THE House of Representatives has in the past, successfully made amendments to the nation’s key electoral law: the 2010 Electoral Act, especially in the build up to the 2015 general elections, which many observers credited with gaining a great semblance of a free, fair and credible election. JOSHUA EGBODO writes on the latest effort.
Tall agenda
Holding on to euphoria of the seeming successes in the 2015 elections therefore, the current (eighth) assembly of the House of Representatives gave to itself at commencement of its business in 2015, a legislative agenda, which key elements were largely aimed at enhancing the nation’s electoral processes.
But the outcome of the House’s legislative process, which was later endorsed by the Senate, however, did not get the assent of President Muhammadu Buhari. The President in communicating his decision to veto the amendment to the Electoral Act, argued that “clauses seeking to alter the sequence of election negated the constitutional powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to exclusively determine the order, time and dates for elections into the political offices concerned”. The president also had serious reservations on the proposed amendments especially as they affect elections to local government.
Amendment infringement on INEC’s powers
The National Assembly in passing the amendment of the Bill, sought to have the elections for the National and State Houses of Assembly come first, to be followed subsequently by the Presidential and Governorship elections, a move many said may have rattled the President, who was at the time yet to make his intention of seeking re-election in the 2019 presidential election, known to Nigerians.
Buhari noted in his letter to Speaker of the House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, that “the amendment to the sequence of the elections in Section 25 of the Principal Act may infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission to organize, undertake and supervise all elections provided in Section 15(a) of the Third Schedule to the constitution.
“The amendment to Section 138 of the Principal Act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process”, and that “amendments to Section 152(3)-(5) of the Principal Act, may raise constitutional issues over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over Local Government elections”.
The House in an immediate reaction to the President’s veto on the Bill, vowed to clean up the Bill by expunging the clauses the president had serious reservations for. Therefore, the House felt the President was right in his observations, and it proceeded to reintroduce those areas in felt were good, alongside several other Bills, including the Nigeria Peace Corps Bill which the President expressly communicated his veto decision, and some others which were cooling off in the shelves of the Presidency without comments on what the President’s issues were, and override the veto, if need be.
House on revenge mission?
Many analysts, then were of the opinion that the other Bills added to the Electoral Act amendment Bill may have been decoys by the House of Representatives to get back at the President with the election sequence reordering move, and so questions were raised on whether the move was in the national interest, or a deliberate defiance to guarantee members’ desires to ensure what is usually said as ‘everybody answering his/her father’s name’, to come back against the usual bandwagon effect.
The threat was therefore seen as possibly, a protectionist move by the lawmakers, aimed at freeing themselves from what many Nigerians saw as attempts at avoiding massive failure that usually characterized the nation’s electoral system, in which if a President is first elected, or a sitting figure failed to clinch victory as was the case in 2015, their chances of coming back may become more than slim.
This, the analysts anchored on be perceptions that the current regime’s popularity appeared to have been waning by the day over failure to deliver on its electoral promises. To such pundits, it is understandable that the lawmakers were scared that anger of Nigerians may be directed at them through protest votes in 2019.
Smart move or booby-trap?
In what many then saw as a smart move, the House rather than reintroducing the entire amendment Bill to the Electoral Act, filtered off the election sequence reordering clause, and presented the others in a Bill, which in about a fortnight ago scaled first reading, and subsequently referred to the House’s Committee of the Whole for further legislative action.
Earlier, when there were wild speculations that the controversial election sequence reordering matter may have been rested, the House’s spokesman, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas, said it would be brought back as a separate Bill, and treated.
Last Thursday, the election sequence reordering Bill was reintroduced through Hon. Kingsley Chinda, and scaled first reading, just same day report of the Committee on Electoral Matters and Politic Party Affairs, was considered by the House at the Committee of the Whole, thus rekindling earlier curiosity over what the House was actually driving at.
Titled; “Electoral Act (Amendment Bill, 2018 HB 1482)”, the coming back of the election sequence reordering Bill got what appeared to be a tacit approval of its reintroduction by the House Leadership through the Deputy Speaker, Hon, Yussuff Lasun, who recalled while presiding over the Committee of the Whole session that a court had recently ruled a suit challenging its powers to make laws on elections sequence, that no one can gag the legislature from making laws.
While second reading of the Bill is being awaited, many followers of the development have expressed concerns on the real intention behind the move. To many, the 2019 general election appeared too close for the proposed amendment to have any effect, and so to many, it is more of a political grandstanding for personal gains to members of the House, than a move in interest of the country.
As Saraki, IGP tussle gets messier…
The invitation of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki by the Police 48 hours ago over Offa Banks Robbery no doubt created a new twist to the lingering tussle between the duo. TAIYE ODEWALE examines the unfolding scenarios and possible outcomes.
Melaye: The genesis of the war
Crisis between the Senate and in particular, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, can be traced to the arrest of Senator Dino Melaye (APC Kogi West) on the 23rd of April, 2018 on alleged illegal possession of firearms and criminal conspiracy going by repeated invitation of the IGP by the Senate over the arrest.
Specifically, the Senate led by Saraki in the heat of the arrest and detention of Melaye by the Police invited the IGP to appear before it three different times without the IGP personally honouring any of the invitations which made the upper legislative chamber on the 9th of last month to pass a resolution declaring the Police boss as an enemy of democracy and somebody not fit to occupy public office nationally and internationally.
Predictably, the Senate President on the 16th of last month raised the alarm on the floor of the Senate that the IG was planning to frame him up on charges relating to cultism in the wake of cultists arrested in Kwara State and moved to Abuja.
IGP’s alleged frame-up plot
Saraki in a statement read on the floor of the Senate said the alleged plot against him by the IGP was disclosed to him by the Executive Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdufattah Ahmed.
According to him, the IGP was then hatching the dangerous plot against him to settle scores with the Senate for declaring him as an enemy of democracy unfit to hold public office anywhere in the world. The statement reads: “ My Distinguished colleagues, there is an issue which I need to bring to your attention very urgently.
“Last night, my State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatai Ahmed, revealed to me an information at his disposal that a group of suspects, who had been in police cells for several weeks for cultism and whose investigation had been concluded with prosecution about to commence under the State law based on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the Ministry of Justice, were ordered to be transferred to Abuja this morning.
“According to the information available to the Governor, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim directed the Commissioner of Police in Kwara State to immediately transfer the men to the Force Headquarters.
“The plan, as the Governor was made to understand is that, under duress, the suspects would be made to alter the statements they already made in Ilorin. “They will then be made to implicate the Kwara State Government, and in particular, myself, in their new statement.
“This plot is part of the strategy by the IGP Idris to settle scores over the declaration by this honourable Chamber that he is not qualified and competent to hold any public office, within and outside the country and that he is an enemy of Nigerian democracy based on his usual disrespectful conduct towards lawful authorities.
“In my own View, this plot is an act of desperation, blackmail, intimidation, abuse of office and crude tactics aimed at turning our country into a Police State where top officials cannot be made to obey the law, follow due process and subject themselves to constituted authorities.
“I want to bring this dangerous development to the attention of all of you my colleagues, the entire country and the international community so that you can be aware of the level of impunity in our country and the danger it constitute to our democracy”.
Though Police denied the plot then, but the latest invitation served on Saraki on Offa Robbery incident, is proving Saraki right in the domain of public opinion.
Police say suspects allegedly indict Saraki, Ahmed
The Police in the invitation through a statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Jimoh Moshood, said though suspects arrested in connection with the Offa Banks Robbery, did not say that Saraki sent them on the robbery mission, but made confessional statements indicting Saraki and the Executive Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfattah Ahmed of encouragement in the act through periodic empowerment.
The statement reads: “The investigation into the Offa Bank Robbery and gruesome killings of more than THIRTY THREE (33) Innocent persons in Offa, Kwara State on the 5th April, 2018 directed by the Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim K. Idris, NPM, mni, has made significant progress, successes and more revelations have been recorded.
“The gang leaders and some of the principal suspects arrested for their active participation in the robbery and the killing of innocent persons have made confessional statements admitting to the various criminal roles they and their sponsors played in this dastard and heinous crime.
“The Five (5) gang leaders namely; Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibukunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salawudeen Azeez, Niyi Ogundiran and some of the other Seventeen (17) suspects arrested for direct involvement and active participation in the Offa Bank Robbery and the gruesome killing of THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons which includes (some pregnant women and nine (9) Police personnel) admitted, confessed and volunteered statements that they were political thugs of the Senate President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Sen. Bukola Saraki and the Executive Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.
“The arrests of the above mentioned Five (5) Gang Leaders and seventeen (17) others were made possible after the arrest of two principal suspects (Kunle Ogunleye aka Arrow 35yrs and Michael Adikwu an Ex-Convict) whose pictures captured by CCTV in one of the Banks during the Banks robbery were circulated to the media and the public. The two (2) principal suspects confessed to be among the suspects led by the five (5) gang leaders listed in paragraph 2 above to carry out the Offa Banks Robbery, the attack on the Divisional Police Headquarters, Offa and the killings of THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons on the 5th of April, 2018.”
“During interrogation, the five (5) gang leaders mentioned in paragraph 2 further confessed and volunteered statements that they carried out the Bank Robberies, the attack on the Divisional Police Headquarters in Offa and the killings of THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons during the robbery of the following six (6) banks (i) First Bank Offa (ii) Guarantee Trust Bank Offa (iii) ECO Bank Offa (iv) Zenith Bank Offa (v) Union Bank Offa (vi) Ibolo Micro Finance Bank Offa and (vii) the Divisional Police Headquarters, Offa on 5th April, 2018.
“Millions of Naira from the Banks and Twenty One (21) AK47 Rifles belonging to the Nigeria Police Force in the Armoury of the Police Divisional Headquarters, Offa were admitted to have been carted away by the Five (5) gang leaders and the other Seventeen (17) principal suspects during the Banks robbery.
“The Five (5) gang leaders confessed and volunteered statements to the Police investigators, giving a clear account of how they planned and carried out the Banks robbery operation in Offa, the attack on the Police Division in Offa and how they killed the THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons during the robbery.
“The Five (5) gang leaders further confessed during investigation that they are political thugs under the name Youth Liberation Movement a.k.a “Good Boys” admitted and confessed to have been sponsored with firearms, money and operational vehicles by the Senate President, Sen. Bukola Saraki and the Governor of Kwara State, Alh. Abdulfatah Ahmed.
“In the course of discreet investigation into the confessions of these five (5) gang leaders and the other seventeen (17) principal suspects, a Lexus jeep GX-300 (Ash Colour) with a sticker plate number with inscription “SARAKI” “Kwara, State of Harmony” used by the gang leader (Ayoade Akinnibosun ‘M’ 37Yrs) during the bank robbery and the killing of the THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons was taken to Government House, Ilorin on 16th May, 2018 where the sticker plate number with inscription “SARAKI” “Kwara, State of Harmony” was removed before another plate number (Reg. No. Kwara, KMA 143 RM) registered in the name of Ayoade AKinnibosun the Overall Commander of the Offa Bank Robbery was then attached to the vehicle to cover up the identity of the said vehicle. The exhibit vehicle was subsequently recovered from the premises of the Min. of Environmental and Forestry in Ilorin, Kwara State. While the sticker plate number with inscription “SARAKI” “Kwara, State of Harmony” removed from the vehicle was recovered from one Adeola Omiyale who drove the said Lexus Jeep to Government House, Ilorin immediately after the Bank Robbery.
“Meanwhile, the Senate President, Sen. Bukola Saraki is being invited by the Nigeria Police Force to report to the Force Intelligence Response Team office at Guzape, Abuja to answer to the allegations levelled against him from the confessions of the Five (5) Gang Leaders, namely; Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibukunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salawudeen Azeez, Niyi Ogundiran and some of the other Seventeen (17) suspects arrested for direct involvement and active participation in the Offa Bank Robbery and the gruesome killing of THIRTY THREE (33) innocent persons which includes (some pregnant women and nine (9) Police personnel).” .
Expectedly, Saraki in his reaction to the claims made by the Police and invitation slammed on him, debunked all the claims and declared his readiness to honour the invitation any time served but the question is how would the investigation ends and becomes the relationship between the Saraki support group in APC in the Senate and the party ahead of the 2019 general elections?
Time will definitely tell.
