WELL DONE MAURICE IWU, AWAY WITH FOREIGN ELECTION OBSERVERS AND THEIR STRING-LADEN EUROS

By: Ibrahim Danlami, College Park, USA          ibrahimdanlami@yahoo.com

This piece is intended as a sequel to the many essays on Professor Maurice Iwu’s conduct of the 2007 general elections and formal presentation of his report to Nigerian and international audiences in Washington DC on December 18, 2007.

First, let me say that I agree with some Nigerians in the Diaspora, especially the Lawyers who have rallied to the defense of Iwu, INEC and the integrity of the national electoral process in Nigeria, as well as some essays written by others who were present at the two separate events in Washington DC where Professor Iwu had presented the Report. Generally, their detailed accounts tallied with another published account by a senior Nigerian journalist who was present at the events. Second, the point must be made that any personal account of the general reaction or demeanor of the Nigerian Diaspora to Iwu upon presentation of the Election Report will be incomplete if the person writing the account was not present at the second event which occurred in the evening at the Embassy of Nigeria, off Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC. I was at both events but I deliberately preferred to keep quiet and remain as obscure as possible so I can better concentrate on the important task of either confirming or recanting what I already gleaned from third sources.

And after Iwu’s presentations, I couldn’t help but think of what is now happening with our local government elections sans Iwu and wondered why some of us cannot see the glaring point that Nigeria’s teething pains with her elections are less of the making of Maurice Iwu or one man alone but more of an institutional immaturity on the part of Nigeria as a young, and an inexperienced democracy to boot. And this is exacerbated by the visceral and cultural tendency to never-say-die on the part of Nigerians in contest for any office (political or civic, home-based or Diasporan), if not the general failure on the part of our many new-age leaders to rise above the limitations of parochialism and over-ambition and put the nation first for once. Much could still be said on these last two points but instead of doing that, let me give you the link to a well-articulated essay by another fellow Nigerian (Attorney Franklin Otorofani) in the Diaspora who did so well to put the real issues into their proper perspectives and contexts.

Now fast forward to Professor Iwu’s December 18, 2007 credible revelations in Washington DC detailing the meddlesomeness of the EU observers (or monitors). Then think of the allegations he made that the same observers wanted a free pass to attend INEC meetings; and even had the effrontery to demand wholesale access to vital information holding the biometrics of Nigeria’s registered voters including, as Iwu put it, “the fingerprints of President of my country” – all because they thought the 40 million Euros they dangled will solve all of Nigeria’s problems. Now, I don’t know about my fellow Diasporans in the West but one thing I know for certain is that in America where I have lived for years, a whole army of citizens will go to any length to reject any plan by Uncle Sam to create and hold their biometrics without a compelling public interest such as part of a narrowly-tailored national strategy to overcome a portent threat such as terrorism. Even so, we in America are witnesses to the robust challenge by citizens against anything of this nature which is known to in breach of the constitutional protection of the right to privacy. Recall the resistance to the US Patriotic Act that cost Ashcroft his job as Attorney-General of the United States. The overall resistance to this sort of intrusion stems from the recent dramatic rise in identity thefts, if not the suspicion that the government will someday misuse the data to the detriment of innocent citizens. But to me, the more troubling question is whether Americans or Europeans will turn over the biometrics of their citizens (including President Bush’s fingerprints) to a bunch of snoopy Nigerians or Africans running around US and Europe in the name of being observers at elections. It will never happen, and Nigerians and Africans would have known their place well enough not to even contemplate such bizarre idea that will surely provoke derision, if not the suspicion that anybody making such request has lost his mind. So, are we being told by EU to turn over ours because we have been pigeon-holed into believing that we are permanently third-world or is it because their 40 million Euros constitute sufficient inducement and consideration? Or are we being told that we have no sovereign right to a national security interest in guarding the private and sensitive information of our citizens, including the nation’s leaders? So, Iwu was smart to have figured that the 40 million Euros was not mere freebies but carried the prospects of strings and disrespect that a modern, strong and prosperous Nigeria does not need any longer. That string and disrespect began with the EU demand for our biometrics. And more could have come.

And then enter the damning EU Observer Report, and to my utter surprise, I discovered that their 2007 report is almost a verbatim repetition of their 2003 report and I wondered why. I also noticed that the EU report is replete with dodgy disclaimers – meaning that the Observers are sort of eating their own words and generally appeared wishy-washy on an assessment they intended the whole world to believe as gospel. Well, if the Observers who wrote the report are so openly unwilling to own up to it, why should anybody, including Nigerians ground their assessment of the 2007 elections on the tenors of a report that is so notoriously self-disclaiming? Further impeachment of the EU report can be sustained on the personal hostility between the Observers and Iwu because it is plausible that since Iwu pissed them off, they were more likely to get back at him by turning in a report that is less of an objective assessment but more of a fall-out of a bitter personal disagreement they had with Iwu and INEC.

For most of the West, especially the European Union, there is this rampant tendency to rush to conclusions that elections held in countries that the West fears, loathes or does not understand are never free and fair. This brings me to the point that the recent elections held in Russia saw Putin’s party winning with super majorities. But guess what? The West led by the European Union saw red in those elections through the prism of their election monitors/observers – the sort of bunch that also vilified Iwu, INEC and our Nigeria. Beneath the surface lies the truth that Russia’s elections were condemned because the West fears Putin as someone with the least prospects of kowtowing to the Western quest to penetrate and control Russia’s huge deposits of natural gas and other hydro-carbons. As for Nigeria, if you don’t know by now that the West considers Atiku pro-West and Yar’Adua anti-West (or too Islamist and frugal or unknown quantity), then you have not been reading everything out there. And more to the point, Yar’Adua’s fiscal conservatism in Katsina when he was Governor troubled a West that looked forward to an Atiku they believed to be more liberal and thus malleable to their desire for a President more likely to draw down Nigeria’s reserves to finance high technology acquisitions from the West. Buhari is not really in their reckoning because of his human rights record when he was head of state, and Orji Kalu is seen to be too sophisticated and pan-Nigerian to be trusted to pursue a pro-West agenda.

Don King’s interview on the NTA during his recent trip to Nigeria which I watched via a Korean share Network from right here in College Park USA contained enough advice to Nigerians on how best to cope with this disrespect from the West; and a brave pan-Africanist Mr. King minced no words when he praised Maurice Iwu and Nigerians for tackling the arduous task of taking Nigeria through the dicey path of transiting from one civilian regime to another. That pretty much nailed it.

The foreign election observers are hurting Nigeria’s image terribly and as a native Nigerian I will be damned if I should just continue to care less about what happens to my native country, her institutions and public officials, and the drag it imposes on Nigeria’s quest for a befitting diplomatic stature, good order and foreign investments. I guess part of the reason I don’t believe the observers anymore has to do with what I have come to see as this consistent condemnation by the West of everything African - meaning everything Nigerian, and I just as soon reckoned that it is some kind of a perpetual put-down intended to make Africans or Nigerians feel that nothing good will ever come from their midst. After two decades in the US, I don’t believe that hype anymore, neither do I believe that the Western view is not independent of some terrible spin spurned by some of our brothers back home and even in the Diaspora who continue to pander to this skewered view of the ways of Africans. On the contrary, I am persuaded to believe Maurice Iwu when he insisted that the result of the presidential reflected the will or intent of the Nigerian people. Parties lost primarily because they lacked in any of the factors or elements that assisted parties to succeed in national elections. And the opposite is also true.

Professor Iwu did the right thing by making the INEC report public because through it, Nigerians are now better informed about their electoral process than ever before. And while the issue is still hot, it will be nice to see some fireworks from the Presidency. In Washington DC, Professor Iwu declared, and I quote “You cannot keep the baby and throw away his mother” (translation: ‘you cannot expect your presidency to acquire legitimacy by not defending the process that brought it into being’ or ‘you cannot succumb to calls for Iwu’s ouster based on his conduct of an election that brought you to power’). I agree. Therefore, President Yar’Adua should go heads-up now to deflect some of the darts being hauled at Iwu and INEC – coming mostly from the same angles and assailants that either don’t wish Nigeria well or don’t know any better. One way the President can do that is to show more verve in defending his mandate and the INEC. Others who can step up to the plate are the hundreds of National/State Assembly members and all the Governors who are enjoying a tenure made possible by a complex transition eked out by a can-do Iwu. Step up folks and defend your mandates and the one man who brought them all into being. To Professor Maurice Iwu – the man who left us here in the Diaspora and went home to garner a job most Diasporans envied from up here in the States, I say: hang in there ‘brotherman’. You got lots of fans out here and we want you to stay on and be reappointed to a new tenure in 2010 (if you desire). If only we knew what you were going to pass through, we would rallied to your defense before now. The good news is that you didn’t back down, and to me and the others who saw through all the smoking mirrors and grand conspiracies, you are probably the greatest Nigerian of our time for daring to accomplish what the army, with all their mortars and bazookas could not do in 1993 when they failed to deliver a transition Nigerians so much desired at that time. Thank you, Maurice, The Great, and don’t succumb to blackmail by resigning. I promise you that once I hit motherland Nigeria in the next couple of years or less, I will come by to give you a huge pat on the back for a job well done. And I mean it, if only I can locate you.

Ibrahim Danlami wrote in from USA         ibrahimdanlami@yahoo.com