Yar’Adua not qualified to reform electoral system - Lai Mohammed

Lai MohammedNational Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress (AC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in this interview with Adewale Ajayi, speaks on a variety of issues affecting the country.

The Action Congress (AC) dismissed the results of the re-run governorship poll in Adamawa State on the ground that the victory was awarded to the highest bidder. Does your party have fact to substantiate the allegation?
It is a pity that Nigerians refused to see half of what we have seen. There is a proverb in Yoruba that two people don’t make loss in the business of lying; if the person to whom the lie is being told does not know, the person who is lying knows that he is lying. It is not correct to say that we lost the election in Adamawa State. In my press release, we rejected the results, irrespective of the impression that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) gave that it was going to create a level playing ground in the election. What that transformed to is institutionalised fraud. I don’t know whether any of the people making this comment has seen a copy of the ballot paper.

Anybody who sees a copy of the ballot paper would agree that from the beginning, the AC had been jeopardised. The ballot paper has two colums with parties on one side and parties on the other side. However, where the AC is placed, the voter will first see the space where he is going to thumbprint, then the name of the party and then its emblem. Unless the voter is going to vote to the left, there is no way he is going to vote for the AC. On the other side, the ballot paper is not arranged the same way; where you have the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) logo, you have the emblem of the party and the place where the voter is supposed to thumbprint on the right hand.

What happened in Adamawa was that most of our voters are illiterates; they are not too sophisticated. They went to look for the emblem of the AC and thumbprinted after the emblem of the party. In the process, they thumbprinted between the column and the emblem of MRDD and that resulted in 126,000 voters voided. I was in Yola and we did receive reports of intimidation, snatching of ballot boxes and these reports were confirmed by the Assistant Inspector or General of police in that zone. People were harassed, hooligans were brought in to Michika and Mada Gali local government areas. Despite that, there were situation reports that in spite of the fact that we lost a lot of voided votes, we still led in 15 out of 21 local government. Newspapers reports alleged that PDP have won 18 out of 21 local governments on the day of the election. Even in a state as cosmopolitan as Lagos and Oyo, there is no way you would have received the report of the election and published them the next day; obviously, a lot of things went wrong.

People keep saying except Lagos, AC is not on ground; that is not correct. Tell me anywhere there has been re-run election and any other party apart from PDP won. Take Kogi and Adamawa states for example; the reason the elections there were nullified was not as a result of irregularities, but because of unlawful exclusion. Therefore, for anybody to say everywhere where we alleged rigging and there was a re-run, we have lost is not correct. There is nowhere in Nigeria today where re-run has been ordered based on rigging; all the re-runs have been based on exclusion.

AC raised a point that INEC should be re-constituted before any re-run election took place. Why did it not go to court to demand for re-constitution of INEC before going into the elections?
That is not correct, my party is already in court asking that on the ground that Maurice Iwu owes too much loyalty and allegiance to a foreign country, he should be removed as head of INEC. We are challenging it in law court. It is also on record that not only the AC, but also the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and many other pressure groups have said that there could not be free and fair election unless INEC is re-constituted. As I am talking to you today, AC’s lawyer is in court asking for re-constitution of INEC.

When you have that impression about INEC, why then did you go into the election?
Where in the world has boycotting of an election ever worked? What will be the outcome of boycotting the election?

Many have attributed the defeat of your party in the Adamawa election to defeat of Abubakar Atiku; they said the outcome of the election would affect his political fortune. How do you feel about that?
Psychologically, I will be devastated if you rig me out of an election in my state. You see I think the answer to the rigging of election in Adamawa is farther than the way some media have put it. In the first instance, in the history of Adamawa State, because of its complexity, the people have never voted in the same pattern. In a free and fair election, there is no way the PDP could have won an election there. The problem with the PDP is that it always ensures that elections held in areas that are not its stronghold do not count. If it wanted to prove its strength in Adamawa, it should have allowed the results of the election that took place in Jada to stay.

As for the election affecting the fortune of Atiku, mind you, he was written off several times during the third term saga; nobody ever gave him a chance that he was going to feature in that presidential election, but he pushed and pressed forward until the Supreme Court declared him as eligible to conduct the election. Atiku, in last four years, had been fighting a combined might of the Federal Government and all its agencies and he still remains standing. Tell me any politician of the stature of Atiku in the country. Tell me any politician today that evokes the kind of emotion Atiku does.If a man starts to fight the Federal Government with all his might, you should give him some credit.

What happened in Adamawa is not just Atiku Abubakar or AC contesting against the PDP, we contested against the Federal Government; an incumbent government and all the agencies of government.

Some attributed the inability of Atiku to win election in his state to his failure to use his position to influence development in the state when he was vice president. How correct is that?
I have heard that allegation too. Mohammed Buhari lost in Daura, his local government in Katsina state. Is it also because Buhari, as head of state, never did anything to develop Daura or Katsina State? It is not correct. The PDP rig anywhere, after rigging, it would now find reasons why it rigged.

You talk of rigging, but the belief is that you can’t rig where you are not popular. Isn’t it so?
They say you can’t rig where you are not strong, what determines strength? It is the support you have from the electoral commission, the support you have from the police, army, security agencies and how much money you can mobilise. It is common knowledge that in all these categories, we are outclassed. We don’t have the Federal Government, the local government caretaker committee chairmen or sustantive ones are not our own; they are PDP’s; we don’t have the police, we don’t have the INEC.

When President Umaru Yar’Adua came up with the idea of setting up electoral reform committee, your party was one of those that supported the idea. Why?
That is not correct; our position is that this government came into power through rigging; it is a product of rigged election as admitted by the president himself when he said the process through which he emerged was a fraud. That government has no moral authority to set up a reform panel. We said so. We also said what we expected the government to do was to order for an enquiry into the entire 2007 election and that this government should not be in a hurry to conduct election, unless it has completed the reform. Going by the prevailing circumstances, does it make sense to go into any re-run election, because it is obvious the PDP will rig the election.

You see the politician is always caught between the devil and the deep sea, on the other side you have your local supporters on ground, and they believe in you, that you are strong and giving any free and fair election , you will win, and if you decides to boycott an election, you might lose them. On the other hand, you are aware that the rigging machinery of the PDP will never allow a peaceful free and fair election, so the circumstances will take effect, which is let’s go for election, let the PDP again show the world, that they are the best rigging machine in Africa. One of these days they have a way of playing it out, after you have defeated all enemies you will start fighting your self.

What is going to happen is that, we will now have the PDP contesting only against itself in any election, because it is the party to beat, the danger is that apart from leading into one party state, it could lead to anarchy, that is why we insist in AC, we will not give up, no matter the rigging macvhinery of PDP, they will be in power legally, but they will always lack legitimacy. Why this country has not moved forward is that there is problem of legitimacy, the country can never never move forward , legitimacy is not in the law court , it is with the people.

The other time the PDP National Chairman said, its party will rule for the next 60 years, is that not a challenge to your party and other political parties, don’t you think it is important for all progressives to come together, or probably form alliance against the PDP?
Not every party in opposition is a progressive party, I may not know your own definition of progressive. I will remind you that run up to 2007 election, we met with All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and other “progressive parties" and we said given the travesty that was in May 14, 2007 election, let all progressives party come together and boycott the election, five of the parties said no, they are going into the election, so I admit there will be difficulty in the political parties meeting together. The so called opposition parties as I said not all of them are progressives, for many of them they don’t see the bigger picture, they see the smaller picture. The smaller picture is that they want their candidate to be in government, at the local government or the state, but the bigger picture is actually the survival of democracy, and until, and when they see the bigger picture, there will be difficulty in the so called opposition coming together.

To Ogbulafor's statement, that PDP will rule for the next 60 years, that is the plan of the PDP, he was just careless in letting it out . They are not going to rule for 60 years because they are going to provide us infrastructure, water, light, good roads, employment, security of life and property, no, they want to rule because they will continue to rig. Let’s see whether Nigerians will allow them to continue to rule for 60 years, like they say, you can fool some people some times, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Ogbulafor statement that PDP will rule for 60 years is no a challenge to my party alone, it is a challenge to all Nigerians , and all lovers of democracy.