Posted by Prince Adewole Adebayo, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 elections, has lamented that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is so committed to the economic ideology of the Bretton Woods institutions that it has led to Nigeria’s current economic quagmire. In an interview with he discussed the country’s economy, the Electoral Act, and other topics by proposing alternatives to the policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Excerpts!
I was wondering what you thought of the Senate’s resolution to change the Electoral Act.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from studying legislation, it’s that politicians have one eye on the past and the other on the present.
Therefore, it is incorrect to assume that the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) platform will be the source of the next election’s problems. It won’t be the IReV, but rather something else, as far as I can tell. Let’s assume this is the first step in a legislative process to address the need for election reform. The lack of laws is not the issue, though. Three things stood out to me.
The first is that my experience voting in the 2023 elections did not lead me to believe that the IReV was to blame for any problems. None of the petitioners have claimed that discrepancies between precinct-level results and final tally were due to problems with the IREV. You won’t be able to identify a single instance in the court’s papers, proceedings, or rulings where it states that a particular unit’s result was different from what was posted on the INEC website due of a delay in transmission. I seriously doubt that such a thing exists. That is not the issue at hand.
On October 1, 2021, I made a prediction that was extensively publicized in the media: someone at INEC might just decide to turn off the voting technology on election day and claim it didn’t work. Even if it is written into the electoral act (assuming it becomes law) that the result must be immediately transmitted, the constitution would still require you to determine whether you can otherwise establish the actual winner of the election if, on election day, there is a nationwide network problem (such as the VPN not working, the system being corrupted, and things like that).
I believe it is important to focus on honesty at the polls. The distance between the polling booth and the nearest third party should be at least 100 feet so that voters are confident they are out of sight and out of earshot of anyone who might try to influence their vote.
Because of this, no one can buy your vote by handing you money or other incentives outside of the voting booth. However, if you engage in fraud, buy and sell votes, or skew the results before sending this monstrosity electronically to the IReV, we have accomplished nothing. So, I believe that character reform is what we fear doing, and that we would rather be fiddling with technology.
It’s fine if you want to include the IReV problem in your answer, but don’t go to sleep thinking you’ve resolved the election dispute in Nigeria.
Since the president of Nigeria appoints all of INEC’s board members, including the chairman, the country’s citizens have reason to doubt the commission’s claim to independence. Professor Attahiru Jega, its former chairman, also thinks the president should lose his appointment power; what do you think?
The President might have a lot of powers taken away from them. However, who do you hand it off to? Keep in mind that our forefathers anticipated that we would choose a man who exemplifies the highest ideals of our society to serve as president, and that this individual would be expected to lead our country with wisdom and integrity.
As a result, the president is the only person who can appoint judges and other members of the judiciary (including the Chief Justice of the Federation, President of the Court of Appeal, Justices of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, and Chief Judge of the Federal High Court). What makes the INEC chairman and commissioners so special if other, more sensitive posts, some of which are even meant to be more independent than the INEC, are left up to the president to select? I don’t think the issue is with taking it away from the president so much as it is with deciding who to give it to.
Isn’t it different when judges are nominated? As is well-known, the NJC has significant input into who is chosen before the president makes his final appointments. Isn’t that yet another technique to limit the president’s authority?
No. The president is advised under presidential constitutions worldwide. A good, intelligent, youthful lawyer with around 15 years of experience can be appointed by the president notwithstanding your recommendation.
The man doesn’t have to take your advise. The president will need to fill many positions in the near future. And if you want to enter a new system in which you don’t trust him to make crucial appointments, you have to examine all of his nominations. In certain nations, for instance, the electoral college is stocked with members selected by the various political parties. They reason that if representatives from all political parties are present, then no one group will try to take advantage of the others. However, our president appoints the chairman. Senators appear to share the general belief that they are irrelevant. Electoral and national commissioners, as well as the commission’s chairman, must first be confirmed by the Nigerian Senate before they may assume their new roles. With the exception of Laurieta Onochie, the INEC chairman or national commissioners have never been rejected by the Senate.
If people are acting in accordance with their good character and are worthy of the offices they hold and the oath of office they have taken, then the current system will be effective. Alternately, it may be argued that the INEC chairman should be appointed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, however the Chief Justice is also appointed by the president. However, if the Chief Justice were to appoint INEC’s chairman, petitioners would object to even the empanelling of judges to hear their case. More importantly, I think, is that something has actually occurred.
We need more upstanding citizens, but why can’t we find any? Is it because of the rot in our political system that we can’t elect honest people? We need to know this because anyone is appointed to lead INEC or serve as its commissioners would almost certainly be a Nigerian citizen. That person must be a Nigerian whether he be the president, the top judge of Nigeria, or a senator. Personally, I believe we should be looking at the moral fiber of our top officials. If everyone does their job, it won’t be too tough to step into the role.
To sway me, the senate needs to say that whoever the president chooses, it will make that person available to Nigerians and it will not approve that person unless that person proves to be a thoroughly vetted Nigerian of the highest esteem, not the one they are trying to deprive someone else of. What happens, for instance, if the president refuses to sign a bill stripping him of his authority to nominate officials because, in his words, “you cannot take my power from me”? It’s best not to be on the receiving end of the blame game’s “ticking can.” Let the Senate take an objective look at itself as a body and pose a serious question. Have we, the Senate, thoroughly vetted the INEC nominees?
The National Assembly’s oversight of the INEC is mandated by the Constitution. It has the authority to approve INEC compensation and budget, as well as to hold a hearing to remove a national chairperson or commissioner who is not performing to expectations. Therefore, I believe the system is sufficient if we can recruit morally upstanding individuals to serve as its administrators.
President Bola Tinubu’s economic team is operating at full capacity. Have they, in your opinion, met or exceeded your standards?
They have mastered the problem they caused. Nothing happening in the economy at the moment has caught me by surprise. Factor cost stabilization is the current challenge they’re up against. If they can handle it, then they will have alleviated many of the problems they are facing.
Nigerians are stuck where they are economically because of their own past decisions. I saw this coming. Numerous alternatives exist. In economics, you have to make decisions. This is an inevitable consequence of the paths they’ve chosen. If you follow the president’s lead and make the same decisions they have, you will end up in the same place. Economics is a fact-based discipline that makes no assumptions about anyone’s political beliefs. Where do things stand now? Which choices do we have? Tell me about the options you’d rather not take. Thus, you must bear the weight of your own choice.
The value of money will fluctuate now. Currency rates will fluctuate wildly. Commodity prices are unstable and will continue to rise. There will be fluctuation in the cost of production inputs. Preparing for uncertainty is essential for long-term success.
Do you mean to imply that the current policies will be changed?
it’s ideal, but they’re too ideologically committed to do it. The fact that the All Progressives Congress (APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP) had an ideological commitment to Brettonwoods policies was an important component of the message we were seeking to convey to the public. It was evident in the way they spoke.
What they are doing today is, to a large extent, what they promised to accomplish. If you take these steps, you will achieve the same effect as you already do. The best option would be to make changes, but I don’t see that happening because they are so wedded to this ideology. This has been the case ever since 1986, when General Ibrahim Babangida agreed to implement the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We’ve been performing several variants of it. With the support of the late Professor Sam Aluko, the late General Sani Abacha attempted to use it to implement a two-tier structure. In the end, what we want is a free market in which capital can freely flow across borders and where the value of the naira is set not just by what occurs in Washington or New York, but by what happens in commodity exchange houses throughout the world.
But at this time, I don’t think they’ll reconsider their position. Because we have been saying that it will not work, but they continue to assume that it will work, the time they would have adjusted would have been from the day they came in. Some members of the international community have made commitments to President Tinubu, and the Bretton Woods institutions have had extensive conversations with Finance Minister Wale Edun.
Our projected borrowing needs for 2025–2026’s medium-term expenditures total N26tr. What are your thoughts on how there appears to be zero distinction between the Buhari administration and the current one?
It’s true what President Tinubu said: he picked up just where President Buhari left off. Many others took his repeated use of this phrase as a joke. President Tinubu does not engage in lengthy discourse, as seen by the current events. Now, whenever he speaks, people should pay attention since he usually follows through on his intentions, whether they are good or negative. My main issue is with the MTEF (medium-term spending plan). In terms of originality, I considered him to be totally deluded. I also believe they may wish to fulfill certain mandatory provisions of the (MTEF). For instance, if you are awarded contracts and must pay for them, you will have to borrow money because your revenue stream won’t be able to cover the expense of the borrowing in the near future.