Osita Okechukwu is a former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON) and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he speaks on the need for Nigeria to implement the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform report in order to deepen the country’s democracy, among other issues. ANAYO EZUGWU writes

Before the 2023 general election, you said that the adoption of the Uwais panel report by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a vote-rigging vaccine. What vaccine are you going to preach this time with the Uwais report?

You are very correct and that was why I said there is a missing link. Our National Assembly has made contributions to constitutional electoral reforms, they did so well. As you said, there is a missing link, and that missing link is in the Uwais Electoral Reform report.

For me, the Uwais report is divinely inspired. Seventeen years down the line, that bold is still missing in the mix. And you can imagine how Nigeria is so blessed that President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory, on his own volition, told the world that the electoral process that brought him to power was flawed.

And less than three months after his inauguration, he set up the 22-man Uwais Electoral Reform Committee. Among the various recommendations of the committee, what I’ve discovered along the line is that there’s one missing link and that missing link is in section 22.4. What is it saying? In the composition of the board of INEC; they discovered that there’s lack of true independence.

We are human beings. If Osita OKechukwu, as a human being, who is also selfish, has the mandate to appoint the chairman of the electoral commission, appoint national electoral commissioners, resident electoral commissioners, and electoral officers, if you are not patriotic enough to look back at that report, you will miss that missing link.

That missing link says that all those essential offices, national electoral commissioners, chairman and resident electoral commissioners should all be advertised, so that the general public would know those who had indicated interest that they want to be chairman or national electoral commissioners and resident electoral commissioners. And I’m adding the state independent electoral commissions because they have become an albatross.

So, what is the missing link? It says if there’s an advertisement, a collation is done, and a shortlisting is done, three out of four of those who indicated interest should be shortlisted and sent to the National Council of States, where we have all former presidents and governors for them to select one and send to the Senate. I think in the absence of the fact that we do not have the powers to go to Almighty God in heaven and tell him, our Lord, please give us good Nigerians who are in heaven, we must do with those in Nigeria.

So, to do with those alive, I’m appealing to President Bola Tinubu, the leadership of the National Assembly and the state assemblies, to amend the constitution and advance a genuine electoral reform, that that item should be included. And I’m one of those, out of the defunct Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) in the APC, who have remained with Tinubu in APC. And we’re telling, Mr. President, it is in your interest that you should do this legacy.

President Tinubu has some legacy policies, one of which is financial autonomy for the local governments. If he wants this to succeed, he must lay a foundation between now and 2027, for free, fair and transparent elections

Don’t be afraid; you won’t lose the election because of that. Rather, you will promote a political culture of free, fair and transparent elections that will lead to Nigeria’s development.

With the conversation around Prof. Humphrey Nwosu’s national recognition, what’s your take on the discourse that’s happening around him?

The matter has been settled by your team. I’ve listened to you people while the debate was going on. And anything short of hypocrisy is, on one hand, to celebrate MKO Abiola, and even Babagana Kingibe, who did not fight that war.

And you leave the man who conducted the election. It’s a matter of hypocrisy. It is accepted that the election remains the freest in the annals of Nigeria’s electoral process.

And I’m saying that in addition to the vote-rigging machine I talked about, whereby we spent over N300 billion to procure technology, and we missed the point that the managers of the system must be independent, impartial, that they should not owe allegiance to those who appointed them. If they were independent, they would conduct an election that would be freer than the one Nwosu conducted.

I mentioned Nwosu for the fact that I was in Abuja at that time. I know the pressure that mounted against him and his team not to conduct the election. So, any body who dismisses it with a wave of the hand, that conducting that election was an easy joke, will not forget somebody like the late Francis Arthur Nzeribe and Abimbola Davies.

The late Attorney General of the Federation, Clement Akpamgbo, was behind the scenes and moved Justice Ikpeme to give a judegment against the decree, with the decree’s ouster clause, that no court judgement should stop the election. And that judgement was delivered on June 10, 1993. Thereafter, Nwosu was harangued not to hold the election on the 12th but he insisted on holding that election.

That’s why I mentioned his name. I’m not mentioning his name on the issue of whether he was my teacher or whether he’s from my clan. I don’t depend on clan. I’m talking about the good of the country. I’m saying that President Tinubu has some legacy policies, one of which is financial autonomy for the local governments.

If he wants this to succeed, he must lay a foundation between now and 2027, for free, fair and transparent elections. If you don’t have a free and fair elections, the financial autonomy of the local government will collapse at the end of the day as the governors will do their usual style and nominate those they want as councillors and chairmen of councils.

And if you do so, the idea of the financial autonomy that President Tinubu and his Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi,, found an alternative means to give the country, with the grace of my Lord Justices of the Supreme Court, with their way, so will be the development commissions and other development strides.

It was President Nelson Mandela who said that, if Nigeria is not respected, Africa will not be respected. How can we be respected when we are under a flawed democracy? How did 93.7 million people registered to vote in 2023 but less than 30 million voted? Is it not a lack of confidence in the electoral process? That’s my fear.

I think we can get over it and place Nigeria where the world will recognise us, and where the foreign direct investment will come unhindered because no group ever invests where they have no confidence in the system. I’m not saying that the votes-rigging vaccine is not there. It just needs a supplement to make it work, so that nobody will talk of glitches anymore in an election.

What do you make of the recommendation of independent candidature; that nobody should assume any political office to govern until all legal disputes have been resolved and there should be a political parties’ registration and regulatory body to oversee the political parties by Uwais report?

Let me repeat once more that section 224:1 did not give the president the right to nominate the chairman of INEC or the governors to nominate the state electoral commission chairmen.

Rather, what it said is that it should be publicly advertised to the general public. Can I tell you one of the features why they said the June 12 presidential election is the freest? It is because there was no legal matter after the election.

If we have transparent election; Nigerian people are good followers, we might not have any legal tango. We might not need the electoral offences commission or all those niceties. This is central to erasing the negative mindset we have about the electoral process.

The lack of trust is going to consolidate the voters’ premium. As a president, we know that you must do well. In other words, the voters have the power to vote you out. As a governor, you will have at the back of your mind that no matter whoever is advising you, you’ll be aware that the voters have a premium on deciding by their votes.

What we have today is not the same thing. That’s why 93 million registered in case they require the papers to secure a job or do something. On election day, you tell him to come out and vote, he will ask you why he should come out when the election will not be free and fair. That’s what I’m saying.

How can we get the sanctity of the institution of INEC?

If you talk about the elections conducted by INEV under Prof. Attahiru Jega, would you, on a pragmatic analysis, compare it to Maurice Iwu’s election of 2003 or 2007? You can’t. We are trying to compare what happened, not the ideal of the utmost 100 per cent, we’re all human beings.

But on this issue, the Uwais electoral reform committee said we discovered that lack of independence of the managers of the process led to deficiency and that it cannot be truly and genuinely called independent.

When one person handpicks the electoral commissioners, that’s a human element, I know that it might not be 100 per cent after shortlisting and the rest, but there will be some maggots that will be cut off.

And it is a point of improvement in the standard and quality of our elections, the confidence of the people in the elections that will reduce apathy because the people have lost confidence.