By Oguwike Nwachuku
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, February 19 ordered the security forces to “shoot at sight” anyone who snatches ballot boxes during this year’s federal and state elections.
The following day, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, said the army will obey the directive.
Buratai picked holes in a statement made on February 19 by the presidential candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, asking the army to disregard Buhari’s directive.
Atiku had told the army that they have no role to play in election monitoring and asked them to look at the Constitution and the Army Act.
But addressing Principal Staff Officers, General Officers Commanding and Brigade Commanders Buratai warned politicians and their supporters against testing the will of the army.
He insisted that those who violate the law during the election would be ruthlessly dealt with in line with Buhari’s directive.
Buratai also said that army personnel attached to retired Generals, especially those who have become politicians, will be withdrawn and that no political actors will be allowed army escort.
He warned officers against playing partisan roles, urging those with such feelings to resign before Friday, February 22.
Also on Tuesday, a statement from the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) opened my eyes to the high level politicking in the Presidency on the latest strategy to win election for Buhari by all means, even using ethnic stereotyping and denting the image of some people.
Allegations are being traded by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP, with one accusing the other of engineering the shifting of the presidential ballot from February 16 to perfect its rigging plan.
Based on the blame game, the DSS had invited for interrogation Okechukwu Ibeanu (INEC National Commissioner) and Chidi Nwafor (Director of Information and Communication Technology).
Also invited were Ken Ukeagu (Director of Procurement), Osaze Uzzi (Director of Voter Education and Publicity), and Bimbo Oladunjoye (Assistant Director of ICT).
Besides, alleged links were then drawn to Ibeanu and Mike Ogini, the INEC Resident Electoral Commission in Akwa Ibom; Senate President Bukola Saraki, the Ballard facilitation of the trip Atiku made to the United States, and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Members of the BMO have been sending their press statements to yours sincerely since the body was established more than three years ago.
But when I received the one sent on Tuesday titled – BMO to INEC: Ibeano failed Nigerians, he has to leave logistics role – I was apprehensive. I was curious. I was surprised. I needed to be a more circumspect.
Why the campaign for Ibeanu to be removed four days to the first leg of the rescheduled elections? Who is behind this? Who is using BMO to worsen the national tension since the elections were postponed?
Ibeanu is the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Electoral Operations and Logistics.
Something kept telling me that the BMO was at the vanguard of a coordinated campaign involving other veiled characters in the Presidency to remove and humiliate Ibeanu on a trump-up allegation that his department instigated the postponement of the elections.
Part of his alleged sin is that he was working with the opposition and key civil society organisation leaders to sabotage the vote.
The statement sent to me and signed by BMO Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju; and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke; urged the “Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) to relieve Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu of the duty of coordinating logistics for the Presidential and National Assembly election now slated for February 23 as part of immediate remediation of the embarrassing postponement of the Presidential and National Elections from the Saturday, February 16, 2019 date.
“This … is because of his role in the international shame that led to the postponement of the election from its original date.”
The statement read in full: “Nigerians and the international community are all witnesses to the shoddy logistics arrangement for an election that INEC had all of four years to plan for.
“The 2019 election is not Nigeria’s first so there is no basis for the Commission to subject the country to such an embarrassing situation after it had continually maintained that it was ready to do better than that of 2015.
“But after getting all the funding it asked for, INEC surprisingly handed over one of the most important jobs in the electoral process to an individual that has barely spent eighteen months in the Commission and who is not known to have any prior working knowledge of the process.
“It is clear that the job of manning election logistics is not one that ought to have been given to a neophyte national commissioner and there is no way that Ibeano could do better than he did on February 16 going forward.
“So there is no way his retention as the head of Electoral Operations and Logistics would be acceptable to Nigerians.”
That was not all.
The BMO linked Ibeanu to former INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu, as if it is an anathema for the erudite scholar, or indeed any other person, to choose who to associate with.
To hang a dog, you must give it a name. So, the best way to demonise Ibeanu is to say he is taking directives from Iwu whom the BMO alleges is a technical consultant to Atiku.
To BMO, that is enough reason for the INEC to disqualify Ibeanu from holding such a sensitive position.
“PDP leaders have not and cannot deny that the man who left the country a legacy of its worst election in recent history had been playing a major role for them in the run up to the Presidential election and here we have someone he is close to manning a sensitive position at INEC.
“Aside from Iwu, there are suggestions that Ibeanu, who is representing Anambra State in the Commission, is related to the Vice Presidential candidate of the [PDP], Peter Obi, BMO added.
“This is certainly not acceptable to us at BMO and we believe the only way INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu could extricate himself from allegations of collusion with the opposition is for him to immediately remove Ibeanu from the role he handed him after succumbing to PDP’s serial blackmail.”
Not too long after the BMO’s statement went public, rumour was strong about the the invitation of DSS to Ibeanu to report at its headquarters.
Earlier, there were reports of his laptop being destroyed, his car vandalised and all sorts of misdemeanour of overzealous security operatives to link Ibeanu to the postponed elections.
Perhaps the one most shocking is the alleged attempt by ethnic irredentists in the office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to make the postponement look like a deal planned by folks from the South East.
Feelers from those close to the corridors of power said Ibeanu was being deliberately labeled a saboteur, and that some respected human rights activists from the South East were being lumped together with Ibeanu to undermine the elections.
I never believed it until I saw a press statement signed by a coalition of civil society advocates from across the country who exonerated their respected Igbo colleagues from being scapegoats which the wicked stereotyping of the conspiracy theorists had tried to make them.
Those targeted and attempted to be linked to Ibeanu were Olisa Agbakoba, Clement Nwankwo, Sam Amadi, Innocent Chukwuma, and Chidi Odinkalu, all of them well known national and international rights activists from the South East.
The coalition of civil society advocates North and South said it is of no use to scapegoat anyone for the shift of the presidential vote to February 23, which caused losses to individuals and the nation.
A statement issued by the activists appealed to all stakeholders to stop pointing accusing fingers at any individual or group, and instead ensure the elections hold and winners progress the Nigerian project.
The statement was signed by Adele Jinadu (Chair, Election Analysis Centre), Femi Falana (legal practitioner), Ebere Onwudiwe (political economist), Jibrin Ibrahim (political scientist), and Y. Z, Ya’u (Co-Chair, Situation Room).
Other signatories are Idayat Hassan (Director, Centre for Democracy and Development), Ayo Obe (legal practitioner), Hussaini Abdu (Country Director, Plan International), and Auwal Musa Rafsanjani (Executive Director, CISLAC).
The signatories expressed the following concerns:
.There are too many conspiracy theories and a great deal of mudslinging in the campaign, which is characterised by strong ethno-religious mobilisation on all sides, and harmful to nation building.
.This is a clearly orchestrated campaign to smear the names of these people, most of whom have devoted their lives to the struggle against military rule and for democracy for three to four decades.
.The campaign is divisive and is geared to smear an ethnic group and present them as enemies of democracy and free and fair elections.
.The smear campaign can only do harm to the difficult process consolidating Nigerian democracy.
“We remain concerned,” they said, over the invitation of officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the Department of State Services (DSS), even though the summons were later withdrawn.
The statement continued: “DSS can convene and interrogate anyone suspected to be a threat to national security, and we do not in any way question that.
“Our concerns stem from a web design that suddenly emerged on social media yesterday ( Wednesday, February 20) presenting alleged linkages between the Atiku Campaign Organisation and leading civil society activists of Igbo ethnicity and Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu in INEC….
“Within hours of the circulation of this web, a massive social media campaign with the hashtag #INECIbeanuMustGo was trending presenting Ibeanu as the Atiku Campaign mole in INEC with responsibility for scuttling last Saturday’s election and rigging the forthcoming elections.
“We know Okechukwu Ibeanu to be a committed democrat who has devoted his life to the struggle for peace and democracy in Nigeria….
“He is a respected professor of political science and was in charge of logistics, having taken over from Amina Zakari in October 2018.
“Subsequently, a different ad hoc committee was set up specifically for the elections. The ad hoc committee has 17 members, and is headed by Ahmed Tijjani Mu’azu, a retired Air Vice Marshal.
“Making Ibeanu the fall guy for the botched elections is therefore completely wrong. INEC has collective responsibility for the failure.”
The activists said there appears to be an orchestrated campaign against Ibeanu, because his house in Enugu and his car have been broken into with valuables, including laptops and iPads, taken away.
They recalled that on February 18, 2019, an article he wrote in December 2015 resurfaced on social media followed with a comment: “Nigeria has a Biafran agitator as the REC for Logistics, no wonder this unpatriotic individual, Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, who has made his mission to undermine the Nigerian state.”
Ibeanu’s article was a rejoinder to an article on Perceptions of the Igbo Question and Biafara written by Ibrahim, one of the signatories of the press release.
Ibeanu has had a distinguished academic career at home and abroad and was special rapporteur of the United Nations from 2004 to 2010.
In 2016, he was appointed INEC National Commissioner representing the South East.
He was the Chief Technical Officer to Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman between 2010 and 2015, and contributed to the success of the elections in 2011 and 2015.
The activists urged all stakeholders to desist from pursuing campaigns of calumny against any group, and to instead, “focus on ensuring that the elections hold in a spirit of nation building that would allow the winners of the elections carry forward the Nigerian national project.
“Let us all work with the INEC and all other authorities involved in the electoral process to rebuild trust, and to ensure that there is peace and concord before, during, and after the elections.”
Yes, overzealous aides – security and others are at work.
Everyone watched on Channels Television the report by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that its operatives will go after politicians involved in the postponed elections.
And you ask yourself how that concerns the EFCC, and the financial crime involved if not that someone wants to be seen to be working very hard to satisfy the powers that appointed him or her into office.
I did not expect Buratai to say he would disobey Buhari on his directives.
However, I expected him to also see reason and sense in the advice from Atiku that the army should be in the vanguard of Nigeria’s territorial and sovereign security protection and preservation rather than chasing after ballot box snatchers, which would be a colossal waste of human and material resources.
And then you ask – What is the role of the police in a democracy?
It pains when aides obey orders like zombis without giving a thought to the wider implication of such orders.
The world over, particularly where democratic tenets are practised and respected, the police deal with electoral matters, interface with civil society, and arrest and prosecute recalcitrant election violators.
It is in that perspective that acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Ahmed, told foreign diplomats in Abuja on Wednesday that the police will arrest and prosecute those who foment trouble during the elections.
Ahmed understands the rule. At least he pretends to do so since he told the critical audience of diplomats what should be the role of the police in elections.
Buratai should have taken into cognisanze all the embarrassing report of alleged extra-judicial killings the army has been linked to by Transparency International and the Amnesty International, from which even his leadership laboured to extricate the personnel.
My concern is that the Nigerian army is once more walking into the cage of foreign human rights assessment bodies going by the magnification of Buhari’s directive by Buratai with the use of the words – deal ruthlessly.
Who is fooling who? Why all these desperation to satisfy Buhari? Have Nigerians not been expecting our hard working soldiers to deal ruthlessly with the marauding and daunting Boko Haram members who have kept our country walking on her knees for many years?
What are the gains from comments like “we will die here?” Who benefits from this politics of do or die? Is it not said that soldier goes, soldier comes, barracks remains?
Are we actually sincere in our approach to the things that Buhari craves as President or we are doing them because of our penchant to be sycophants?
Saturday’s election tests so many things about us – our sincerity, our unity, our integrity, our commitment to Project Nigeria, our nationalism, our patriotism spirit.
The polls can hardly be used to test our desperation for power, our selfish and ethnic inclinations, our hatred for one another, our inordinate desire and ambition and other tendencies that will take us many years back from development and progress.
Democracy is all about choices and that must be respected regardless of those preaching “we will die here” for Buhari.