My fears about 2015 — Ugolor Civil rights activist and the Executive Director of African Network for Economic and Environmental Justice (ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor recently disclosed in an exclusive interview with EBOJELE AKHERE PATRICK, that 2015 election maybe the breaking point for Nigeria. Excerpt Recently, the Edo House Assembly was plunged into crisis which led to separate plenary by the APC and PDP lawmakers, as a leading civil right activist what do make of this development? It is really unfortunate that this is happening and all these are obviously a pre-presidential election problem. You know very well that as we are preparing for the presidential election next year, we expect this kind of action happening across the country especially areas where the ruling party may probably not win, so there is that tendency. It not only in the Edo state, it is also happening in Rivers State and what is on-going in Adamawa state and what happened in the pre- election in Ekiti State. Before now in Edo, you will agree with me that there is the general view that there is relative peace and that to large extent there has been development in the last six years.If you put all these together you will agree with me that the recent crisis in the Edo state house of assembly has a relation with the Presidential election. Unfortunately, people are properly referred to as traders, politicians, who have no legitimacy, no value and all they are interested in is to acquire wealth and they prefer to trade away the state like what is happening in Edo state. Like I have said, we in the civil society have intervened in a more peaceful manner with the understanding that the members of the state house of assembly would reasonably act in the interest of people. But unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing, so like I said it is a fight and build up towho becomes President by next year, so everyone wants to show to his masters that we are in control and to a large extends they are not using decent manner to do it. The presidency is encouraging impunity in the state house of assembly encouraging a minority group to create a chaos in the house and this is not good for the group. A situation where the police would allow a minority group to make it impossible for a majority group to have their way is not good for democracy and transparency and it is a sign of moving to a crisis situation. We have Boko Haram crisis happening and we have not been able to deal with the problem because of the culture of impunity and now government is also extending this to other part of the Country and we are talking about going for election in 2015. Now, if you look at the root cause of the matter, you will agree with me that if it handle with purpose of honesty, rule of law and due process it won’t have gone to this extent but because of 2015 ambition with different permutation going on people are looking into the future and the credibility of this democratic process is being questioned because if people would always decide to become their representative and members of the parliament, or president we would live in a mannerthat would reflex those consciousness but unfortunately that is what it is. The crisis in the house of assembly is not crisis between APC and PDP. Before that crisis happened, we have not heard that there is any issue of leadership and dictatorship, in fact, to a large extent; there is a consensus by everybody in the house that APC have done creditably well and must be commended, so there is peace and the people are free to express their view. Across Nigeria today and in Edo state, the level of consciousness has been improved dramatically and now that the crisis has crimped in you can expect trouble everywhereand suspicious and the victims are the common man. The commercial life of the people have been affected because of the crisis and this is obviously not good for the economy and that is what happened and politicians want to throw away all this. Are you not disturbed that even in the face of all these orders from court, the order seems not to be obeyed? Now, you have a country where the rule of law is no longer a basis to operate a governance system then they would be breakdown of the system. That is how the judiciary was messed up in Rivers state because the governor who is constitutionally empowered to nominate andrecommend the Chief Judge of the state is not allow to do that and when you have crisis the executive is overwhelmed. When we talk about separation of power in Nigeria, it is just in theory, in practical the executive arms make it impossible to access funds. Whether PDP or APC is right, is not my own take. I am looking at it from history where we are going because it happens in Rivers, Adamawa, nothing happen, in Ekiti , nothing happened and now it has taken it foothold in Edo. It is like those who commit crime today government listen to them. So, this kind of governance is not good for the system. The members of the house fighting today are not fighting for the people or value but for their primary interest so what am appealing to them is to wait for theelections. The president must urged the Police to enforce the rule of law but if the government now choose to undermine the process I can assure you that the resultant effect will be dangerous for everybody because of the danger it pose to the democratic process. I want to commend the Oba of Benin for his intervention, the civil societies and other groups because Edo state belongs to all of us. More importantly, the religious leaders must speak out; they cannot stay in their churches and be praying because when the crisis will happen they will not have time to go to church. We understand that at a point your organization and other civil societies try to broker a truce between the lawmakers, what really happened? Am speaking now as the executive director of ANEEJ , we work for development and partner with government. First thing we did as ANEEJ was to initiate the process and we met few of our colleagues like Olu Martins, Austin Osakwe and Comrade Eboigbodin. Initially, before now,I have provided support and capacity building for civil society group in Edo state and we are happy that civil society awareness in thestate has increased and that was our general aim. And now, when this crisis happened we saw it as another opportunity for us to play a role and if you know our history before now, in the health and educational sectors we have tried to intervene. So what we did was that we came out under the platform of Development Alliance Platform, (DAP), where we addressed the all parties to stealth their sword because we believe that without peace we cannot be talking about development and good governance knowing very well that the capacity of these people to create problem is there, nobody funded us, in fact, it was Aneej that brought the resources for all we did and the message was widely reported and again, we commend the media for that. We didn’t stop at that, we went further to engage both parties and in fact I want to thank the role of the police who graciously created the venue and security where the two warring parties met and listened to their concern, we raised both technical and political issues and encourage them to come together because we are just civil societies but unfortunately, they couldn’t come to terms. We realised that there was an external interest influencing move to settle the matter. At that point, we the civil society decided to stand on justice because there are principles that guide us, if it is white we call it white and if it is black we call it black. We want to encourage and speak the truth to those who are in power otherwise at my individual level the crisis has absolutely nothing to do with the people , it is a pre-presidential system election crisis that is capable of damaging the whole political environment if it is not manage . Otherwise, I don’t see the reason why the suspension of some four lawmakers shouldsnowballed into this crisis because this is not the first time parliamentarians are suspended and is definitely not going to be the last. Again, initially, the role of the police was well commended but you know when the ‘oga’ at the top have a different interest it is difficult for the ‘oga’ at the below to be able to act appropriately and this to me raises a fundamental question as to the role the police want to play in all this crisis and this manifested when the minority parliamentarian want to have access to the assembly and for me it is a shame for democracy. Do you think the lawmakers that broke into the complex are entitled to their pay since the minority now seat separately and should the government listen to their resolutions? In the first place, the rule in democracy is very clear and it is sufficient to know that the minority cannot legislate for the majority. What is happening is really unfortunate, the earlier we arrest it the better for all of us in the Country, it is not just an Edo issue alone but it has a potential to engulf the entire country and people are just watching. The issue of receiving salary is neither here or there, there is contract existing between Edo people and the members of the house of assembly by the virtue of their election and am not aware that any of them have been recalled back by his constituency, so I don’t see any reason why their salary have to stop, crisis happen all over the world. As we speak today, the legitimatespeaker is Uyi Igbe and even the deputy speaker addressed him as such when we engaged both sides and naturally who do police takes instruction from? If Uyi Igbe was a PDP speaker will this be happening? If the speaker says we have suspended you it is not by using the rule of force? But the police have made it impossible to the APC led lawmakers to have access to the house. So, instead of fighting the police it is only normal for them to have an alternate place to have their sitting. What is happening is very abnormal. Lastly, what are your fears about 2015 election considering the recent happening in Edo state? My fear is that with what has happened so far in Rivers State, the NGF election, Adamawa and Nassarawa state, it is clear that this government under Jonathan we need to raise urgent call to the international community and mobilize our people because I fear for the country because elections rigging do not happened on the day of election. If the rules guiding pre-election is not followed and it is skewed then we have a problem. My take is that this pre-election phase suggests that 2015 election is going to be rigged. If military will be used to stopped people from going to campaign in Ekiti, opposition leaders are been arrested, even today anti-corruption campaign is not working. The precedence we are seeing today is bad. Source: championonlinenews/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=21019:my-fears-about-2015-ugolor&Itemid=208&lang=en For More Like This, Please... LIKE our Facebook Page: facebook/aneejnigeria FOLLOW us on Twitter: twitter/aneejnigeria
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 18:12:38 +0000
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