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It would be difficult to get good governance, responsive leaders in current electoral system – Ogunade

It would be difficult to get good governance, responsive leaders in current electoral system – Ogunade

Stakeholders have continued to express concerns over the lingering challenges plaguing Nigeria’s electoral system, ranging from vote-buying, voter apathy and violence. Wale Ogunade, national president of Voters Awareness Initiatives, in this exclusive interview with Iniobong Iwok reveal what can be done and moves by his organisation to correct the anomalies. Excerpt 

What is your perception about recent elections in Nigeria?

lections so far in Nigeria are about selection, violence, thuggery, intimidation; the will of the people does not count. Everything about election which encompasses every democratic norm, which is, the voice of the people through election, and it comes through voting allowing the interest of the people to come to pass not that of some groups or vested interest.

Thank God for the way the American institution is built; it does not matter who the president is, the system is there to protect itself from the nuisance and thuggery of self-interest. For instance, in Nigeria what happened in the capitol would happen in Nigeria and they would not see anything bad in it, but as you can see Trump himself was forced to condemn those who went to carry out that act.

Trump who masterminded it had to withdraw when he saw the opposition was enormous. That is what democracy is, it is government of the people for the people and by the people. We don’t have it and we have not gotten it here, but we must get it right now and that could mean today or tomorrow.

A major worry in Nigeria’s electoral system is voter apathy; it has undermined the credibility of elections. What is your take?

Mobilisation and awareness is the way out. Unfortunately, the system does not educate the people and voters; I mean create the awareness that election is coming up. For your information, the politician motto is; the fewer the merrier, so if they announce an election and many people take part in it they know that it could affect them. The fear is that if many voters come out to vote they may lose because they have failed.

In Nigeria, most of them always want a second term, even when as servants of the people they have messed up. So, why do you want to come back if you have not delivered?

I know the members of the National Assembly do not have a fixed term, but even the election umpire doesn’t create awareness, you agree with me that even a day before election you hardly hear anything like jingles or serious awareness and sensitisation programmes. So the people are not informed; so if you don’t know, how do you take part?

The second leg is that because whoever mounted the system has failed, the people now say ok, it is their problem. But no, we have to let them know that it is our collective problem. Because you are not taking part in elections you have encouraged bad people into the system. What has happened is the action and inaction of those elected.

What is your take on the trend of vote-buying, which has characterised elections in Nigeria recently?

There would be vote buying because the people are hungry, that’s why Ayo Fayose said recently that what he does is stomach infrastructure which helped him to overcome his political opponents.

Of course, a lot of people would like to take the national cake, so they go and dig their hands in it.

But once the politicians buy their way into office the people have no right to come and meet them to say; you have not done well because you have sold your conscience for a plate of porridge.

But the way around it is to educate the people that it pays to vote your conscience rather than your stomach.

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How is your organisation planning to address this?

We are going to face it headway by hitting the road soon just like the politicians go round, we too would go round and educate Nigerians on their civic and political rights. We would tell them that sitting on the fence has cost us this problem; because elections are the only way you can choose credible leaders. It would be zero for the head of the company to choose not to qualify people to his firm, because he can’t find people, but that is what we are doing.

Half-baked and charlatans are those elected into public office, and we can see the result, the way they are managing the affairs of the country.

We want to put a stop, and we want to put it right and through this we would bring out the best candidates for the offices, but am sure we would get there. That is where the press comes in, helping us to create awareness, we would move round and hit the road and the streets soonest.

We have members in all parts of Nigeria. In some states we have ten, in others, we have thirty or so.

Why is there a decline in civil society activism in Nigeria in recent years?

Yes, it is true, there are some of us who are in civil society for merchandise, some of us who are there as patriots. Just like you said those who went as merchandise have taken office and it has reduced the voice in the civil society quarters and even those who are there are lobbying for a crumb from the master’s table.

But most of us were involved in voting out the past government with the hope that this government would be better, but I don’t think it would be fair to just suddenly begin to criticise them that they have failed when they just spend less than four years in office.

For some of us we saw this government as part of us that they won the election, but it is clear by the day that they have missed the way and that is why we did that clarion call by that press statement that we need to act so that we would not make the same mistake again.

We would engage the media; our fellow civil society groups, the media is part of this, so it is a big responsibility for us, our responsibility is not to the government but to the Nigerian people.

That is why we are saying everybody wake up, the traditional rulers, police, National Assembly members, traditional rulers, government must be alive to their responsibility so that we have a better Nigeria.

I was part of the people who worked against the PDP government, not that I like APC, but the thought was that; if a government is not delivering it should be voted out.

We have been keeping quiet because we cannot bring down the house we built, we cannot begin to work against the APC after two or three years we would not have credibility; people would say we are professional critics.

But we want to give them enough rope to tighten themselves and they have done that. I don’t see any magic that the Buhari administration would do on in the next two years.

I don’t think there are so many Nigerians who are ready to fund our activities; it is about the will and not funding. But ones that is settled you would see all this coming up. Obviously we can’t continue like this.

What is your take on the performance of INEC?

They have improved a bit, you agree with me that in the past, they were having inconclusive elections, but they are declaring results now.

The last election they started on time and declared results on time, but there is still the issue of violence to deal with, these are issues to tackle before the next election. INEC needs all of us to have a credible election.

In Nigeria, most of them always want a second term, even when as servants of the people they have messed up. So, why do you want to come back if you have not delivered?

What is your take on agitations for electronic voting?

We would engage INEC; we have close to six months or more before the next election. We have been involved in elections and we often give them reports and before any election they do have meetings with stakeholders. We would continue to engage the National Assembly to roll out the enabling laws to make this work. It would give credibility to our election. Even in the NBA, we have been using e-voting, it is a matter of time, there may be hiccups but with time it would be overcome.