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APRIL 23, 2007 VOL. 21. NO 2

‘Why We’re Different from PDP’

**Professor Iyorchia Ayu, director-general, Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organisation**

– Professor Iyorchia Ayu, director-general, Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organisation
By Sam Tyav, Makurdi
The Appeal Court and a Federal High Court, both sitting in Abuja penultimate week passed conflicting judgments on your presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Is he still in the race?
I am surprised that you are talking about conflicting judgment. How do you expect the public to be enlightened? The High Court and the Appeal Court did not give conflicting judgments. As a matter of principle, it is not done. When you talk of conflicting judgments, it is on the same issue. This was not judgment that was conflicting on the same issue. There were judgments on two different issues. The first judgment was given by the Appeal Court, basically, a declaratory judgment; a judgment of interpretation of what the constitution says. In that judgment, the lower court had said INEC has no powers to screen and disqualify candidates, as the constitution provides. INEC then appealed at the Appeal Court to establish whether they have the power to disqualify candidates or not. It was not specific to our candidate. It was a matter of general interpretation. The Appeal Court then said, yes INEC has power to disqualify candidates subject to the provisions of the 1999 constitution. In other words, certain things have to happen before they can disqualify somebody. That’s all the Appeal Court said. It had nothing to do with the judgment of the other court.
The other judgment was specific to the issue relating to Atiku Abubakar. A Lagos High Court, which had concurrent jurisdiction with Federal High Court, had ruled on a matter brought before it by Otunba Fasawe … issue of fundamental human rights. The Lagos court had not only ruled that Otunba Fasawe’s human rights were violated by the Bayo Ojo Panel but that the whole procedure of establishing the panel was wrong and therefore went ahead to nullify the panel report that it was null and void and in law it doesn’t exist.
Now, INEC wasn’t sure of whether what the court said was right and went ahead on the basis of that panel report to disqualify Atiku Abubakar. In other words, he was disqualified on a report that was null and void in law. So Atiku Abubakar went back to the Federal High Court because it was an issue involving a federal agency and sought interpretation and direction of INEC to comply with the Lagos High Court judgment. The Federal High Court correctly ruled that once a court of competent jurisdiction in any part of our federation, once it says a document is null and void, it ceases to be a basis of any action. In other words, it ceases to exist. And therefore, it cited many Supreme Court judgments to support its case. It therefore said that the Bayo Ojo Panel does not exist. The EFCC report, in law, does not exist. It’s null and void. Since INEC had disqualified Atiku Abubakar on the basis of a non-existing document, the disqualification itself is null and void and therefore directed INEC to include Atiku Abubakar in the list of candidates for the 2007 presidential election. This was a specific judgment and it does not in any way conflict with the judgment on interpretation of the constitution which was given earlier in the day by the Appeal Court. And that is why I expect you to educate Nigerians correctly.
Can you then expantiate on the current state of affairs?
The state of the affairs now is for INEC to obey the order of the Federal High Court. If INEC wants to appeal the judgment, they are free to do so. They can appeal to the Court of Appeal, but while they appeal, they have to comply with that judgment; with the directive of the Federal High Court. If they don’t want to comply, they have to go to that same court and ask for stay of execution. If they are granted stay of execution while they are on appeal, then they may not include Atiku Abubakar’s name. If they don’t get stay of execution, they have no choice but to include the name of the candidate of the Action Congress, Atiku Abubakar. If the lower court refuses to give the stay of execution, they can go to the Court of Appeal and ask for stay of execution. Only if they get the stay of execution by a court of competent jurisdiction, either from the same court that gave the judgment or the court they are appealing to. Outside of that, they must include the name of Atiku Abubakar in the 2007 elections. If they don’t do that then the elections would be challenged in court and will be an exercise in futility because even if you go ahead and conduct such an election, no chief justice of this country who knows and respects the law will swear in such an illegally elected president. So you will be leading Nigerians into unnecessary crisis. I think INEC has competent lawyers among who advise them, but unfortunately we have a chairman of INEC who is needlessly being manipulated and who is also disobeying court orders, inspite of correct advice from their legal department.
It is speculated in various quarters that the Federal Government wants to weaken and frustrate your candidate and subsequently render him politically irrelevant. What is your reaction?
If any thing, it has strengthened us. It has strengthened our resolve to fight legally. It has made us have more confidence in democracy to and particularly in the judicial process because the courts of Nigeria have shown an unusual courage and unusual commitment to democracy. We also believe that our resort to the courts has educated Nigerians that the judiciary in Nigeria is not as bad sometimes as people are made to believe. More and more Nigerians, I believe today have confidence in the Nigerian judiciary. It has helped to avoid unnecessary political violence. I believe Nigerians today have realised that you don’t necessarily have to go violent before you solve your problems. Many things which would have happened have today been avoided because we have gone to court, we have achieved results and Nigerians are now aware that you don’t necessarily have to be violent. You can get justice through legal means. We are much more encouraged and we are much more convinced that our team is contributing enormously to the growth and development of democracy in Nigeria.
The greatest electoral problem in Nigeria today is rigging. How are you in the opposition prepared to checkmate the ruling People's Democratic Party?
In recent Nigerian political history, when we have had democracy, there is always opposition parties but the only thing one can say today is that, this is the first time in the history of Nigerian politics that a major political party in government has consistently and consciously deconstructed itself by throwing out its key political actors, the founders of the party by trying to impose a civilian dictatorship on Nigerians and in the process forcing these key political actors to come together and form an opposition party that has been received by Nigerians so quickly and in a widespread manner. The Action Congress, which is the party I belong to and we formed barely six months ago, has spread so fast that today it is reckoned to be the main party to beat. It has become the main opposition party in Nigeria because the ANPP that used to be the main opposition party has literarily disappeared. It used to have seven governors. Nearly all of them have gone to other political parties, leaving only two or three governors, Yobe, Borno and Kano. All the others have either gone to join the ruling party or … Bafarawa has gone to form his own party and most of their members in many states have simply evaporated to other political parties. The AD has become a party in name only. Outside of the PDP, the Action Congress party today has grown so rapidly to be the main party of the opposition. This, you can see by the kind of rallies we have held across the country. We have the biggest rallies, the most enthusiastic crowd; the most talked of presidential candidate. I believe that with time, it will be the party that will run and move this country forward, because a diversed country like Nigeria cannot be run by a dictatorial party. I am happy to say, with all modesty that without the opposition we have mounted against the ruling PDP today, Nigeria would have had a full-blown dictatorship with President Obasanjo succeeding with his third term ambition, an ambition which could lead to a life president. Nigeria would have been a banana republic, like some African countries where people like Mugabe has been ruling for 27 years. That thing can not happen in Nigeria. This is a credit to those committed democrats who have today found themselves in Action Congress. If anything, we have achieved something. Today, we are talking of an election coming up on the 14th and 21st (of April, 2007). If we didn’t do what we did and have not continued to do what we are doing, nobody would have been talking of any election today. It would have been of a life president and reducing Nigeria to … like what is happening in Zimbabwe. I thank God that I am a member of the Action Congress.
It has been speculated that the state government is making moves to reconcile with you. The state governor, Dr. George Akume visited you in Abuja, allegedly pleading reconciliation. How true is this?
Governor George Akume has always been a brother. I pulled him out of the civil service into politics and we have remained on very good terms. I am aware that his heart is with the Action Congress but his body is with the PDP. I am praying that he will be courageous enough to come to the democratic family where he truly belongs. He has no business with dictatorship. If and when he comes back home he will be very much welcome.
Of all the local governments in Benue State, AC and PDP are violently clashing in Buruku and Gboko LGAS. What do you think is responsible for this?
I am not aware that AC has clashed violently in Gboko because in both local governments, AC is the dominant party and they are the key strategic local governments in Benue State. No governor has become governor without winning these local governments because Gboko is the largest local government in the state and is the key local government. Today, they have the highest registered voters: 179,000, the next local government that comes second has 16,000. In some instances, you will merge four local governments before they will meet the registered voters in Gboko. It is a very strategic local government and today AC controls Gboko local government almost 90 per cent. The same thing with Buruku local government; it is another strategic local government with total registration of 107,000 voters. Definitely, any party that wants to win Benue should show interest in these two local governments. These were local governments that used to be controlled by PDP when I was in PDP. Today, I am no longer in PDP and virtually everybody in these local governments have left PDP for AC-Action Congress. In Gboko, there, has been no single incidence of violence. In Buruku local government, regrettably the violence has been precipitated by the ruling PDP but we have restrained our people from responding. But two serious incidents that led to loss of lives were all traceable to the activities of the PDP’s local governments caretaker chairman who encouraged them to be violent. We restrained our people but in the end they suffered casualties because they don’t have the strength. When they don’t have people on the ground to win elections they tend to violence. We have told our people not to do anything violent but to make sure that they go out en masse and vote and stay and defend their votes, make sure that their votes are not rigged. We have been preaching this message all over the country, including Benue State. The Action Congress is not a violent party, we don’t believe in violence. We don’t buy guns for anybody, we don’t train thugs, we have no militia. That is why even when we are provoked, we report such provocation to the police. Even when we are injured, we take recourse to the law courts. The Action Congress today in Nigeria is seen as the party that is always in court. We don’t believe in violence and we’ve been talking to even the local chiefs to talk to everybody to eschew violence, because violence does not solve any problem. It does not lead to the growth of democracy, which is about free choice. There are about 50 political parties and if they all resort to violence, what type of democracy would we be building? You gentlemen of the press should help to educate Nigerians about the necessity of free and fair elections without violence.
There are also speculations that both AC and ANPP will come to term before the general elections. What are your comments?
I don’t know what you call "come to terms." At the national level, we are discussing. It is not just the two parties. We had a group of political parties, about seven political parties. The idea was to ensure that we have free and fair election. That is the essence of the talks of the political parties. Our commitment is only to the extent that we should have free and fair elections. But the speculations in Benue that we are going to come together as one political party, I think we are two different political parties. As far as Action Congress is concerned, we want to grow as a political party that has one ideological position, that has its own candidates, that will fight for election. We will be very happy if other political parties realise that we are the strongest party on the ground and decide to come together and join us because all the other parties have disappeared. Their existence is very marginal. We are the only party that can seriously take power from the PDP and we are going to do just that.
Your party in the state has just concluded its mobilisation tour of local governments. How would you describe the acceptance of the party by the electorate.
Fantastic, fantastic. AC has two advantages. The poor performance of the PDP as a government at all levels is so glaring. Everywhere you go people are discussing nothing but the failure of the PDP. The President Obasanjo- led government has failed. The party has not given water to any town in Benue, not Makurdi, not Gboko, Oturkpo, not Vandeikya, not Zaki-Biam. There is no water and yet we are surrounded by rivers and a very good geological system where you can do boreholes and dams. The party has not been able to provide good medical services, not to talk of roads. You need to go to Agatu. You need to go to Ado. I was forced to apologise to the people of Ado for the failure of we politicians and they are looking forward for change that can provide something different. The reception everywhere was wonderful. That is the first advantage, the failure of PDP.
The second advantage is that the AC picked a symbol which is a symbol of a party that had existed in this area before. The UMBC (United Middle Belt Congress) used the broom also. So what the people of Benue are saying is that the good old days are here again. Everywhere we go, I have never seen that kind of emotional reception. Women, old men, youths, small kids come out with brooms and some just cut grass and shout change, change, Anchancha, Anchancha everywhere. I was greatly overwhelmed with the reception because the party was introduced to Benue less than three months ago.
Apart from mobilising support for AC, what other measures has your party put in place to check the excesses of the PDP and the Obasanjo -led central government?
PDP is no longer the people's PDP but Obasanjo’s PDP. It is determined to violate the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which provides that every citizen has the right, the fundamental right to vote and be voted for once you are 18 years and above. But Obasanjo’s PDP and government is violating the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They are doing everything legal and illegal to stop one single individual from running election. It is a constitutional violation and unfortunately INEC that is supposed to be an independent organ, unbiased, has literarily become a department of PDP, with an office in the office of President Obasanjo; taking orders on a daily basis, violating court orders just like President Obasanjo; exhibiting lawlessness just like President Obasanjo. In other words, with this INEC and Obasanjo as president it is highly unlikely that Nigeria will have a free and fair election because elections have already been manipulated. That is one thing which President Obasanjo has succeeded in doing; trying to institutionalise lawlessness in a country that is supposed to be democratic.
What we are doing as a party is to say that if a mad man carries your cloth, you don’t run after him naked because if you do, they will say both of you are mad men. You put on a decent cloth and then you run after the mad man and they will know who is mad and who is not mad. We in the Action Congress are not going to do anything outside the law but will continue to fight President Obasanjo’s PDP legally. So far, we have fought and won. President Obasanjo wanted to be a life president; to violate the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by doing a third term in office. We fought legally, we checkmated him. He couldn’t do it and he was forced to go for elections. We will continue to fight him legally. By doing so, we educate Nigerians to stand up and defend themselves. This is what we intend to do. We are not going to take the laws of Nigeria into our hands. If we do that, it will be like Obasanjo’s PDP. We don’t want history to write us down as not being different from Obasanjo and his PDP.
Since you pulled out of the PDP there has been mixed reactions particularly from Benue State, that you don’t have political structures. How would you react to this?
I don’t have individual structures because I am never an individual person. I always work within a collectivity and I always work with the ordinary citizens of the state. I never worry about the so-called bigmen. Most of them cannot win a polling booth. I depend entirely on the ordinary good, people of this state. When you came, you did not see big men, you saw that the entire compound was over-flowing with people. Benue people are poor. They don’t want big men. All these big names, some of them even when I was in PDP I helped to put them up for election but they lost disastrously. Some couldn’t win their wards. Today, they are parading that they have gathered themselves in PDP. I am so happy that my house is usually not filled with them again. It's just getting rid of bad rubbish. I am with the people, swimming like fish in the water. I am so confident and I am so happy the way we are.