‘Iwu Must Go Now’—Ezeagu

 

 

Benedict Ezeagu is a lawyer and National President, Access To Life, an NGO championing the sack of INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu and calling for the immediate implementation of the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Committee recommendations. In this interview with TONY ORILADE, he gave reasons why Iwu must be sacked now

 

 

 

Q: You have been very concerned about this Iwu issue. You have even set up an NGO calling for his removal from office. Why?
A: The first impression I would want to correct is that our NGO, Access To Life was formed purposely to champion the Iwu-Must-Go campaign or call for the implementation of Uwais Electoral Reform recommendations. It was not. Rather, it was formed in 1998 as a human rights, humanitarian and advocate organisation meant to champion the course of the Nigerian masses. The Iwu-Must-Go and the implementation of the Uwais Electoral Reform recommendations are just programmes we have for this year in pursuit of the aims and objectives of our NGO… Even the blind can see now why Iwu must not conduct the 2011 general elections. For 72 hours, INEC under Iwu couldn’t conduct and announce results in 10 local governments in a state. They are deliberately creating tension in Ekiti State in order to, at a latter date, announce the anti-people result and swear in their candidate. Tell me, if the PDP candidate had actually won the election, would it take Iwu and his cohorts one hour to announce the result? The man, like the leopard, can not change; he is also unrepentant. I don’t have anything personal against Iwu. But the struggle is against the system that is evil, anti-people and undemocratic. Unfortunately, Iwu happens to be one of the protagonists of that evil system. You know too that free and fair election is fundamental to the practice and propagation of democracy in any given society. But that has not been the case in Nigeria under Iwu’s leadership as INEC boss. You and I were witnesses to what happened in April 2007, the monumental fraud that was perpetrated in the name of general election, the murder of innocent Nigerians that took place and the amount of money that was squandered, under Iwu’s watchful eyes because he made himself an available tool in the hands of a group of evil men and corrupt politicians whom he assisted to manipulate into leadership positions in this country. Besides, he had given signs of his preparedness not to follow the line of honour before the particular election was conducted. But Nigerians gave him the benefit of doubt which he eventually betrayed. Above all, he decided deliberately, not to be repentant of the evil he perpetrated against the masses of Nigeria. What is happening in Ekiti right now is an indication that Iwu cannot conduct a free and fair election in Nigeria in 2011.

 

Q: Some people in the National Assembly are of the opinion that rather than castigate Iwu, he should be celebrated for the feat he achieved with the 2007 general elections?
A: Unfortunately, this is a free society where people have access to free use of words. Success is an English word. Anybody can use it to suit his purpose. Tell me, what is successful about the April 2007 elections? I am sure that those who support Iwu’s continued stay, including members of the National Assembly, are beneficiaries of Iwu’s electoral fraud. Iwu himself has defended his actions, saying he saved Nigeria and Nigerians from disintegration. He can not be a judge in his own case. The Nigerian masses who are at the receiving end are in a better position to say whether the election was successful or not. Even the local and international observers and monitors gave testimonies to make the world understand that the said election was the worst not only in the history of Nigeria, but in the history of Africa. My own worry is not that the election was conducted deliberately to fail, but the fact that Iwu has decided to dance on top of the graves of Nigerians who were unnecessarily murdered because they were trying to protect their votes. The same man that committed these heinous crimes wants to sit and conduct the 2011 election, haba! Look at the elections that have been annulled by the various election tribunals, these are clear testimonies to the fact that elections conducted by Iwu in April 2007 were a monumental failure. Imagine the financial implication of people having to go to court to have heir petitions determined and time wasted. Because our laws have not made provisions for illegal occupiers of political office to be prosecuted, so many leadership positions are being occupied, sometimes for over two years illegally. Uduaghan of Delta and Daniel of Ogun are still in court, two years after election. Imagine what happened in Ondo, Edo and now Ekiti; because they know that they were not elected by the people and so they had a short time to stay, they looted the treasury dry. There should be a law to prosecute these electoral offenders.

 

Q: What steps are you taking in this direction?
A: At the moment, we have assembled a legal team to work on a bill to prosecute electoral offenders. Whoever stole the people’s mandate or is a beneficiary of the stolen mandate should face the law once identified. Very soon, the bill will get to the National Assembly. The prelude to this is our call for the immediate sack and prosecution of Iwu and the immediate implementation of the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform recommendations. INEC, as we have it today, is a biased umpire to the extent that the tribunals berated them for taking sides rather than being an unbiased umpire.

 

 Q: What is the nature of your campaign?
A: We are collating signatures and we hope to continue to do this through our e-mail: Iwumustgonow@yahoo.com, accessreallife@yahoo.com. We can also be reached at No. 64 Ali Akilu Crescent, Aso Villa, Abuja 08069465990, 08057201228. Our target is 50 million petitions which we shall send to the National Assembly. Once that is done, the National Assembly would have no choice than to do the will of the Nigerian people. Sovereignty resides with the Nigerian people. The Iwu group has repeatedly explained that he has not served out his tenure as chairman of the Commission. Section 16(1)(c) says when you are talking of the members of INEC, the chairman is inclusive. There is no special provision on the tenure of a Chairman. The tenure of a chairman is subsumed into the tenure of a member of INEC. He can not carve out for himself a different tenure. The law is explicit on this.

 

 

Q: Questions have also been asked that where have you been all this while?
A: The truth is that I have been in this human rights and pro-democracy struggle since 1992 both as member and leader of so many organisations; but because we are not the noisy type, people really did not notice us on pages of newspapers. For the record, I am an author of over seven published books among which we have human rights-related subjects discussed. I have been a member of NADECO, JACON, Exco of CLO since 1993. I was a Senator of the NANS in 2001, National President of Law Students Association of Nigeria. I was a leader of NULGE and NLC activist in my local government. We fought successfully for the reinstatement of workers sacked both at the LG and state level under Chimaroke Nnamani’s government in Enugu State. I was the youngest Prisoner of Conscience in the South-East under Abacha’s dictatorship. In other words, I was arrested together with Dr. Arthur Nwakwo, Dr. Udenta O. Udenta. I was also the Coordinator of United Action for Democracy, UAD, and also Chairman of the Democratic Alternative, one of the pro- democracy organisations that metamorphosed into a political party. I have suffered several arrests and unjust incarceration due to our struggle for democracy, good governance and in defence of human right causes,.With these you will know that we didn’t fall from the blues.

 

 

 

Did you Enjoy this story? you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Random Post

• March 17, 2008 -- Ogun Will Overcome Its Health Challenges (2)
• July 20, 2009 -- 27 July, 2009 (0)
• August 4, 2008 -- Tainted Council Bosses (0)
• October 13, 2008 -- My University Will Be World Class (10)
• January 5, 2009 -- LAGOS/Decongesting Iju Road (0)
• November 10, 2008 -- My Joy And Pains At 90 (0)
• July 6, 2009 -- Justice For AC Man (0)
• April 6, 2009 -- Asaba: Home To Movie Makers (0)
• December 3, 2009 -- Budgetary Jitters Over Cement (0)
• February 20, 2008 -- Anger In The Army (1)

No tags for this post.

Related posts

• No related posts.