerge as triumphant, as people that have secured public mandate to govern.<\/p>\n
\n
*Do you think INEC should take the blame, considering that sometimes funding and staffing has always been a challenge?*<\/p>\n
\n
The truth of the matter is this: every institution is a work in progress. Where an institution has not over time demonstrated adequate capacity to deliver on its mandate, to the satisfaction of the public, I believe such an organisation should bear the blame of what is going on.<\/p>\n
\n
Like I said, every institution is a work in progress. But an institution that is incapable of accepting its own failure as a challenge to the event itself, in order to deliver proficiently its own mandate, that institution would be a hard sell to Nigerians that it has any sincerity of intent in delivering on its constitutional mandate. If such an institution arises, I believe any government that is serious about securing a legitimate mandate to govern would have restructured INEC and raised the bar in terms of qualifications before you can be entrusted with any responsibility in managing Nigeria’s electoral process.<\/p>\n
\n
So far, I have not seen that readiness on the part of the government. And it is literally becoming too late for the government to be able to carry out such a structure with a view to restoring the credibility and the sincerity of the government to conduct a credible election that will be accepted as the true reflection of the votes of Nigerian voters. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n
\n
*I would like to ask about the current information coming across that the opposition political parties have threatened to boycott the 2027 general election. Do you think this is the right path?*<\/p>\n
\n
My take on this issue is that it is a defeatist idea.<\/p>\n
\n
But there is no way, from what is going on, there appears to be no other way apart as they said to boycott, so that they will sit up?<\/p>\n
\n
The truth of the matter is we have not gotten to the bridge yet. But what I can tell you is this. If you look at politics in Africa, particularly in Africa, where such actions have been taken by the opposition, it has not been successful in compelling the government, which allegedly has not won an election, but captured power by the use of state institutions to relinquish it.<\/p>\n
\n
That is one reason why such a measure would be defeatist. The other reason is this, like Chuba Okadigbo, the colourful late Nigerian politician, once said, quitters don’t lead and leaders don’t quit. He was right on this. Let us tag along. It is better for the opposition to tag along until we get to the situation where it is obvious to everybody, not just the opposition party, not just according to the reasoning of the opposition party, but let it be clear to everybody, every Nigerian, that INEC has been profoundly compromised and it cannot be trusted to conduct a credible election in the country.<\/p>\n
\n
And then the conversation will not be confined to opposition parties. It will now be a national conversation. And there is no government anywhere in the world, even if you are in banana republic, that would ignore the national conversation or national consensus around the national sensitive issue as the conduct of election. And then Nigerians will get to develop a consensus. Like I said, no government can dare ignore national consensus around a very nationally sensitive issue as the conduct of elections.<\/p>\n
\n
*What you are suggesting, we don’t have time; it is just a few weeks before the election?*<\/p>\n
\n
We have time. We have time as a country.<\/p>\n
\n
*Enough to reverse all the allegations, the AI, the polling units\u2019 reallocations?*<\/p>\n
\n
Well, you know, it’s not every allegation that is true. It’s not every allegation that is true. But to see through the plethora of allegations, identify those that are very fundamental for remedial action in order to restore the confidence of Nigerians and the electorates in particular, that the election will matter. Those issues can be addressed because wherever there is a will, there is always a way. If there is a national consensus on any of these allegations, as it were, as presented to the institutions of public governance with the mandate to address them, I believe it is also in their best interest to be seen as taking remedial measures. I don\u2019t believe that we are dithering on the precipice, but I know there are genuine concerns about the electoral umpire, about perceived government determination to manipulate the electoral process to its own advantage. These are serious matters and we must also be careful to admit to ourselves that Nigeria\u2019s national redemption is not simply a Nigerian thing, but also an international and regional issue. There will be consequences because the worst thing that would happen to a government is not losing an election, it is to insist on governing without a legitimate mandate.<\/p>\n
\n
*As one of the leading academics and intellectuals in the North, has it put itself in a difficult position given the role it played in the formation of the current administration?*<\/p>\n
\n
I don\u2019t think so because a presidential election is a national project and every region of this country has a role to play. Maybe to a greater extent, because of the advantages of electoral demographics, the North would always play a somewhat leading role in terms of producing the president of this country. That is what happened in 2023 and 2016, and would continue to happen. Forget about the organised chaos in the North, it will not impact on the North\u2019s demographic contributions to the outcomes of presidential elections. And the outcry from all regions in the country concerning perceived failure of the present administration is not confined in the North; the outcry permeates all the regions of the country. And I don\u2019t think there is any vicarious burden that the North bears in terms of producing the current President. The North would agree that yes, during the period under consideration, there appeared to be a widespread consensus that, even for reason of credibility, the current President came from political alliance with the North and it felt it should honour the gentlemanly understanding.<\/p>\n
\n
*This alliance just by some group of political leaders of the North or the entire people of the region?*<\/p>\n
\n
No, when we are talking about alliance it is the political leaders that have been invited at the table, but there is a profound disconnect between the political leadership in the North and the followership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By John Azu Professor Shehu Abdullahi Zulu (SAN), a Professor of Petroleum Law and Policy of the School of Law at the Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja; former chairman of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n