Jega’s Removal is Invitation to Crisis- Agbakoba

Olisa Agbakoba, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has warned the federal government against sending Professor Attahiru Jega, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on terminal leave before the conduct of the general elections slated for March 28 and April 11, 2015.

He said that the move would be invitation to chaos and that everything must be done to avoid such.

Agbakoba who spoke on the state of the nation Friday insisted that any any attempt to remove Jega now would be unfortunate and not right, because everything must be done at this crucial stage to ensure that the elections are not just seen to be free and fair but must manifestly be seen to be so.

He said it would be good for Jega to be allowed to conduct the elections before the end of his tenure, which would end soon.

Besides, Agbakoba warned against any further shift of the general elections, adding that such action would spell doom for the country.

Speaking on issues that have dominated the national space recently, Agbakoba said Nigerians have a lot to thank the All Progressives Congress (APC) for, for delivering them from impunity of the PDP, which he said had taken the people for granted for too long.

The senior lawyer said that but for the emergence of a strong opposition as the APC, the PDP would have continued with its lack of regard for the Nigerian people.

He also berated General Muhammadu Buhari,  APC presidential candidate, for electing to speak at the Chatham House in London and neglecting the debate organised here in Nigeria.

That decision, according to Agbakoba, is highly incredible on the part of Buhari because of a truth, he (Buhari) should rather tell Nigerians what he hoped to do and how he would go about his programmes rather than speaking to foreigners.

“I think both major political parties (PDP and APC) should stop all these twisting and all that. Let them go and face the people and account for their good and bad deeds. We the people are the ones that will determine whether they will get in or not and unfortunately, I have not seen that in clear terms other than the hate messages,” Agbakoba lamented.

On deployment of the military for elections, Agbakoba said it would be foolhardy for a country that had been fighting civil war for the past six years to avoid the deployment of soldiers for elections.

In any case, Agbakoba insisted that the Constitution and the Geneva Convention, which Nigeria is a signatory to, permit the deployment of armed personnel to monitor elections, and that the hullabaloo over the issue was unnecessary, especially considering the internal war going on in the country.

Besides, Agbakoba said it was interesting that Nigerians were only talking about the epileptic distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), and not focusing on other logistics issues as well as manpower of INEC.

“Thank God, elections were postponed but the fact is that election on February 14 would have been a massive disaster. We are all taking of inadequate PVCs and no one is concerned about whether there is adequate ballot papers; whether there is adequate ballot boxes and whether there is adequate manpower and expertise to man all the polling boots across the country,” the lawyer observed.

On internal democracy, which is fast fizzling out in all the political parties, Agbakoba said such was still evident, owing to the fact that INEC had not been efficiently and effectively performing its regulatory role.

“I was a member of the Uwais Committee and part of our recommendations is the unbundling of INEC. The commission is saddled with too many roles aside conducting elections and that is why they are not doing so well in other areas,” said.