“Yar’Adua is Serious About Electoral Reform”

Michael Aondoakaa, Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation

– Michael Aondoakaa, Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation
By Sam Tyav, Makurdi
As the 2011 general elections draws near, individuals and groups have begun the endorsement of various State Governors in the country for a second term in office. What is your reaction to this as it affects the re-election of President Umaru Yar’Adau?
My concern is to mobilise maximum support for President Yar’Adua’s government and to remain 100 per cent loyal to him for the success of the Seven-Point Agenda. Secondly, for now the president is not talking about the issue of his re-election because he wants to fulfill his covenant to Nigerians. I want to remain an integral part of the Federal Executive Council and contribute my quota in ensuring that the President delivers on his Seven-Point Agenda.
Today, the president has done so much in fulfilling his promises. For instance, he has awarded contracts worth N140 billion for infrastructural development and this is the first time a transparent award of contract that cut across the six geo-political zones of the country will be done. The South east enjoyed the lion share because of the peculiar problem they have, and these roads are Trunk “A” roads. Each of the contracts has an impact on what is happening. If you go between Nassarawa – Eggon and Akwanga, everybody knows the rate at which lives have been lost there as a result of road accidents. At least four billion naira contract has been awarded on that road for realignment.
Again, the Abuja Airport Road is being opened now to have five lanes on each side. Then the Kubwa Road is also being given serious attention to control the in-flow of traffic that comes in through Kubwa, Suleja and so on. Similarly, efforts are being made on Nyanya Road to control traffic there.
In Abuja today, most of the projects that were abandoned have been reactivated. For instance, those overhead bridges that were terminated, the contractors have been mobilised to site to complete them. The overhead bridge which is being constructed to take care of the traffic that comes from Nyanya has equally reached advanced stage and when completed will address the problem of congestion experienced there.
Another target of the Federal Government is the railway, which is the key to opening up our society. There is no way the society will grow in terms of agriculture without the railway system. The existing railway system needs serious maintenance to facilitate the movement of goods from the North to the South. If we now take proactive maintenance measures goods and services will be easily transported.
The Federal Government is talking about electoral reforms, but looking at the way elections are conducted in the country, what is government doing towards ensuring free and fair elections in future?
The target is to ensure that INEC conducts credible elections. The target of the president is that elections should be transparent. But the problem we have on the issue of transparency is that people should be responsible in making criticisms, because before you talk of having transparent elections, a political party that has no support, no coverage in the country, is already blowing trumpet that they are going to rig election, when elections are not yet done. If you look at the structure and mentality of the president, you will know that there will be credible elections in 2011.
If you see what we have received as judgments from the courts and the way such judgments have been implemented you will know that there will be credible elections in 2011. As for the government ensuring the transparent distribution of resources that accrue from the Federation Account, no governor will say he is being intimidated or that his state's money is being withheld. For instance, we had to stop the Primary Health Centres contract and it was because of due process that it was revoked by the Federal Government, because it created an obligation for the Federal Government to deduct monies that belong to the states to pay the contractor. We said we don’t want a situation where monies belonging to the states are withheld. Vision 2020 can only be achieved if the states are empowered to ensure complementary progress that would enhance the economic well-being of the country. The Federal Government alone cannot do it.
For any meaningful development to take place in any society, power generation is no doubt required. We are aware of efforts by the Federal Government to tackle the epileptic power supply nationwide. What is the situation at present?
You see, let me tell you, the president is deeply committed towards addressing this power problem. I will praise the previous administration for trying to focus on the issue; this is a sector that was heavily neglected because if we had known that power is the key to industrialisation, previous governments would have addressed it and we wouldn’t be talking about it now.
The wisdom of the immediate past administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in tackling the power problem was the first initiative and President Yar’ Adua is determined to complete this assignment.
We are determined to ensure that Nigerians have power. We have hit almost a target of 4,000 megawatts and we are hoping to beat the target we anticipated. Where we have challenges is the gas and these are factors beyond Mr. President’s control at the moment. The reason is that the gas we have in Nigeria was structured in such a way that what is supplied for domestic consumption is far less than expected.
And we have called the oil people and told them that we are not compromising on the issue and we are not negotiating on the issue of gas with anybody, because national interest comes first. How can I have something and I will prefer to export it and I will not be in a position to meet my domestic demand. I am not the Minister of Power, but I relate well with him because I am a member of the NIPP Committee which Governor Gabriel Suswam is also a member and so if we have enough gas now, the 6,000 megawatts will be achieved for Nigerians.
Government has given N2.6 billion to the oil workers for them to meet the challenges in that sector. We are not ready to play politics with developments; our focus is to make sure that the country is better.
You will agree that corruption has permeated deep into the fabrics of the country despite the Federal Government’s efforts at minimising it. Recently, some lawmakers in the National Assembly were indicted in the rural electrification scam. What is your comment on this?
On the issue of corruption, I don’t think any government has fought corruption more than President Yar’Adua. How the president has started fighting corruption is first, to strengthen the capacity of the agencies to effectively fight corruption. That is first. The Public Procurement Act has no provision that can give us a fall-back.
The Act was initiated by the previous government, but there was no law, so when President Yar’ Adua came on board he quickly signed it into law and it has made procurement very transparent. It is mandatory now that before you do a contract, you must advertise it and it must be bidded for, and if somebody who bidded for the contract realises that he has been cheated under the Public Procurement Act, he has to petition and the petition must be reviewed and those who manipulated the system charged to court.
Then we have the e-payment. Now, who will risk his life with the Federal Government to go and have illegal money paid into his account. Once such monies are paid into your account, the accountant will have to sign his signature to ensure authenticity, so you find that the capacity to fight corruption has been strengthened, but then people are saying we are not convicting people. The aim of government is not to send people to prison but to create deterrent, to teach people not to commit crime. But the attitude that is been sold to Nigerians is that there should be crime so that we convict people and tell the world that we are convicting; that is not what is supposed to be. So our target is to strengthen the institutions that will create deterrent and we expect people to obey these rules and regulations so that we don’t charge anyone to court. So, anybody who says we are not fighting corruption, the person is playing politics. We have charged several government agencies, including the Rural Electrification Agency, to court so you can see the people involved. We didn’t spare anybody and we are determined to recover the money.
We deported the Vaswani Brothers for tax evasion through due process, and I pray that with the support you people (the Press) will give us, we can make a lot of changes.
As Nigerians await the 2011 general elections, much is expected from the debate on the election reform bill currently before the National Assembly. What is the Federal Government's position on the matter?
Thank you very much. You see, we sent the Electoral Reform bill; we have sent it to the National Assembly. The issue of electoral reform is a key component of the Federal Government. If there are complaints of violation of the electoral process by the INEC, a body charged with the responsibility of conducting elections, then it means something is amiss somewhere.
What we did was to create an atmosphere, let a separate body that is not involved in the conduct of election, handle electoral offences. If you are an INEC staff and you compromise yourself, all I need to do is to go to the headquarter and complain that the election was rigged. You as an INEC staff if you are given ballot papers and instead of giving them and evidence is there, that’s the end of the matter.
But how can electoral offences be dealt with?
The President felt that the best way to solving these problems is to send the issue to the National Assembly: as to whether they will pass it or not is left for them, but I think they are responsible people and they will do the right thing.
Let me tell you, President Yar’Adua’s government has human feeling. He is demonstrating to the whole world that the protection of every Nigerian anywhere is very important. He has a sent high-powered delegation led by the Minister of Defense to the Government of Indonesia to plead with them to commute the death sentence passed on some Nigerians there to life imprisonment. And the new policy is that anywhere in the world a Nigerian citizen commits a crime, the Nigerian Embassy in that county should ensure that the person is tried according to the laws of the land, and that he is not maltreated, but treated with human dignity. There is no other alternative to rule of law, if you don’t want us to follow rule of law to do things you are inviting anarchy and the only alternative to rule of law is anarchy.
I was in Akwa-Ibom recently and I urged all Attorney-Generals of the States to appeal to the governors that there is no moral justification for us to keep somebody on death row for more than 10 years without carrying out decisive action.
You can imagine the trauma of having somebody on death row for 10 years, everyday he/she is thinking that tomorrow I will be hanged, without him being hanged. To me, we have to do something, either if the sentences are not being executed, you commute them, but I think that the best thing to do in the circumstance, instead of killing somebody who has been 10 to 20 years on death row is to commute the sentences to life imprisonment.