It is wrong to deploy Military during elections – Ahmed Yusuf

Malam Ahmed Yusuf was the governorship candidate of the CPC in Taraba State during the just concluded elections. In this interview, the former ACN chieftain who defected to the CPC shortly before the elections, condemned the use of Military in the conduct of elections. He also spoke on other issues during and after the conduct of the polls, especially in Taraba State. Excerpts.

SHORTLY before the conduct of the governorship polls, there was judgement by a Federal High Court in Yola which declared one of the contenders for the CPC ticket, Barrister Muhammed Mustapha, as the standard bearer after you had been handed over the ticket by your presidential candidate. Didn’t this impact negatively on your fortunes at the elections?

To be honest, it didn’t impact negatively on my chances at all. This is because we were well focused and refused to be distracted; knowing full well that what happened was the handiwork of the other party (I don’t want to mention name. The party that was hell bent on maintaining the status quo. They tried all the tricks under the sun to ensure that my candidacy did not see the light of the day. The judgement was part of the gimmick they used but to be very honest it did not in any way impact negatively on our fortunes at the polls.

What is your general assessment of the April elections in Taraba State?

To say the least, the conduct of the April elections was very disgraceful to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a body. This is because they did not play by the rules in the sense that we requested for certain things to be put in place before the general elections but INEC failed to make them available to us. One request we consistently made was that we should be given the authentic and certified true copy of the list of all registered voters in Taraba State. This is because we had two conflicting lists; particularly as it affects Donga local government where one list was showing the area had a list of 51,000 registered voters while the other one was showing that it had 87,000. INEC could not give us the authentic list in good time until after two elections: National Assembly and Presidential elections. Another area we sought for INEC’s intervention before the elections was that we requested for a meeting of all stakeholders, particularly governorship candidates, so that we could discuss issues of common interest. All our efforts proved futile because INEC did not give us a listening ear. So you could see that the recipe for a very unfair election was already in place before the conduct of the polls.

Can you share your experience during the conduct of the elections proper?

First of all, six local government areas in Taraba State were earmarked where rigging was perfected. These are Donga, Takum, Karim Lamido, Kurmi, Bali and Sardauna. They earmarked these places to perfect their rigging because if you look at the pattern of the results these local government areas produced votes that were consistently identical during all the elections. You can go and cross check with the relevant bodies to verify this claim; if you go through the results of the Presidential, National Assembly and governorship elections you will see the degree of consistency I am talking about. These are the local governments that swayed the votes in favour of the PDP; if you remove these votes you would see that the PDP would have emerged a distant third in the elections.

Given the allegations of rigging you have just talked about one would have also expected that you would challenge the outcome of this election also. Are you heading for the tribunal?

I am not going to any tribunal and this is not because I have lost confidence in the judiciary. Rather it is out of feeling for my own state. If I go to the tribunal now, the government would capitalise on this and use our meagre resources to defend the case. So I don’t think it is worth the trouble that after rigging the elections they would come back and use our resources to defend themselves. Therefore my refusal to go to court this time around is not based on the fact that I don’t have the capacity to prosecute my case but out of feeling for my state. I have left them to their conscience because I am convinced that the people of Taraba State came out to massively vote for me in the governorship election. But since there was a general connivance between them, INEC and other forces, I leave them with God.

Have you congratulated your opponent of the PDP for emerging as winner in the governorship polls?

I haven’t because he did not win the election. I am not feeling too big to congratulate him because if he had won by free and fair means, I would have congratulated him, after all he is my friend and neighbour. But I don’t believe he has won the election. I did not congratulate him in 2007 and I have failed to do so in this 2011 election because there is a big question mark on his victory.

There seems to be a general apathy on the part of those who lost at the April polls with regard to challenging it in court. What would you attribute this to?

I think other politicians like me don’t want to be seen as working against the tide; everybody would say this is a fledgling democracy so let us not overheat the polity but allow it to grow. So these are some of the things we are looking at. It is not because we are surrendering our mandate but because we feel we should allow our democracy to grow. Secondly, we feel it would be unfair to allow those in government to prosecute their cases using government resources.

In the aftermath of the elections, there was outbreak of violent protests in some parts of the country which was generally condemned. What do you think this portends to the polity?

Indeed it is a condemnable act because I don’t think we can achieve anything through violence. Violence is not the solution at all no matter how one looks at it because by the end of it all when we start counting our losses you will find out that it is not worth it. There are several channels of ventilating our anger but certainly violence is not one of them and I am not encouraging it at all.

Now that the elections have come and gone what kind of opposition should we expect in Taraba State especially given the general perception that the opposition was dead prior to the conduct of the polls?

Personally, I will still remain in the opposition CPC. It was not my intention to leave the ACN but circumstances forced me to leave and I intend to remain in the CPC, after all we have taken over all the ACN structures in the state. Remember, I told you in an earlier interview that I would be very glad to defeat the ACN governorship candidate and by the outcome of the elections I am very happy because that it has come to pass.  Secondly, we in the opposition in Taraba State have a different approach. We don’t see ourselves as enemies of government and so we don’t indulge in unnecessary criticism of government. There are several other ways and means of correcting the government of the day if they are deviating. So we don’t play to the gallery by particularly attacking the person of the governor because governance is not just about Danbaba; it is much more than that. It is a whole structure you are looking at so you don’t just isolate one person for criticism. Therefore, we don’t criticise based on personalities but we talk on issues. For instance, there is still a lot to be done in the education sector in Taraba just as the health sector is still crawling; these are issues we try to draw government’s attention to as opposition.

Now that the2011 elections have come and gone, what particular lessons do you think the country would derive from it with a view to improving in subsequent ones?

I think it is not yet Uhuru for us when it comes to conducting elections in Nigeria. I see no reason why we should still be using the Military and the Police in the manner they were used during the last elections. They intimidated and harassed voters. The mere sight of soldiers scared away voters; I personally received several calls from villagers who were scared at the presence of gun wielding soldiers. I had to take the pains of explaining to them that these people were there in their own interest but it was difficult to convince them because for the average village man in this country, when he sees a soldier, the man is just there to shoot him. But the military did not help matters either because by the end of the day, they were shooting in the air to scare away people. For instance in Mayo Ranewo in Ardo Kola Local Government Area, the people got scared on Election Day and were running helter skelter because they said the military were shooting in the air.

Unfortunately on the day of the election, I tried to get in touch with the Military commander but he remained incommunicado throughout. I tried to communicate with him in vain even though his lines were open on the eve of the elections.   In some cases the Police were said to be assisting in the thumb-printing of ballot papers. So I don’t think the military should be used in the conduct of elections in Nigeria because we are not at war. I am even surprised that people are congratulating them for a job well done; it is a shame because we were practically under siege by the military during the election period. To me the use of the military during elections is uncalled for and does not tell well of Nigeria as a nation. How can the President who is the commander-in-chief deploy the military in an election that he participated and expect it to be free and fair?

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