Dr Yunusa Tanko doubles as the chairman Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and the National Conscience Party (NCP). In this interview with EMEKA NZE he said that elections postponement came to the political parties with the same surprise that many Nigerians received the news despite being taken along by the INEC chairman in all meetings with the political parties. Excerpts:
What is your opinion on the postponement of the election? You were on television a few days ago talking about the division in IPAC whether elections should or should not hold and now it has been postponed.
Let me make it clear, the political parties are not to be held responsible for the postponement or no postponement of the elections; we are supposed to give advice. It should be noted that it is the INEC that has that constitutional responsibility on election matters.
It has nothing to do with the political parties, yet we are stakeholders, we could be called for discussions to give our own opinion. The constitutional duty rests in the hand of INEC and that was exactly what happened.
What were the reasons? Some of the advice we gave were based on the security reports that were given to Jega himself, that is, the National Security Adviser and the Service Chiefs said they cannot provide security and we don’t own guns and we care about the Nigerian people. So definitely, given the divergent opinions, what do we do? Which is the best option for us so that we can get the security agencies themselves to give us security which is fundamental? What about if the elections were held and the lives and property were lost? Who do we blame, the political parties? I think it is unfair for us to hinge it on political parties because the political parties have been crying long before now with regard to the issue of PVCs, with regard to the issue of funding of political parties, with regard to the protection of the political parties themselves which is not being done and some people see us as if we don’t have ideologies and that is not true.
It was only on that day that many people realised the importance of the 28 political parties even though, unfortunately, some of our leaders call some political parties ‘mushroom’. It’s quite unfortunate because every political party in Nigeria is an independent body and equal in the eye of the law and that is fundamental; we should be very mindful of that.
As far as we are concerned, we are as shocked as any other person when the situation came but as law abiding citizens and organisations our clarion call on the Nigerian people is that they should remain steadfast, consistent so that they cannot be involved in violence because the key issue is that this democracy that all of us are enjoying should not be truncated.
What would you say to the issue of Jega flying a kite, was he under some kind of pressure?
The fact is that every meeting that we have been having with the chairman of INEC, we have remained behind him as political parties. We worked together with him through all of his challenges which he tabled before us. We have never for ones run away from the challenges that were tabled before us but where we have to give him advice, we do give him advice.
And in this case he never told us that he was not ready at all. He always tells us, let me use his words: ¨I can assure you, the Independent Electoral Commission is ready for elections despite all challenges.” But what we never knew was that there were only challenges with regard to security. This thing is three-way thing- the security, INEC itself, the political parties and finally the electorates. So if these components are not together into one, if one of these fizzles out, the elections may have challenges.
Was you party (NCP) among the 10 political parties that issued a statement that INEC Chairman should not be removed?
We never talked about it; in fact, it has never come to our table whether or not he should be removed. Those ones were insinuations that we were hearing. So we never considered it as an issue because as far as we are concerned, he is the person that is on seat and he is going to conduct the 2015 elections. It was not even conceived in our minds not to talk of being on one part or the other. So the issue of calling for him not to be removed did not even arise. We remained with INEC that it will conduct the 2015 general elections.
Were you aware that Jega’s tenure would soon be over?
Of course, it is there; his tenure will expire on June 30th 2015, everybody is aware and even he himself is aware. All of aware of the tenure of his office; that is in the public domain but that doesn’t stop him from doing what he is appointed to do.
So you do not subscribe to him resigning from office?
Even the presidency, everybody does not subscribe to it. People are just flying kites. Nobody has anything as to he is going to resign even himself, nobody has told him anything about resignation.
Was the postponement of the elections justified?
The truth about it is that we cannot protect ourselves and I told you that there are four components that make up this election- the electorates, the political parties, INEC itself and the security agencies. If one of them is out of the equation, election will be endangered. So, all the four of them must be in consonance with one another. As far as we are concerned the components must work together, where one fails then there is a problem.
As the chairman of IPAC, are you satisfied with the content of the campaigns so far?
No. Right from the beginning we were not satisfied with the campaigns and that’s why we were on the streets distributing the code of conduct that all of us signed to and also making publications with regards to the peace accord signed by all the stakeholders including the President of the Federal Republic, the political parties and then to continue to engineer political parties do embark on issue-based campaigns.
This is because Nigerians are tired of name-calling, blackmails and stealing of ballot boxes. They want to hear how do we have employment, how do we have good health, how do we have good roads, how do we have good communication? These are what Nigerians want to hear on concrete times.
You are also the chairman of NCP, is your party on course in terms of your preparation towards the 2015 general elections?
We are very much on course. The truth about it is that people need to understand the difference between NCP and other political parties. We are a social democratic party. The NCP is the only political party in Nigeria that did not sell form. All these forms that people are buying at millions of naira, NCP did not sell 1 kobo. All of our forms are free and the reason is very very clear.
As a party we believe that it is a masses based political party, it is a youth-based party, a party belonging to persons with disability, a party belong to women and all. so is it these people you will ask to come and pay N7 million to contest elections?. There is no fairness in that and that’s why the forms are free. So for NCP all we appeal is your conscious mind to do the right thing. Ones you can give this platform free to people, it simply means that the people own the party.
Can you tell us how many candidates at all levels that you have fielded in this election?
We have nothing less than 20 governorship candidates, we have candidates for the House of Reps that cuts across the federation, candidates for state Houses of Assembly that cuts across the federation and we also have a presidential candidate. So you can imagine with our level we are present in every integral part of this country.
Are you sure that your party and your presidential candidate will not step down to endorsing another candidate?
We had a serious discussion; we are on our own working towards our own emergence, building our party, we were in Enugu, we are in the streets of Abuja here where we went to the market to campaign. So we are on course as a party.
How are you combining the role of the national chairman of NCP and that of IPAC?
Try to be fair to everybody concerned. Differing people with divergent views; people will come on this side and the rest will go the other side and I make sure we are at the middle ground. This is my second year of being the chairman of Inter Party Advisory Council.
The first election I won with one vote, the second election there was nobody contesting against me. So I try to be fair to all which is exactly what we need in this country. You need to think about others and then when you think about yourself, you think about how others will feel so that you will not lie yourself on others. As for NCP, my background as a civil society person has prepared me to listen to divergent views and then strike a balance.
