FORMER Governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mrs. Priscilla Kuye and National Coordinator, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Ganiyu Adams have called for the restructuring of the country.

In this wise, they emphasised the need for Nigeria to convene a national conference where all ethnic nationalities would have the opportunity to discuss the way forward for the country.

At an event to commemorate the June 12, 1993 anniversary organised by the OPC, Kalu, who delivered a paper, entitled, 20 Years after June 12: Options for Survival, said the country was in dire need of a credible electoral process, as it has become jinxed when it comes to elections.

He, therefore, challenged the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act, to provide for holding elections in one day, instead of the present staggered arrangement.

He said: “My challenge to our lawmakers is that the Electoral Act should be amended to provide for holding all elections in one day.

“Let all elections, including houses of assembly, federal legislature, gubernatorial and presidential, hold the same day.

“That is the best global practice today, and Nigeria should adopt that option. It will be cheaper, ultimately, for the country.

“Holding elections in one day will eliminate the bandwagon effect that characterises our polls today, in which people have seen the direction of victory and simply follow in that direction.”

Kalu also advocated that Nigerians in the Diaspora, who were eligible to vote, be given the opportunity in the 2015 elections.

He said the June 12, 1993 presidential election, won by Chief MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), was acclaimed to be the freest election ever held in Nigeria.

“On June 12, 1993, Nigerians shunned all tendencies that had always divided us as a people, and voted for change, for a new dawn,” he said.

To Mrs. Kuye, Nigerians deserved to have good governance where social infrastructure would be available with full assurance of security.

She noted that the June 12 election had become a historical fact Nigerians could not afford to sweep under the carpet, “as it represents free and fair election.”

Emphasising the need for the ethnic nationalities to dialogue, Kuye said that while Nigerians were putting government to task, the people should also endeavour to demand accountability from public officers and not allow themselves to be deceived with tokens when politicians are seeking their votes during election.

She added that the June 12 election and the acclaimed winner, the Chief MKO Abiola “remain a symbol of unity, progress and hope for the nation.”

She also called on the present administration to promote peace and unity in the country.

Adams said June 12 “represents ballot integrity” in the country.

According to him: “It (June 12, 1993) was a day that Nigerians spoke with one voice and went beyond primordial interests.

“While we continue our fight for justice, fair play, Nigerians must rededicate themselves to genuine democracy and work for a better and greater country that we can all call our own.”

On why the June 12 election has remained symbolic 20 years after, the OPC leader said the election was generally agreed to be the freest and fairest in the country.

“It was also the most peaceful and one that united the citizens both Christian and Muslim,” he said.

On the issue of security, Adams drew the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan, saying, “it has remained endemic and undesirable.”

“Unless the security problem is tackled headlong, we will continue to witness low or absent of foreign investment in the country,” he warned.

“I think the operative word is rancour-free. First, let me say that the magic is God almighty who has given me the strength and wisdom to run a multi-party house all this while, rancour-free. It takes wisdom and wisdom comes only from God.
“Second, I think the major issue in transforming to this stage, is the fact that I have been able to build confidence amongst my colleagues and one of the biggest builders of confidence and trust is transparency. I have been transparent in my dealings and I have not shrouded anything in secrecy. The moment a man looks at you and can believe in you, then, you have no problems because he has nothing else that he is hiding from you and so, that has basically been my watchword,” he said.

Particularly constant is the credit he gives to his colleagues in the running of the Assembly, which to him has not come cheap. “To be open, to be transparent and God blessed me with colleagues who are very understanding, who at every point in time, want to know what’s on the ground and would do everything to assist not just antagonise you for the purpose of wanting to have rancour in the house. We sit down and discuss our issues every week before we go to plenary.

“We will sit down and tackle issues whatever they are from whatever perspective; we put them on the table and deal with them. It has really helped us in dealing with extraneous factors that would have ordinarily been a source of worry. We thrash them out, no matter how bitter; we will lock ourselves out in executive sessions till whenever and until we find a common ground, we don’t come out. So, that has been our dealing with our business like it has never been done before,” he said.
That Ochei used to be a member of the opposition before defecting to the ruling party where he is not just a member of the Assembly but speaker, is believed to say more about his kind of politics, without stooping to undue pressure.

“I’ll say the parties in this country do not come from ideological backgrounds; they are all basically the same thing- vehicles to take you to your political destination or political office. But I was in an opposing party simply because the ruling party as at that time did not give me an opportunity to run on its platform, so I went to another platform. I was not opposed to what they were doing so long as it is done right.
“So, it really isn’t an issue of trust with the opposition. It is about if indeed you are there and can be part of the solution, why not be a part of the solution? You do not need to shout. Indeed, you think they are not doing the right thing, why not be a part of the solution? For me, being there and coming to the mainstream is being able to contribute my quota in that, in this desire to improve our government. I can make an input and basically, that has been achieved largely.

Ironically, that he has led a rancour-free legislature is not an indication that he has no challenge to grapple with. On the contrary, there have been such challenges but have made the legislature a stronger institution of democracy.
“The challenges are quite a number. Well, you have instances where your colleagues are not happy with what is coming out from the executive arm and you have to act as a stabiliser because you are an arm of government and you have to go into negotiation and discussions with the executive arm, trying to find common ground; sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t.

“It is also our duty to go back to our colleagues and make them see reasons why you cannot get your issues through. More so, the legislature as of today is not independent; it is not autonomous, you still have to go back to the executive arm. So, somehow, besides the fact that we collaborate with each other, you also have to understand that there is a bigger boss which is the executive arm.
“We collaborate with each other and you also have to understand that there is a bigger boss which is the executive arm and in resolving issues with the executive arm, you must play a pivotal role, that’s on one end. On the other hand, you have a situation amongst your colleagues; some colleagues who may not exactly like your style but it is your ability to carry everyone along irrespective of different shortcomings, accommodate each other.

“That basically is another challenge because we are 28 individuals who have different faces, different ideologies, everything different that you have to put up with to ensure that you work with them and keep a focused house. All of these challenges put together, you also have the Challenge of a partisan house where you have the members of the opposing parties in a minority group but quite sizable in number in managing their wants and their agitation within the confines of what your party presents as the majority party and ensuring that you still coast along laws and motions and resolutions, all that irrespective of the differences.

“It is a challenge. All these plus your ability to manage them and bring them under a compromise where you’ll all work together in an atmosphere of clear cut understanding and ensuring that everybody’s interest is properly aggregated; their thought processes. It is not limited to this, we meet with them everyday, but I do know that God will grant us wisdom to overcome them,” he stated.
Although, there have been speculations about Ochei’s ambition in 2015, more than anything else, he seems concerned about his legacy as speaker and a lawmaker of about 12 years in the Assembly.

“For me, I will be a fulfilled man in 2015 by the time I look back at the legislature, I will say, thank God I did a good job because my promise was that I was coming to the legislature to restore the glory of the legislature as the first arm of government. The legislature has suffered the most, during the military interregnum; they were always proscribed, suspended but this time around, we need to put the legislature as the first arm that makes the laws for order, peace and good governance.
“Infrastructure wise, we have been able to do a whole lot to restructure the physical look of the legislature and whether you like it or not, the physical structure has a way of affecting your natural style if acting. If you work in a place that looks disorganised, you might end up being a disorganised person.

“But if you work in an organised place, you will naturally organise yourself into the scheme of the organisation that you’ve met. So, for me, I have been able to restore the flow of the legislature. That will be my pride; that this is a system that is established and people after me will continue in that system and modify it but not go back to where we are coming from.

“For me, we have been able to set a standard, that is one personal satisfaction that I will have in leaving the legislature and you know, having served in a place for 12 years, I can look back and say I have done well at the risk of sounding immodest. If we continue the way we are going now, by 2015, we can look back and say we have done well. It’s not just me but a collective effort of my colleagues. Truly speaking, we can say we have done well. That will be it for me.”

ACTIVISTS, politicians, professional bodies and eminent Nigerians from diverse walks of life yesterday gathered in Lagos to honour and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola.

It was a day stakeholders in the political system decided to analyse and chart a way forward for democracy in Nigeria. They also used the event to examine the lapses in the polity and plan ahead of the 2015 general elections.

At a gathering organised by the Lagos chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) with the theme: ‘Post June 12: The Good and the Bad’, participants agreed that the dividends of democracy had not been evident and enjoyed by Nigerians because of government’s inability to provide the basic necessities of life like electricity, healthcare system, sound educational sector for the citizens.

In the same spirit, another event was organised at Abiola’s Toyin Street, Lagos residence by the June 12 Movement of Nigeria, in collaboration with Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND).

The forum, tagged: ‘June 12 and the way out of Nigeria’s instability’, demanded a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), that Chief Abiola be immortalised and that June 12 should be made a public holiday in commemoration of the sacrifice the late politician made for the country’s democracy.

Speaking at the meeting at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja, the former General Secretary of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank Ovie Kokori, noted that the reason common people had not been able to benefit from the actualisation of democracy was because the June 12 struggle was left at the mercy of “opportunists” in the guise of politicians that had no developmental vision for the people.

According to him, although the civil societies and other prodemocracy groups laid down their lives for the realisation of democracy in Nigeria, it was unfortunate they had to stay aside when the goal was realised because they had no intention of controlling political power but to make sure the democratic rule was entrenched.

He noted that the fact that successive governments decided to play politics with the generation of power in the country had distorted development in no small measures.

“Now, we have leaders that just come to power by accident, but I believe one day, sooner or later, Nigeria will have leaders that will come with vision that will benefit the people of this country,” Kokori said.

He added that if the ideals of June 12 were imbibed in the coming 2015 elections, the polity would once again experience true democratic development because the previous election was free and fair.

According to former Governor, Ogun State, Chief Segun Osoba, there is an imperative need to position the country’s political parties, to be able to guarantee good leadership.

Osoba noted that the yet-to-be-registered All Progressives Congress (APC) would make sure that internal democracy, coupled with caucus arrangement, should determine the emergence of candidates as this process is a factor in the democratic systems of countries like Britain that has the biggest democracy and India that has the largest one.

He said he was not interested in political office, but would love to be a part of the process that would establish a democratic government in the country.

According to a lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), Nigerians should cultivate the norm of respecting the outcome of elections if the country was to witness real progress in its democratic system.

Falana noted that the elements that annulled June 12 election are still within the system disrupting democratic processes in the country. An example he gave was the recent controversy that trailed the election of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF).

He, however, said that the bid for Nigeria to secure a permanent seat at the United Nations’ Security Council was a joke because of all the representatives there; power crisis is not an issue in their respective countries.

Falana said: “It is a joke for Nigeria to bid for the UN Security Council permanent seat when it is still battling with problems of electricity at home. Those at that level have gone beyond that; now they have advanced in technology to the extent of visiting the moon.”

At the Abiola residence, Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, recalled that the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) had stressed the need to organise a Sovereign National Conference before the return to democratic government in 1999, but anti-democratic forces in the polity neglected the calls.

Adebanjo noted the reason former President Olusegun Obasanjo never acknowledged Abiola’s sacrifices was because he belonged to the caucus that annulled the June 12 election.

To him, General Ibrahim Babangida only used Obasanjo to pacify the Yoruba people. “He (Obasanjo) was brought there without any merit and those of us who opposed him then were thought to be haters. He never believed in the June 12 struggle,” he said.

Adebanjo said the National Stadium or the Eagle Square should be named after Abiola if the Federal Government was sincere about immortalising him.

Also, a member a group of elder statesmen, The Patriots, Chief Solomon Asemota (SAN), emphasised the need for the country’s ethnic nationalities to sit down and negotiate the basis of the country’s unity.

He said the military governments succeeded in using religious groups and ethnic biases to destroy the polity, stressing that these factors that were supposed to corroborate democracy now compete with it.

Asemota asked: “Why did Abiola die? Why was Kudirat killed? Some people need to answer these questions. It is unfortunate we still live in the Nigeria of 1914. We need a modern Nigeria and not the ancient one.

“We need to sit down and talk because a lot of things have gone wrong; even our religious leaders do not say the truth again because they now enjoy political patronage from the oppressors of the people.”

The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, stated that in no time, June 12 would be declared a public holiday because it was an election that depicted the essence of democracy.

According to her, Abiola would have made Nigeria better if he was made the president.

“I am sure Abiola would have provided a way for women to participate more in politics because he had compassion for the womenfolk,” he said.

“I hope the 2015 elections would represent the ideals the June 12 represented.”

There are doubts over the status of APC’s letter to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking registration as a political party.

A senior INEC official told THISDAY Wednesday, that the 30-day mandatory period for the party to be registered would have commenced counting from June 7, when the letter was submitted, but it defaulted on the signatures of the leadership structures.

By the Electoral Act as amended, the letter to INEC by the APC ought to have been signed by the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of the APC. But the letter to INEC was signed by the chairmen, secretaries and treasurers of the merging parties.

This was due to the inability of the merging parties to agree on the leadership structures.

This, the INEC official told THISDAY made the letter to the commission to be “inchoate according to the provisions of the Electoral Act’, explaining,” ordinarily, the merging parties should have started counting the mandatory 30 days for it to become a registered political party.

However, the running spat between the  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition parties forming  the APC continued as the PDP described the blue print of the APC  which was presented to the UK parliament Monday by Senator Bola Tinubu, as  a basket of empty shells, stating that it was as an attempt to deodorise the stench of inadequacies that have dogged the yet-to-be registered party.

Reacting to the presentation, the PDP said: “It was a let down yesterday as the leader of the ACN, Bola Tinubu, stunned an international audience with the emptiness he unveiled as the emancipation package of the APC. It is an agenda grossly lacking in essentials, in fundamentals; deep in cosmetics, devoid of originality, laced with half truths and outright lies and grittily divorced from the substance and incidentals  that ginger national growth. It is a basket of promise filled with shells.”

The statement from PDP signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, argued that nothing exposed the unseriousness of Tinubu’s presentation than his loud silence on corruption and the alternative roadmap to the extant security challenges, which the opposition coalition had made so much noise about.

“Members of the British parliament must have giggled and waited in vain for Mr. Tinubu to unveil the much vaunted opposition agenda on anti-terrorism and corruption. Is it that the APC has no answers to these or that Tinubu deliberately skipped them?

“Here, curious minds reflect on two things. The PDP led-federal government  has applied the master strategy that is already yielding results; thus leaving the opposition bereft of fresh, better dimension as an alternative or that the man who appeared in the British House of Commons is the least qualified to speak on corruption and terrorism before such a self respecting and well meaning assembly with an in-depth grip on happenings in Nigeria.”

On the issue of national social security, the PDP wondered why the states under the opposition have not been implementing it if it is such a laudable programme knowing that under Nigeria’s federalism, the states suffered no restriction over such matters.

“Why is the opposition waiting to get to the centre before implementing this? Why did Tinubu not implement this as Lagos State Governor for eight years? Why are the six ACN states over which Tinubu is the overlord not implementing this? Promises are easily made. If Tinubu as Lagos State Governor denied workers wage increment and denied pensioners the benefits of decades of service, how could the APC government, which he canvasses take care of the aged and the vulnerable under the social security programme? Nigerians need eggs no doubt  but not their empty shells!

Similarly, the school feeding programme which the APC paraded as one of its cardinal agenda is in fact a programme under various stages of implementation since it was launched in September 2005 by former President  Olusegun Obasanjo.  In fact, some of the PDP states have gone beyond meal-a-day to other accompaniments that make learning easy for the Nigerian child.”

According to the PDP, “while Tinubu was in the UK unfolding the opposition’s agenda on education, teachers in Ogun State, an opposition state locked the classrooms and chased school children home in strike over lingering issues of service. In Ekiti and Osun States also under the ACN, strikes have been the order of school curriculum for over a year now. Who then takes the opposition serious?

“Tinubu’s sermon on credible election and the state of democracy in Nigeria flies in the face of consistent knockings of the shenanigans that play out in the opposition states as local government elections.

“The same international community that Tinubu wanted to convince there is no democracy in Nigeria is the same community that adjudged the 2011 general elections as the most credible in our recent history.

“There is no democracy under PDP,  yet, President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012, went to Edo State, a competitively PDP state; assured of a credible poll and delivered same. In Ondo State, another state under the opposition, where PDP no doubt has deep roots; the President again demonstrated that the history of flawed elections is gone in Nigeria. What then is democracy?

“What then is credible election? Who listens to the hyperactive lies of the Nigerian opposition than those of their hue who already know they don’t have the structures and the unity (already seen in wide division APC leadership slots) to win the 2015 general elections and are, therefore, fashioning out reasons well ahead of time.

“We once more challenge the opposition to a debate on the alternative roadmap to what the PDP-led federal government is doing at present.

“With an empirical comparison of the pace of development at the centre and the states under the opposition on one hand and these states against those under the PDP on the other, Nigerians are no doubt a better judge of who enjoys their mandate in in 2015.”

There are many ‘ifs’ 20 years after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election – that is still considered Nigeria’s freest and fairest.  If then military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, had known that the decision to annul the election would lead to the plethora of crises that Nigeria is yet to come over, he may not have acted in that manner.  Indeed if he had known that the  electoral process today would be much worse and replete with serial instances of the reasons he gave for the annulment, he may not have done so.  If  Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (aka, MKO) had known that events would spiral to a fatal end for him, he may not have sought the presidency of Nigeria.  If some of the elected public officers who supported the annulment knew that Sani Abacha would restore full military rule for another five years, they may have stood firmly on June 12 and continued in office.  Using the behavior of some members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, regarding their election where they voted but lost but are refusing to accept defeat, the question should be asked:  When would Nigerians learn from mistakes of the past?