Why ‘Western Nigeria’ should produce next president — Bewaji, ex-Reps Minority Leader

Former Minority Leader, House of Representatives and legal practitioner, Dr Wunmi Bewaji, speaks on 2023 elections, the amended Electoral Act, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS.

With politicians already involved in intense horse-trading ahead of the 2023 elections, where do you think we are currently?

I believe that we have entered what in the American parlance is known as the lame duck session of this particular administration. This is February, and by this time next year, the elections ought to have taken place or we should be like one or two weeks to the general election. That means that as it is, this administration is in its final phase and so by now, we don’t expect this administration to embark on any new projects, the focus probably should be to complete all the existing projects; and then allow the incoming administration to begin anything. So, I believe that at this point, it’s too late; nothing dramatic or drastic can come from this particular administration because it is in its final stage.

What then will be your own assessment of the performance of the administration based on its promise to Nigerians?

There is no doubt that this administration has failed in every regard. I mean President Muhammadu Buhari ran on promise of security; you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that there is no security as we speak. The problem of insecurity is mainly in the area of national security, terrorism, the threat of Boko Haram and all that, but today, a new form of insecurity has emerged which is rooted in economic failure of this administration. So, a new set of crimes that you would want to call economic crimes or crimes of survival have emerged and that’s why you see high rate of kidnapping, ritual killing. As a student of criminology, the government of Buhari is fixated on buying these super Tucanos. You see everybody is talking about Super Tucano. If people don’t have anything to eat, they would take to crime. That’s the theory in criminology; People have to survive, people have to eat, and people must eat.

Which geopolitical zone, in your opinion, should produce the next president after Buhari?

We should be talking about zoning. Do not forget, Nigeria is a federation; we seem to forget this. And what do we mean by federation? We mean that in 1960, there were three federating units: the Northern Region, Western Region and the Eastern Region. So, in every federation all over the world, the means of attaining national cohesion, national unity is equitable distribution of opportunities. Yes, Nigeria is not a nation. Nigeria is a federation of nations and so we must remember that. That means that in whatever we do, whether we are talking about quota system or Federal Character or all of these, these are mechanisms that are conceived to give equal opportunity to every unit. So, zoning is in order. And like Chief Obafemi Awolowo said, you cannot be a good Nigerian if you are not first and foremost a good Yoruba man, a good Hausa man, a good Igbo man because charity begins at home. Therefore, zoning is in order.Come 2023, it should be the turn of the Western Region of Nigeria; don’t forget that in 1999, someone from the region was there, that was Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. After Obasanjo, it went to Northern Region. After that Northern Region, it was the turn of Eastern Region. Yes, Goodlock Jonathan is from the Eastern Region of Nigeria. So, after that Eastern Region, it goes to Northern Region, and now it is coming down South again. Then, it is the turn of Western Region; it is in order that it is now the turn of Western Region.

But some people are saying we have six geo-political zones in the country and therefore, it should be the turn of the South-East to produce the next president.

Of course, if you want to do that, we need restructuring. Don’t forget, it was Abacha (in order to punish the Yoruba), brought the idea of six zones. Why was a single Northern Region was split into three geo-political zones. Then, the Eastern Region was split into two zones; it was only the Western Region that remained one. So that’s why you would never hear me use that bastardised word of South-West. Yoruba are not in South-West; we are in Western Nigeria; we are not in South-West. But unfortunately we don’t have leaders in Western Nigeria that can fight this cause, because they are pre-occupied with their own selfish ambition otherwise if tomorrow we would have restructuring, this is where it should start from.

Do you see the Federal Government preparing adequately to have a credible poll in 2023, in view of the controversies trailing the Electoral Act amendment bill?

Well, based on my training, having a better election is not hinged upon having a new law, no.

I am talking about the amended law.

I don’t think this bad culture of amending Electoral laws just on the eve of elections is a good practice. We had the last elections and Buhari came there in 2015. The agenda for reforming the electoral system should be put together maximum of six months or at worse one year before the election. Then, you put it before the parliament for debate, then, the law is passed. I also believe that whatever new features of that law that there might be, electronic voting, change in accreditation whatsoever, we should have the opportunity of test-running them in maybe, bye- elections or mock elections before we then go for the general election. Changing laws on the eve of elections, creates problems and we end up in court. At the end of the day, the court would be interpreting that law for the first time.

But talking of electronic posting of election results, direct primaries, don’t you think if we have them in the laws, they will promote our democratic practice?

I strongly oppose legislating any form of primary.

Why?

For example, the initial draft that says it has to be by direct primary is more undemocratic. As a matter of fact, when you say direct primary, apart from the PDP and the APC, the other parties don’t have the resources to conduct direct primaries. I can say this because I had been secretary of the National Convention Committee twice, so I know the financial outlays involved. And again, the sort of security architecture required to conduct the primary for about 34 or so political parties will be so humongous. Unless the INEC can take over the conduct of direct primary, funded by the government, it would be too expensive. Transfer of election results electronically is a nice idea but again it means that once you make it a law, it means that if election results are transmitted by another means, it becomes illegal. So do we have the infrastructure that would act that electronic transmission of election results, and we are not talking of 85per cent coverage, we are talking of 100per cent coverage. Do we have that, do we have the electricity? Do we have the technology? So, until we are sure of that. Again, when we have it, let us do some test runs please. Maybe, we even go to some Universities and then we use some of these equipment. For example, in the last election in Anambra, it took Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo over 10 hours to vote, he could not vote until late night. He went to his polling unit in the morning, he could not do his accreditation. He was able to vote, maybe around 8pm. So this is what I am talking of when you delayed deployment of this talk till the last minute. What people don’t realise is that when you now say 26th of February is general election, if people go there that day and the exercise becomes botched, that’s it. People will lose confidence in the system. So even in US where people do electronic voting, they have what they call paper trail, so as you vote electronically, you still vote manually. If one fails, there would be a backup. Technology is good, but let us deploy it in a sensible manner, in a manner that the whole system would not collapse. That’s my argument.

What is your advice to the electorate on the kind of president to take over from Buhari?

Yes, you know the important things now are two. One is security. It is very important and the second one which is also connected to the first one is economy. Though I believe strongly that the basic unit of national security is the citizen. It is the basic unit, it is not Super Tucano. Every Nigerian has a better value than a Super Tucano. This is because when you create opportunities, when people are gainfully employed, when children that are out of school are taken back to school, then it means that even Boko Haram or whatever fundamentalist organization would not have the means of recruitment to their organisation. This is something basic, provide opportunities, and provide jobs for the youths. So when there is security people can go to their farms, they can farm, people can go to their work place, people can travel without the fear and commerce would flourish. When you want to move from here to Ibadan, you want to move from here to Akure and you are afraid, it would affect commerce, it would affect the economy, it would affect our GDP, then it would affect value of the Naira. It’s basic economy. So we need security and security would bring us a better economy. Then we would have a stable and a peaceful country.The president we should look for, come 2023 is one who can address those two problems. And then we should then seek to enhance our democracy. We enhance our democracy by making sure there is respect for human rights. Since 1999, we have not had true democracy. The democracy where citizens cannot engage in peaceful protest, which is not a democracy. We are just having regular elections just like Pakistan or any of those dictatorial nations. They should build a true democracy, so that there would be respect for human rights, not one where you are just having regular elections and citizens cannot protest, voices of dissent would be suppressed, that’s not a democracy. So that is what we need. We don’t want a democracy where the Judiciary would not be independent and the Judiciary would still be beholding to the government for funding, and even to carry out its basic functions.Yeah, the Executive is in charge of everything, including the police and all other apparatus of government and which are being used to frustrate the Judiciary. So we need to build a true democracy.