A Kwara-based human right activist and legal practitioner, Barr. Muftau Olobi, speaks in this interview with our JUDICIARY CORRESPONDENT, KAYODE ADEOTI on the need to overhaul the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in order to address recurrence of election postponements in Nigeria. Excerpts:
Looking at the style of governance and the fight against corruption of this present administration since its emergence in 2015, what can you make out of it?
President Muhammadu Buhari started on a good note, that was why we had so much confidence and hope in him. Many people, including myself sacrificed a lot, spent personal resources, energy and time, to campaign for him before he emerged. But to our dismay, he started going astray immediately he got the mantle. When you want to fight corruption, it should be general not selective. In some instances, politicians who are under investigation for corrupt allegations, once they defect to APC, their sins are thrown out. Fight against corruption is partial under this administration.
In 2011, 2015 even in the current year, elections were postponed, in order to avert this recurrence, will you support the advocacy for the general overhauling of our electoral umpire?
Lots of restructuring need to be carried out in the section. In fact, there need to be a law that will restrain the INEC from postponing elections. We have almost four years to prepare for the poll but at the last minute, the electoral body will come up with flimsy excuses bordering on logistic, but, if there are laws that compel the body to always ensure that elections are conducted as stipulated, then, they won’t be hiding under any excuse again unless they want to go to jail. I know the pains I went through when I travelled down to Kwara from Lagos, then to my village for the election. Around 4:am of the day of election, I was informed of the postponement. This is what many people will go through. A family was coming from the North into the state just to vote, they had an accident and everybody in the vehicle died, except the driver.
Sir, is there anything that can be done legally to ensure the release of those the executive have refused to set free despite court order?
The law is there and very clear, but President Buhari is not a respecter of law. The court gave pronouncements but government has flouted the order. When government violate and disobey the law, what will one do, one can’t resort to self help. Self help can only work when one know that it will not end in chaos, then, one can go to Aso Rock and protest. But the problem is that the President has some people who are encouraging him to disobey the law. The senior members of the bar are the culprits, they will be justifying the President’s disobedience of court order on very flimsy ground. That is why they said state security comes above the law. Dasuki is not in power, he has been granted bail even by the ECOWAS court. Ibrahim El-Zaky-zaky has also been given bail and several others. We will not relent in our efforts and we will always call on international community to see what our president is doing. Recently, Senator Rafiu Ibrahim was arrested, he was not caught in the scene of any crime, his house was ransacked, in fact, he received an invitation to appear at the police headquarters and he obliged; yet, he was detained under a dehumanised condition. They ensured he did not participate in the election, they kept him incommunicado until election was concluded, these are part of the infraction of the law by this present regime.
