The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari during the recent sensitization workshop on non-violence during elections called on the Nigerian judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be fair when handling electoral matters. Buhari said this as he recalled his experience in the previous presidential elections.
Below is an excerpt from the speech by the former Head of State:
“Some of the speeches so far are based on hope. Some of these hopes are in the files because of our nasty experiences. What happened in 2003, 2007 and 2011 when we contested the general elections and ended up in the Supreme Court; these three Supreme Court judgements are available with the government printers for all those who are really serious to know what is happening in our political development. When the military eventually surrendered to the multi-party democratic system 16 years ago, we hoped that we should have learnt from the developed countries that went through the painful processes of stabilizing their system rather than insisting on making the same mistakes.
“I will give a few examples which I am sure most of you will recall. In 2003, when we disagreed with the elections, we spent 30 months in court. Out of those 30 months in court, I only missed four sittings. The first time was when we went to bury my Vice Presidential candidate, Chuba Okadigbo while I was out of the country on the other three occasions.
“In 2007, we spent 18 months in court and when we eventually reached the Supreme Court, the seven Justices of the Supreme Court were divided on it. Three of them said they annulled the elections because it was not conducted according to law; three others said yes, there were flaws, but all the same, the ruling party won the election. The Chief Justice of the Federation then looked at them and cast his vote for the second group and so, we lost 4-3.
“In 2011, I said that I, as Presidential candidate will not go to court, but I made sure that my party went to court and we spent about nine months again and it was the same story. There was no way the ruling party will lose judgement. That was painful especially when you considered what actually happened on the field. For example, from two states in the northern part of the country, we were lucky to get competent party agents.
When results started coming in for these states, they tried to announce the result that were announced or physically brought to INEC office after going through the collation centres.
“They compared the results against the INEC register in those states and entered them into the clear outer and the computer; and the popular adage that garbage in garbage out manifested itself. What came out was that the Presidential candidate of that party was programmed to lose 40 per cent of its score and in the other states, it was 26 per cent. They showed it to INEC which asked the party to officially write a complain and we wrote. We were given the assurance by INEC that they will look into our complaint. But the next thing we saw was results being announced that we have lost the election”, he said.
The former military leader also accused INEC of refusing to follow due process inspite of the clear instructions given by the court.
“Some of you know by name Retired Justice Salami who was heading the Presidential election panel. We made a presentation that in a number of states, the election was not conducted in accordance with the Electoral Act and the states were mentioned. We demanded that the register be brought to prove our case and the panel said there was nothing wrong with that and INEC was asked to comply. It was not produced. Justice Salami was redeployed and another Judge was brought who reversed that decision. That has become history.
“The INEC Act requires that they register political associations into political parties and to make sure that every person from the councillor to the President comes through a political party. It was agreed that before every election, there must be an Electoral Act. There was one in 2002 for the 2003 election, there was one in 2006 for the 2007 election, there was one in 2010 for the 2011 election. Up to December 31, 2014, I was waiting for the amended Electoral Act for this year’s election and I am yet to see one.
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