Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja The role played by Sambo Dasuki, the National Security Adviser, in the shift in dates of 2015 general elections, is at odds with promotion of democracy As commander of Artillery Corp of the Nigerian Army, Colonel Sambo Dasuki played a critical role in the 27, August, 1985 coup d’état which led to the end of the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari after just about 18 months in office. Indeed, Sambo, then a Major was, alongside four of his colleagues, assigned the job of arresting the then Head of State at his residence in Dodan Barracks in Lagos to facilitate easy ascension of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the then Chief of Army Staff to power. Now, about three decades later, and as the National Security Adviser, NSA, the Sokoto Prince who ironically is from the Buhari ruling House of the Caliphate, will seem to have anchored another sort of coup against the now 72-year old former Head of State and presidential candidate of opposition All Progressives Congress, APC. At least, that was the perception about the series of actions initiated by Dasuki which led to postponement of the 2015 general elections which should have started off with the presidential poll last Saturday by the leadership of the opposition party. [caption id="attachment_20053" align="aligncenter" width="225"] •Dasuki: Started the election date shift idea[/caption] However, taking a broader view of scenarios which forced the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to shift the dates of the elections which they believed were contrived by the NSA with the support of the service chiefs, critics and analysts believed that Dasuki’s action posed a danger not just to the opposition party, but to Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. Professor Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission had, after a series of meetings with the leadership of registered political parties, civil society organizations and commissioners of the Commission which lasted virtually the whole day had, late on Saturday 7 February, announced the decision of the electoral body to shift the dates of the elections. Jega told journalists that the Commission was ready to go ahead with the polls with a few loose ends remaining to be tightened in the area of distribution of Permanent Voter Cards and delivery of other materials needed for the election. The other variable that is not under the control of INEC, according to Jega, is security. He added that the election must be postponed because the country’s security chiefs, led by the NSA, said they could not guarantee the safety of voters and electoral officers. “The commission cannot lightly wave off the advice of the nation’s security chiefs,” Jega said at the press conference. “Calling people to exercise their democratic rights in a situation where their security cannot be guaranteed is a most onerous responsibility,” the INEC boss said while announcing the shift in the dates of the elections from 14 February for presidential and National Assembly polls and 28 February for the governorship and House of Assembly polls to 28 March and 11 April, 2015 respectively. Jega said the shift followed the “strong advisory” and a warning from the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and military chiefs that they could not guarantee security if the polls go ahead February. According to him, the security chiefs had demanded at least six weeks to conclude a major operation against Boko Haram in the North East Region so that elections can also be held in the areas where the insurgents have taken over many villages and towns. Jega told journalists that Section 26(1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) which states that: “Where a date has been appointed for the holding of an election, and there is reason to believe that a serious breach of the peace is likely to occur if the election is proceeded with on that date…, the Commission may postpone the election and shall in respect of the area, or areas concerned, appoint another date for the holding of the postponed election, provided that such reason for the postponement is cogent and verifiable,” gave INEC power to postpone the elections. Intrigues of Dasuki’s Election Delay Plot The announcement of the shift in date of the election was a culmination of intrigues which began in far away London on 22 January. Dasuki had, at a lecture he delivered at Chatham House, asserted to the consternation of many Nigerians that INEC was not ready to conduct the 2015 elections because many potential voters had yet to get their PVCs. The NSA at the occasion, said he had advised the Chairman of INEC to shift the dates for the elections so that a substantial number of registered voters who have yet to get their PVCs can obtain them. But INEC swiftly denied entertaining any thought of postponement of the election even as it vowed that every eligible voter would get his or her PVC before the commencement of the series of polls. The suggestion by Dasuki also attracted heavy criticisms from the opposition and the general public back at home. The world was also alarmed, and three days later, John Kerry, the United States Secretary of State, visited Nigeria and met with President Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari. Kerry had during the visit advised against shifting of the date for the polls. But rather than commit himself to fidelity with the election timetable as drawn up by INEC, President Jonathan had, in a statement he released after his meeting with Kerry, said he assured the visiting US diplomat that 29 May handover date was sacrosanct. Not many paid attention to the emphasis laid by the President on the ‘sacrosanctity’ of the handover date, different from the dates set by INEC for the elections then in the President’s statement. [caption id="attachment_20055" align="aligncenter" width="198"] •John Kerry: Advised against shifting of the date[/caption] This magazine learnt that after a meeting with his commissioners across the country on Tuesday, 3 February, INEC Chairman had begun setting the process for the conduct of the presidential election. But forces campaigning for the shift in the elections’ dates as set off by the NSA seemed determined. Different groups and associations, obviously propelled by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP continue their agitations to have the elections postponed while a suit was filed to stop the polls by four potential voters on the excuse that INEC has failed to make the, PVCs they will use to vote available. Also, 26 registered political parties, most of which are not fielding candidates for presidential elections, had threatened at a press conference in Abuja that to boycott the polls if INEC did not shift the date. The representatives of the parties argued that INEC should postpone the elections because of the security situation in the country, low distribution of PVCs and people deserting their places of abode for their villages. According to him, INEC should shift the date of elections to sometime in March or April in accordance with Section 132(2) of the Constitution as amended which states: “An election to the said office (President) shall be held on a date not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office” gives INEC enough room to maneuver in terms of fixing of the date for the election. Not everyone agreed with the calls. Chekwas Okorie, the presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party, described the reasons given by the proponents of the postponement that a great number of Nigerians will be disenfranchised having not been given their Permanent Voter Cards which will enable them to participate in the election is a contrived reason and to a large extent pedestrian. “As we speak, over 80 per cent of registered voters have received their PVCs according to latest figures released by INEC and this may increase to 90 per cent or above after the close of distribution of PVCs on February 8 2015, as planned by INEC,” Okorie said. With INEC unyielding to the demands, the battle to get INEC to buy into the plot to shift the election moved to the National Council of State believed to be convened for the purpose of discussing the time table for the elections on Thursday, 5 February. From Poor Distribution of PVCs to Security Ahead of the meeting, as Jega later told members of the Council made up of former and incumbent Heads of State, former Chief Justices of the Federation, state governors Sambo had written to him asking INEC to shift the election, this time around using the bogey of security. Jega in a brief presentation to the council titled, “Preparations for the 2015 General Election: Progress Report”, affirmed the readiness of INEC to proceed with the elections though the state of preparedness of the Commission may not be 100 per cent or perfect. But Jega said the Commission might not be willing to go ahead with the elections based on a security report he had received from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) the day before on four states in the North-east. [caption id="attachment_20054" align="aligncenter" width="234"] •Jega: Postponed the elections, based on the “strong advisory” and a warning from the NSA[/caption] According to him, the Commission had the day before the meeting received a letter from the Office of the National Security Adviser informing it of recent developments in four of the North-east states, stating that safety and security cannot be guaranteed during the proposed election period. The INEC Chairman said the NSA in the letter had adduced reasons why the scheduled elections cannot go ahead while strongly advising that INEC considers rescheduling the elections by at least six weeks within the provisions of the electoral legal framework. Jega said the NSA expressed the hope that sufficient normalcy would have been restored to the areas under Boko Haram occupation in the North East for elections to hold after six weeks. It was gathered that President Jonathan had argued forcefully for the postponement of the elections in order to guarantee the security of voters and officials that would be deployed for electoral duties in the North East. The President, it was also learnt, also noted that going ahead with the polls would mean the exclusion of the states in North East. This will mean not just the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in that region, but could be a ground for the challenge of the legitimacy of the polls. It was learnt that the position of the President was backed by most PDP governors at the Council meeting. In contrast, governors of APC who were led to the meeting by Buhari had argued that the insecurity in about 14 Boko Haram-occupied local government areas out of 774 in the country should not lead to a shift in the dates of the elections. It was gathered that the former military heads of state and other members of the Council present at the meeting agreed that fears over security concerns in the North-east could not be ignored. But members who could not agree advised Jega to proceed with the elections as scheduled in other states of the federation. The disagreement among Council members on whether to go ahead with the elections as previously scheduled or not was reflected in the conflicting information about the outcome of the meeting at a joint press briefing by Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, and his Ondo State counterpart, Olusegun Mimiko. While the Imo State governor told journalists that the Council advised INEC to perform its civic responsibility with regards to the elections, Mimiko said INEC was advised by the Council to further consult with other stakeholders on whether to go ahead with the election or not based on the information made available to it at the meeting. The Ondo State Governor however did not fail to add that: “No matter the extent of our readiness, if there are serious security concerns, the successful conduct of free, fair, credible and peaceful elections will be greatly jeopardized.” Service Chiefs’ Volte Face This formed the basis of the meeting of Jega with INEC’s National Electoral Commissioners, the 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners of the states, the political parties and civil societies’ organizations last Saturday. This magazine gathered that to make the postponement of the elections a fait accompli, the Service Chiefs, led by Air Marshall Alex Badeh, the Chief of Defence Staff, CDS had also written the INEC Chairman indicating that they would not be able to provide security for the elections at the scheduled dates. But before now, the military chiefs had repeatedly assured the nation that elections will hold in all parts of the country, including the North East. The CDS had told journalists in December last year after a breakfast meeting with the President that elections will hold in all parts of Nigeria including the North East. Also, the Service Chiefs had, at a meeting with political parties on 2 February, assured that they were ready to provide security for the elections at a meeting convened by former Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar in Abuja. The CDS told representatives of the political parties at that occasion that “even though we are busy in the North, we have capability across the nation.” Badeh’s assertion was supported by Kenneth Minimah, the Chief of Army Staff who also said at the meeting that the armed forces were aware of the need for security before and during the elections: “We will deploy soldiers across the states of the federation in areas we discover that have capacity for violence. We are prepared to ensure that we have peaceful elections.” Air Marshall Adesola Amosun, the Chief of Air Staff also assured that the Air force had begun the airlifting of electoral materials to different parts of the country. [caption id="attachment_20051" align="aligncenter" width="235"] •Alex Badeh: Military cannot provide security during the elections[/caption] John Oyegun, the Chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC therefore wondered what has influenced the change of minds of the military chiefs three days later. “However, only three days later on Friday February 6, these same Service Chiefs wrote to INEC, in a letter, which by all practical purposes could be described as a blackmail, saying they would no longer be able to provide security for the elections. What happened in those 72 hours that brought about this complete volte-face?” queried Oyegun. The APC Chairman who posited that the postponement of the elections may be part of the larger plan to foist a constitutional crisis on the country and prolong the tenure of President Jonathan added that the behaviour of the leadership of the military show it has been sucked into the vortex of PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election game plans. Also, sources within the military told this magazine last week that the claims of the postponement of the elections because of security was a ruse because only a small number of Nigerian troops are currently deployed in the North East. A coup Against Nigeria Democracy Festus Okoye, National Coordinator of the Independent Election Monitoring Group, IEMG, in a statement on the issue said the reasons given for the postponement of the elections are not convincing, cogent and verifiable. “We view the postponement as unwarranted and a coup against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Nigerian people and therefore unacceptable. We condemn the decision by the security agencies and forces not to provide security for the February 2015 elections. The said decision is a coup against democracy, the constitutional order, the electoral process and the Nigerian people,” Okoye said in a statement which depicted the gale of condemnations that have greeted the delay of the polls. The United States, Canada and the European Union among other foreign countries while also condemning the shift in election dates, warned the Federal Government against politicizing the security challenges of the country and they also asked the military to refrain from direct intervention in the democratic process. Speaking at a media chat obviously organized to deflect the criticisms and allegations of government’s involvement in the polls shift last Wednesday night, President Jonathan said he was not in any way involved in the process that led to the decision to postpone the elections. No, INEC Was Not Ready But the President, like most of his supporters, had then gone on to claim that INEC was not ready for the elections, contrary to the claims of Jega. He added that in addition to the problems of Boko Haram, poor distribution of PVCs also constituted a security challenge for the country. “The day we held a meeting that led to this adjustment of the dates, in Lagos for example, only about 38 per cent of registered voters had their PVCs. That means that if we conduct elections in Lagos, 62 per cent of voters would not have been able to vote. Don’t you think there are security implications in that?” the President queried his interviewers. Femi Fani Kayode, the Director General of PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation had also said the decision to postpone the elections never emanated from the government of President Jonathan as being speculated, but from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) owing to the problem of logistics it encountered. But critics noted that Jega had premised the decision to shift the polls on a strong advisory and a warning from the NSA and service chiefs that they could not guarantee security if the polls should go ahead in February. It was also the President’s security adviser, who gave the first hint that the elections would be postponed to allow more Nigerians collect their PVCs in London. And in the letter which finally forced INEC to shift the polls, Dasuki had cited security fears and no longer the problem of low distribution of PVCs. The President convened a meeting of the National Security Council which has as one of its functions, advising him on matters related to activities of INEC to discuss the issue of the poll shift. And when the Council failed to categorically support postponement, the military chiefs who owe their allegiance to the President as their Commander in Chief wrote Jega telling him that they will not have troops for deployment for election duties as they will be busy in the North East. NSA, Military Chiefs Under Fire Hence, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, Chairman of the Transitional Monitoring Group, a group of CSOs involved in the monitoring of Nigeria electoral process was unequivocal that the military which is supposed to be nationalistic and patriotic in outlook, has allowed itself to be led by those they serve for expressly narrow interests.“To say the least, the military has failed the Nigerian people. It is a betrayal of trust for the military in connivance with the National Security Adviser to have allowed itself to be used to suspend Nigeria’s electoral process,” said Zikirullahi. “The claim that they will not be able to protect INEC personnel and materials for the polls that were to hold on 14 and 28 February 2015, is a national disgrace and embarrassment,” the TMG Chairman added while also describing the claims of the military that it needed to concentrate on the fight against Boko Haram as untenable. Zikirullahi wondered the kind of magic the Chief of Defence Staff and the NSA wanted to perform to end the terrorist activities of Boko Haram in six weeks that it could not do in six years. “The Civil Society Coalition hereby calls for their immediate resignation, for abdicating a national responsibility, and attempting to drown the voices of the Nigerian people. The current military high command, if they still have any iota of honour and good conscience, should immediately vacate their positions,” he insisted. PDP Rattled by Looming Defeat? Sources told this magazine last week that Sambo, described as a rabid supporter of President Jonathan was used by the Presidency to get the election postponed following indications of imminent defeat for President Jonathan in the first leg of the plans to prevent his defeat at the polls. This magazine gathered that the Presidency is worried by results of various polls including the ones commissioned by it which indicated a close race between President Jonathan and his APC challenger or predicted outright victory for Buhari. Afrobarometer, an independent agency said the result of its national poll conducted two months to the February 14 elections across Nigeria revealed a close contest between President Jonathan and Buhari. According to the organisation, the survey involved 2,400 prospective Nigerian voters with equal representation across the country, and a margin of error + or - 2 percent. Nengak Daniel, a senior member of the Afrobarometer team that conducted the study, said the survey was scientific and a true reflection of the prevailing situation on the ground. “In terms of the two leading political parties we have a tie- 42 per cent said they will vote for the ruling party and as much as 42 per cent again said they will vote for the opposition party,” Daniel said respondents were also asked to predict the winner of the election in the study: “It turned out that both leading political parties are running neck and neck. Because 39 percent predict that the ruling party will win and 38 percent predict that the opposition would win. The difference between them is small,so from our survey, the election is too close to call.” While revealing that the poll also revealed a high voter turnout that may be as high as 78 per cent, Daniel added that Afrobarometer study encountered security challenges in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states where radical Islamist militant group, Boko Haram has often carried out attacks against unarmed civilians. DaMina, described as an emerging markets advisory firm, has predicted a close contest in which the opposition candidate will however come tops with a 51% win while Eurasia, another consultancy has projected that Jonathan may win the election by 55 per cent. “What’s not in doubt is that the elections will be close,” Tolu Ogunlesi, said in an online article while citing a study by Zainab Usman and Oliver Owen, academics at the University of Oxford who also asserted that “if voting patterns are similar to 2011, a run-off election situation would be likely.” But the APC believed that it will win the election with a landslide. Bolaji Abdullahi, a former minister and Deputy Director of the Policy, Research and Strategy Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign argued that the fundamental realities as the country heads towards the polls make the conclusion of closest election on record especially as predicted by Afrobarometer “at odds with the emerging trends in the political landscape since the survey was conducted.” According to him, there has been a “seismic shift in the political landscape in the country; pointing strongly to a monumental victory for the opposition — APC. A number of daily tracking polls corroborate this reality. Were the Afrobarometer’s tracking of the political trends more dynamic and continuous, there is no doubt that its updated findings would have revealed a clear leading margin for the opposition.” Who Gains From The Shift Of The Polls? But PDP had countered this prediction asserting that it was not only ready for the elections, but was poised for victory if not for INEC’s failure to faithfully carry out its own responsibilities. The APC believed that the postponement of the polls was done to take the sail out of the momentum it has gathered in the past few months. Indeed, this magazine gathered that loyalists of the President had suggested that postponing the polls would allow the President to sell himself and his achievements more to Nigerians while also disparaging the candidates of the opposition in a no expense spared publicity blitz. Fani Kayode told journalists after the poll shift for instance that the PDP presidential campaign will use the six weeks extension to publicise the achievements and further ‘expose Buhari.’ The massive mudslinging efforts at the APC presidential candidate since last week will bear testimony to this assertion. They have also argued that the APC presidential campaign may run out of steam if the election is shifted for some weeks. [caption id="attachment_20056" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Jonathan: 29 May handover date sacrosanct[/caption] Niyi Akintola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria said last week that with the postponement of the elections a lot of permutations are bound to change: “The prevailing development has upset the calculations of many political pundits. The shifting of the polls may upset the apple cat in spite of the political arithmetic that favours or disfavours the major candidates. Things can certainly not be the same again.” President Jonathan said he has no plan to sack Jega last week, but was quick to add that if he had to, he had the constitutional powers to do so. There were also speculations of different plots involving the use of the military to rig the polls in favour of the PDP when the elections are eventually held against the background of a secretly recorded audio tape which allegedly detailed how the Ekiti gubernatorial elections was rigged last year. In the same vein, the PDP is also campaigning against the use of card readers believed by many to be a potential game changer against the rigging of the polls. Dasuki Undermines Nigeria Democracy Also, last week, Senator Babafemi Ojudu raised alarm of the plot by the President to get his tenure of office extended through the National Assembly while former President Obasanjo warned the military against taking advantage of the unsettled scenario in the political scene to return to power. There is no doubt that the next few weeks leading to the elections will be very interesting and one man who will be under focus is Dasuki, the national security adviser who many believed initiated the postponement plot. Many had however queried the role played by Dasuki in getting the elections postponed. Sources told this magazine last week that as the NSA, the Sokoto Prince job is mere advisory and his outing at the Chatham House where he first made the suggestion for the election postponement was beyond his brief. This is more so since many Nigerians believed that the NSA has failed to live up to his assignment of protecting Nigerians. "The country has witnessed worsening security situations under Dasuki, especially as related to the war against insurgency for instance with the kidnapping of the Chibok girls, the fake amnesty with Boko Haram, the tactical manoeuvre of our forces into Cameroun, the loss of territories said to be up to the size of Belgium, and the embarrassing bail-out of Nigeria, the giant of Africa, by our lowly neighbours, ” Waziri Adio, a publisher and columnist noted in his weekly column last Monday. There were insinuations in political circles that Dasuki may have been propelled to act against Buhari based on the unfinished business of 1985. In that coup d’état , he, along with four other majors, namely, Abdulmumini Aminu, Lawan Gwadabe, Abubakar D. Umar and John Madaki were assigned the task of arresting Buhari, an action which was critical to the success of the coup. Sambo is described by associates and former colleagues as academically sound, capable to deliver on whatever responsibility assigned him and humble. He was said to have emerged as one of the fiercest loyalists of Babangida and over time became very influential behind the scene. This was said to have earned him envy of others, especially the then Chief of Army Staff, General Sani Abacha, especially after the latter learnt that Sambo was feeding the President with his activities. Abacha took opportunity of Babangida absence from the country when the former President went for medical checkup in France to post Sambo out of Dodan Barracks. An attempt to recall Sambo back to Dodan Barracks after the return of Babangida to the country was resisted by Abacha. Eventually, both men agreed that Sambo should to go to America to do his Staff College and degree programme as a truce. After his programme, Sambo returned to the country and operated quietly in the military until he was retired alongside other military officers in September 1993 by the then Secretary of Defence, General Sani Abacha. His father, who became the 18th Sultan of Sokoto under General Babangida, was also deposed by General Abacha. And in 1995, the government of the late Abacha declared Dasuki wanted over claims that he participated in a ‘phantom coup’, allegedly led by Col. Lawan Gwadabe. He subsequently fled to the United States and returned in 2001 following Nigeria’s return to democracy. He was appointed the Managing Director, Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company Limited in 2002, but resigned in 2003 following the controversial privatisation of the Mint. Some analysts had insisted that Sambo whose highest political position in the Army was the ADC to President Babangida and had never commanded a division or becoming a Chief of Defence Staff was not qualified to be appointed as Nigeria’s NSA, a position that has been previously occupied by Generals. Some sources have also accused him of power grab in the Jonathan presidency accusing him of taking over the job which naturally should be in the domain of Mohammdu Gusau, the Minister of Defence who incidentally is his in law. APC did not mince words in describing Dasuki’s action as a crude and fraudulent way of helping the President to avoid defeat. Dasuki assured last week that the elections will not be postponed beyond March 28 with a promise that the Boko Haram insurgents would be defeated within the coming six weeks with the help of a new regional cooperation involving Cameroon, Chad and Niger. “Somebody looking at it the other way would say I’m helping the APC,” the NSA who noted that most of the states where Boko Haram is very active were all opposition strongholds said in an interview with AFP. Still, many believed that the NSA should just concentrate on his core duties. “But it wouldn’t be too much to expect the NSA, who incidentally played a major role in the August 1985 coup and ran into exile when the late General Sani Abacha wanted him as part of the Col. Lawan Gwadabe alleged coup, to concentrate more on his core remit, use available channels for his advice, and not risk being seen as part of a plot to undermine hard-won democracy”, Adio noted.