…Says judiciary now ‘lost’ hope of common man
…Recommends e-voting, end of a post-poll dispute before the inauguration
Contrary to speculations that he may quit partisan politics, former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said he will remain in active politics until he dies.
Atiku who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election, challenged the declaration of Bola Tinubu as president by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but lost both at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) and at the Supreme Court.
He addressed a press conference in Abuja Monday and bemoaned the judgments of the PEPC and the Supreme Court, which he said, have very far-reaching grave implications.
The PDP candidate stated that he showed “irrefutable evidence of gross irregularities, violence, and manipulations during the elections.
“We showed incontrovertible evidence that INEC violated the Electoral Act and deliberately sabotaged its own publicly announced processes and procedures in order to illegally declare Tinubu elected.
“The position of the Supreme Court, even though final, leaves so much unanswered.
“I leave Nigerians and the world to decide what to make of the Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision.”
Atiku warned that when people lose trust and confidence in elections, democracy is practically on life support, noting that “by affirming and legitimising the continued lack of transparency in our electoral system, the courts are continuing to usurp the rights of voters to elect their leaders.
“The other grave implication is that contestants in Nigeria’s elections should do whatever is necessary to be declared the winner. That includes identity theft, impersonation, forging of educational and other documents, perjury, and violence.”
The former vice president condemned a situation where, according to him, judges who may go out of “their way to make even a stronger case for the so-called ‘winner’ than even their own lawyers were able to do.”
He warned that such could lead to lawlessness and anarchy, with resultant effects of violence, destruction and implosion.
Atiku wants laws that will make electronic voting and collation of results mandatory, stating that countries less advanced than Nigeria are already doing that.
He advised that in order to ensure popular mandate, a person to be declared president must score 50 percent and above of valid votes cast, in the first ballot, “failing which a run-off between the top two candidates will be held.
“Most countries that elect their presidents use this two-round system (with slight variations) rather than our current first-past-the-post system.”
Atiku also said the current time frame between elections and inauguration of winners is inadequate to dispense with election litigations, and suggested a reverse to the 1999 situation where election disputes were concluded before the inauguration of a winner.
“What we have currently is akin to asking thieves to keep their loot and use the same to defend themselves while the case of their robbery is being decided. It only encourages mandate banditry rather than discourages it,” he added.
Atiku called for urgent constitutional amendments that will prevent any court or tribunal from hiding behind technicalities and legal sophistry to affirm electoral heists and undermine the will of the people.
He added that in order to reduce “the desperation of incumbents and distractions from governing and also to promote equity and national unity, there is need to move to a single six-year term for president to be rotated among the six geo-political zones.
“This will prevent the ganging up of two or more geo-political zones to alternate the presidency among themselves to the exclusion of other zones.”
According to him, INEC should be mandated to verify the credentials submitted to it by candidates and their parties.
He decried a situation where a candidate submits contradictory credentials to INEC in different election cycles and the electoral umpire accepts them without question, adding that it points to gross negligence, or collusion to break the law by the leadership of the INEC.
The PDP candidate argued that submission of contradictory qualifying documents by a candidate as well as those found to be forged or falsified should disqualify a candidate even if the falsification or forgery is discovered after the person had been sworn into office.
“The burden of proving that a document submitted to INEC is forged should not be on the opposing candidates in the election.
“It is never the responsibility of an applicant for a job to prove that the person who eventually got the job did so with forged documents.”
He also called for “publicly available annual evaluation of the performance of judges using agreed criteria.”
Atiku was of the opinion that improving the transparency of the electoral process and reducing the incentives to cheat, in addition to transparency in the appointment of judges and other judicial reforms, “the number of election petitions as well as corruption in the judiciary will be significantly reduced.
“More importantly, we would have succeeded in taking away the right to elect leaders from the courts and return it to the people.
“As for me and my party this phase of our work is done. However, I am not going away.
“For as long as I breathe, I will continue to struggle, with other Nigerians, to deepen our democracy and rule of law and for the kind of political and economic restructuring the country needs to reach its true potential.
“That struggle should now be led by the younger generation of Nigerians who have even more at stake than my generation.”
