Prof Tonie Iredia is a former Director-General of Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and ex-spokesperson of former National Electoral Commission (NEC).

In this interview, he speaks on the sentencing of a university don to three years in prison for publishing false election results and perjury during the 2019 state House of Assembly election in Akwa Ibom State, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

How significant is this case in Akwa Ibom regarding Prof. Ignatius Uduk, who is said to have falsified reports and what lesson can both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other persons, who are recruited by the commission learn from this particular case?

I think that to say that the case which has just ended is significant is an understatement because it’s obvious that this is probably a one-time thing.

We hardly hear this. A lot of people who believe that so much has gone wrong with the elections must have been jubilating, when the judgement was passed.

But I think that we probably need to change our approach to INEC and perhaps other agencies that are involved in the conduct of elections.

By that, I mean the police and the judiciary. Maybe, we should stop criticizing them. Maybe, we should stop appealing to them to listen because it appears as if they only hear what they want to hear.

We have all been saying for a very long time that there’s a need to put an end to this election chicanery in our country. And it doesn’t appear to be happening.

It’s quite frustrating to have an election and somebody that we all consider to have some credibility, simply because of his occupation and place of assignment, disappoints all of us.

We all believe that when you want the best, you go to very credible people like university professors, who are expected to live above board.

And then you find them behaving like just political thugs, doing the opposite of what is expected of them and frustrating the voting process in our country. So, we need to appeal to them that they need to do better work.

They need to be more interested in the growth and development of Nigeria than the material benefits that one can get by serving as a returning officer or whatever assignment INEC gives to such people, who are invited to bring some light to bear on our process.

I was trying to talk about the heroes of this judgment and I said the first are the two judges, Justice Udukko and Justice Bassey Nkanang and then the next hero is Mike Igini, a former Resident Electoral Commissioner who was in Akwa Ibom State when this election was held.

Why Mike Igini needs to be commended and celebrated is because in all the cases that happened during that election, we only hear about AkwaIbom was the only state that held people accountable. Why were other Resident Electoral Commissioners not able to hold anybody?

Are they suggesting that there were no infractions in other parts of the country? Of course, we saw several infractions. A lot of people were complaining.

Sometimes you don’t know whose complaint is genuine, but if they were tested, we could have known the way the Akwa Ibom situation has been tested.

And then the two judges, I think that it’s important to praise them not because it is an extraordinary thing for a judge to do his job, but because we hardly find this type of situation in Nigeria.

A lot of people, once it comes to election cases, begin to see judicial pronouncements that are assaulting. So, we need to praise these two judges and expect that others will emulate them.

We also need to appeal to the authorities not to victimize these two judges, because sometimes you find out that when judges do their best, they become scapegoat.

Do you think that there are bigger and perhaps higher-up individual groups of people who ought to be brought into the matter as well?

First and foremost, if Prof. Uduk allowed himself to be the scapegoat, he has to carry the can.

Two, if other people were involved, it might be very difficult to get there, especially if they are members of the political class, because there are people who will shield them, and there are also very strong financial people who can buy their way through.

But I think that if we start little by little the way this case has gone, we may begin to expand, so that in the future we get more people. To that extent, I think we need to take a few more drastic steps in reforming electoral issues.

First and foremost, why has it taken four years for this case to be handled, whereas if the case was about election alone, in six months maximum, we already know the winner?

Why can’t we give the same timeline for anybody who has committed any electoral offence to be dealt with immediately, summarily, and done with?

Because at the time this judgement has been given, a lot of people have forgotten really what the history of the case looks like.

So, if we are talking about deterrence, it’s quite possible that people may not be able to link how it happened with how it ended.

This fixation that the best persons are in the universities is misplaced and the behaviour of those two professors in Akwa Ibom has shown to us that it is wrong for us to rely on somebody simply because he’s a professor

To that extent, I think there’s a need for us to take election petitions along with election offences. We’ve been talking about the establishment of an election offences tribunal. It has not seen the light of day.

I want to believe, as a layman that the hindrance is that those who would have facilitated the emergence of the election offences tribunal are people who are likely to be caught by it.

So, if the political class is refusing to allow an election tribunal to try offences and offend us, then for that long, shall we have this kind of rigmarole in the trial of cases. You referred to the election umpire, which I had mentioned that we need an impartial election umpire.

I am not just saying it because I want to criticize the current people there. Between 1987 and 1993, I was in the electoral commission.

I was a spokesperson of the electoral commission that conducted the June 12, 1993 election, which today is regarded as the best in the country. So, I have an idea of what happens inside there.

So, when we say we want an impartial election umpire, we know what we’re talking about. I think the political class should stop appointing politicians to the electoral commission.

And each time somebody who has some political lineage is brought in; civil societies will raise the alarm but nobody will do anything about it.

The Senate Committee on Elections will tell you that they didn’t see anything wrong with the person and he will be cleared, and he becomes an election umpire.

At the end of the day, he embarrasses all of us. So, I think we should be able to follow the rules of the game because the election is based on rules.

The Nigerian constitution says that anybody who has had anything to do with elections should not be an umpire.

We don’t even need a constitution to say that, because it’s common sense that if somebody is a referee, he must not only be seen to be neutral, he must be above board.

Do you see Nigeria evolving out of this cycle that seems to have just become the norm and accepted, and what are those steps that need to be taken for us to evolve out of this?

I think that we have a major problem which we have all tended to ignore, and that is the zero-sum nature of our political system, where the winner takes all.

That kind of system makes people fight with whatever weapon they have just to win an election.

When people have that kind of approach and that kind of disposition, the tendency is that whatever you put down will always be pushed aside just to get to win.

Maybe, if we can make our political offices less attractive, and less lucrative, then we’ll begin to find persons of integrity who will come out and serve.

But a situation in this country where somebody becomes a member of the House of Assembly and his classmate is appointed admin officer in an organization, while that classmate is still on level eight for the next four or five years, the classmate in the House of Assembly already has several cars, several houses, all kinds of salaries, all kinds of allowances, which sometimes they pretend that does not exist.

But we all know because if somebody lives near you and within the three months of his election, he becomes a millionaire, where is it coming from other than the electoral process?

So, we need to make our political offices less attractive, and less lucrative. This idea of buying N160 million vehicles for people who are just because they were elected is wrong.

So, I don’t know why we are busy beating about the bush and looking at cosmetic matters. The real substance is there. We need to check our political system.

We need to check the reward system for politics and compare it with the reward system for other sectors in the country, so that we can all begin to realize that there’s a need for service, not just entering the position to gain.

What category of Nigerians will you recommend to work with INEC since the academics and intellectuals have failed us and INEC will always need ad-hoc staff?

As these two professors have been jailed, I don’t think that anybody in Akwa Ibom State will do it again.

If they do it, they should know that this is a likely consequence that will come. So, consequences for action should be paramount in our nation.

I don’t think that we need to go to outer space or we need to go elsewhere. We can do it well if we are sincere about doing it and if we can follow not only the letter but the spirit of the law.

My position is simple about professors. I think it is wrong for the electoral commission to assume that once you are a professor, you have integrity. If that were so, why are there exam malpractices in universities?

If there are exam malpractices in universities and you go to that same place and pick people and you expect that when they come to election results, there won’t be malpractices, then it is your undoing to assume that people in the university are wonderful. But that does not mean that everybody in the university is useless.

So, I don’t see the reason why INEC cannot sit down and pick persons who have demonstrated a track record of service, a track record of integrity and character. It’s not difficult to find it. In every profession, they are there, just as there are many bad eggs in several professions.

This fixation that the best persons are in the universities is misplaced and the behaviour of those two professors in Akwa Ibom has shown to us that it is wrong for us to rely on somebody simply because he’s a professor.