PEPT verdict: It’s same system at work, says Nwosu, ADC nat’l Chairman

...Advocates review of electoral law to allow electoral matters be decided at tribunal
….Says no executive should be swore-in with electoral case pending in court
….Commends Judges of the Appeal Tribunal for explicit analysis of the judgement

By Chris Ochayi

Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu is the National Chairman of African Democratic Congress, ADC.

In this interview he bares his mind on state of the nation, especially the recent ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, which returned President Bola Tinubu as authentic winner of the February 25 2023 presidential election.

Chief Nwosu, a revered and consistent politician also spoke on other range of critical issues, including calls for amendment to the electoral law, failing governance system at the local government councils, corruption, failing of entire ecosystem in Nigeria.

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, last week upholds the victory of President Bola Tinubu, what is you take on the judgement?

Judgement, yes, one thing that bothers me is that, what is happening in Nigeria is that we all have collective responsibility but somehow, some persons absorbing themselves from certain responsibility. And these set of people are from political parties to Civil Society Organisations, to you guys in the media, to INEC, but INEC is just one body. The democratic ecosystem is diverse. For us to have a very robbost democracy, all the ecosystem must have some integrity. And so, who is doing that? The media will come to you and say many things. Because of the poverty in governance or porosity in governance, we have impoverished everybody. Media man would not get paid as when due. Some media owners will tell journalists working with the organization not to expect salary because he or she is been given identity card. Media owners paying journalists N25, 000 per month. Is N25, 000 anything for a media man who is creating content on daily basis? Meanwhile, some small people when they create content they are making big money in US Dollars. And then media people that go out and create great content, you pay them N50,000, N100,000 and even at times you don’t give them anything but only to say I have opened gate for you to make yourself. The porosity of governance, leadership, it has been corrupted. So we all have issues. As I said again, political parties have their own. You can see when we are running elections, we spent almost all the times fighting because people came into the party with agenda. And even some people within the party are also affected by the culture of ecosystem which is also the corrupted culture. They are all part of it. But we have a nation to build. We are all involved in nation building with understanding that you build nations with character. We are all failing when all of a sudden, everybody has failed then you say, yes, you have election, all the elements of ecosystem , all the feature they have all failed and you now say INEC, INEC, INEC. Imagine, what do you expect? INEC will finish their own, and then you will now shout the judges, judges, judges. We have all failed in our different responsibilities in one way or the other.

Having said that, for me, I won’t take that kind of position that you will be wishing most other people will take. For me, I’m just hoping that one arm of the ecosystem will say, no, enough is enough. We have to start getting ourselves back to the character required to move this country forward. Not President Tinubu, not even Peter Obi, Atiku not Kwankwaso not Dumebi, although you know that Dumebi, we sacked him. He didn’t run for the President. We sacked him but INEC insisted he was already in their list, we will come to that. So, not any of them can cause much change if the character, culture in place continue to be as it is where every other persons absolved themselves. It’s a system thing. Once any part of the system is corrupted, we will have problem. If it’s not functioning, it will kill the entire system. Now, talk less where this one does something wrong and you expect the other to come to the rescue. Who says? They are same people with same people in the media, they are the same people with the same people in the political parties, they are the same people with the same people in the INEC, etc. This is the big problem we have. You know, at times, some of you, media people you don’t know the roles African Democratic Party, ADC, is playing in Nigerian politics. That’s why when we had our small wahala, I was embarrassed. Because people I thought understood what ADC was trying to do, some of them will see it differently. I was embarrassed. In the TV stations, some people because they have collected money from Dumebi or so and they come to deliberately embarrass you on TV stations without listening to reasons. Ah,you have been National Chairman for sixteen years. Do you know what it takes to spend your money building a public institutions? Do you know what it mean? Who can afford to do it? Not many Nigerians.
Having said that, what we are looking at is praying that the entire system doesn’t collapse under the corruption. So, whatever has happened in the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, so far, I see it as still the same system that is at work. The ruling has been done. In some ways, maybe their ruling is also good for the polity. Good for the polity in a way that it is not good for person who has a questions around his election to be even been swore-in in the first place. It’s important that that process get concluded if it must get to tribunal or any court and settled. And if the constitution mandates the court that under three months, whatever it is, it must be settled so that we can spend the last one week clear off who to be swore-in, it will be done. Even the ruling when you check generally, I see Appeal Tribunal members, some of them that may be discerning trying also to have some stability in the country. Can you imagine seeing if they has ruled that the President didn’t win. The process has not finished. He will still go to appeal at the Supreme Court. And as far as you are going to court, you are still in charge. So, when you made opposition to become vulnerable anybody on that seat can cause problem for the country.
Okay, they (PEPT members) have taken pains to do analysis, everybody saw it and so on. Whether some judgement after those analysis they did, whether the conclusion they wrote is proper or not, it’s still open to another form of decision making and so on. So, you will find out that they want to create stability. So, you tell the President that he is going, it is better the day the ruling happens that he leaves. And not that he appeals. These are complicated processes . Just like at times at the tribunal level for the governorship election. You will say the governor didn’t win and you know he will still be there to go to Appeal Court and supreme Court , while still on seat. It’s not tidy. Anybody who they said been in power is not legitimate and the court also says so , within that time that he will be going for Appeal, he can cause so much trouble. And development will not be happening, governance will not happen especially when he has become vulnerable . I want to believe that these juries were been thoughtful and that’s possible why they took time to make the critical analysis for people to have heard. But the decision they took people may equally look at in different ways. When they do that then it should be final.

So, how would you summarize the entire PEPT judgement?

To me, it has equally manifested the same challenges that we have in the system. But at the same time, it can also be people who are more discerning , that’s why they have taken time to do analysis , showed to everybody and so on. They have opened up everything that there is. Process continues and for me, since it’s a continuous process, what they have done is good . It creates some stability. But until the processes are concluded, that’s when we will know whether the ecosystem of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria can be relied upon for nation building or not

Are you advocating for another review of the electoral law?

By and large, by the time these two processes of Appeal Tribunal and Supreme Court finished, two things must happen if our legislators want us to build this country. Electoral law should be reviewed of sort whereby before any executive will get swore-in, we must finish everything about court hearing . Two, we don’t need a complicated system to determine electoral victory. Once it’s election matter, it must not follow the normal court processes. The tribunal should deal with it, so tribunal shouldn’t finish and then you appeal and all of that. Once it’s electoral matter, let it end at the tribunal. Because, it will be good that you take a decision it takes effect immediately.

ADC adopted the candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi in the February 25 presidential election, how will you rate their appearance at the Appeal Tribunal, especially the legal team, who many observers believed to have performed bellow expectations?

What has been going on is propaganda and you know once you enter propaganda …I don’t want to get into that. But I think Labour Party, Obi’s lawyers and Atiku’s lawyers did a good job. They did a good job. They were working under a very hard court conditions. A system in place to push against them. And that’s why the amendment to the Electoral law must be done. You don’t expect somebody that you are going to court against to be in power. And we see in the constitution once you are swore-in you have immunity . So, if you have swore-in Tinubu as President, technically he is covered by the immunity. And there is another area we should look at. Our legislation is very weak and poor. Unfortunately you have lawmakers , who are there and they are businessmen. They are there to do a lot of different things. One, they are there for their businesses and also there moving from one ministry to other for business. Even, during oversight functions they just bully people to get what they want . Two, they want to do the work of executive, doing constituency projects and three, to make money for reelection or contesting for other higher offices , while they are there . So, they don’t give enough to the job of legislations. And that’s bad. Whatever is happening, these lawyers of opposition parties did good job, the people did well. Forget the propaganda. It just politics they are playing. In Nigeria, people have already set a lot of arsenals. The judges and justices, the judicial system will set their own arsenal, to now say these people didn’t do a great work to give their own ruling credibility. That because they didn’t do good work, that’s why they failed to win at the tribunal. The same way the person in power will also do things to discredit them that they didn’t do well to make the ruling more justified. That’s what is happening. But frankly, anybody that watched the proceedings at the tribunal , you will see brilliance representation by Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar’s legal teams. Whatever is happening now is politics. They were very brilliant and the whole world was focused on Nigeria. The lawyers were very very creative and it never happened before in any case in the country. This is not because my party endorsed Peter Obi. Why did we endorse Peter Obi? I know that everybody in this country, you people, any media person is aware that I have always preached in Nigeria that the Third Force is possible. I am an apostle of the Third Force is possible. If it’s not possible, I am not a crazy man. I wouldn’t be trying what seems impossible. And all of the sudden, it didn’t happen in my party. That’s God. But I saw it happening. And it will be most irresponsible for any ADC person who really believe in ADC DNA and the need that the Third Force is possible to be creating something new, because there is no difference between the APC and PDP. Not much, we have experienced all of them. Some people in APC that are cursing PDP now, they were all PDP before. Nyeson Wike is playing some games, is he PDP or APC now? But for now he is PDP but we don’t know. Rotimi Amaechi was PDP and then jumped into APC and started doing this.The corrupt culture, the toxicity culture in our politics is brought by these two political behemoth. And that’s why I think the solution to Nigerian problem will not come from APC or PDP. You need some integrity and you need character . So, I have been part of that. For almost the last 10 to 15 years, I have been an apostle of Third Way is possible. And that’s the best way to go. So, it will be selfish and out of place for any ADC person to reject Third Force, though it didn’t happen in ADC but we have to be involved. And to prove to Nigerians that the third Force is possible . So, tomorrow, if I am going around to say come, this Third Force we must reinforce it, we must build so so and so, what happened in 2022 and 2023 have vindicated me. That’s why the party has to go that way. After we saw that our presidential candidate, Dumebi came for distabilisation and so on, then we endorsed Labour Party candidate. If we needed money we could have gone to APC or PDP. But we said no, we are the number one party when you are talking about building the Third Way. And everybody in the system knows me as one of the leaders of building the Third Way.

This reinforcement of Third Force for good governance, is it a philosophy to win only at the center, what happens at the states level, where governors are turning to emperors?

Why you are looking at it as only the federal level. The behemoth are at the federal more or less because that the state government are doing what they are doing is because of the weakness at the national level. If the Third Force, at least for my party. If ADC forms government tomorrow, governors will be there. But frankly, the fulcrum of development in this country will start from the Local Government level. Local Government would have the autonomy . And I feel pained when President Tinubu for instance said they are giving N5 billion to State Governors as palliatives for fuel subsidy removal. If Mr. President, gives N500 million to every Local Government in this country, you will see unparallel development cutting across the entire country. The local government is the government that is grassrooted . You don’t build from up down , you build from down up. And then you will ensure there is good and qualify election at that level of governance. If you conduct quality elections where Professors, people like you and so on and so forth become local government Chairmen, they will go to work for their people. Now, go to the local government councils, because of the weakness at the Federal level, the governors have taken it over and every money that supposed to go to the local government , governors hijacked it. And there is no proper election at that level. We just smack democracy. What happen, they collect their resources and make those their appointed local government Chairmen to sign anything so they will retain that position and have about N5 million to spend as Council Chairmen. They will sign 90 percent of the money to the governors.