January 23, (THEWILL) – Prof. Oluremi Sonaiya was the only female aspirant that contested in the 2015 presidential election. She speaks with AYO ESAN on the controversial Electoral Act Amendment Bill and the rising number of presidential aspirants in the country, among other issues. Excerpts:
What is your take on President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill and the conditions he gave to sign it?
I believe that the President and the legislators should first recognise that they are in office because Nigerians voted them in. So they should really be there to serve the interest of the people. And I know that Nigerians have spoken out very clearly on the issue of the kind of reforms they would like to see in our electoral laws. Nigerians were really expecting that the President and the legislators would sign and enact the suggested reforms. So it is a big disappointment on the part of the people who have elected them to serve us and oversee our affairs. I think that kind of orientation is what is needed. People are not there for selfish interests. This is because I know that during the public hearing, Nigerians made their views known, regarding the reforms they would like to see in our electoral laws. And this issue of direct primary is part of it. I should really be disappointed that people we have voted into offices do not respect the will of the people.
The president explained that the issue of indirect primary should be amended to give Nigerians many options. How do you see his position?
That is why I am emphasising what the people are saying. We should not dwell on what the President is saying. He is just one man. The question we need to ask is what are the citizens saying? That is the direction in which I am trying to push in this conversation. Let us not pay so much attention to the desires of an individual. What are the people saying? The generality of the people, the citizens of this country, what are they saying? They have expressed themselves, their desires and that is what should be done.
So I am saying that people want to participate in the governance of their country. They don’t want just any group of people to be the ones that will be selecting who the candidates will be . And let us just mention the election in a party that I belong, the KOWA Party. In KOWA we always have direct primary. People are saying it is going to be very expensive and so on. We know the present age is powered on technology. We should not continue to conduct our affairs in the same archaic ways. KOWA Party had direct primary and people could vote wherever they were on the globe. A few people were physically present at the place where the convention took place. But through the use of technology, every KOWA member who wanted to vote, were able to vote from wherever they were. So that is the way elections can be conducted, using direct primary. People should not pretend that we are constrained by whatever. That is not true.
What do you want the National Assembly to do about the Electoral Act Amendment bill?
That is what I have been saying. They should listen to what Nigerians are saying and enact the law in consonant with the will of the people. If they don’t do this, let the people be ready to chuck them out. The elections are coming. Let us learn to vote into office people who will represent our will, who will do that which the people want.
Aren’t you disturbed that since 1999, we have not had a female governor in any state of the federation? What are people like you doing to encourage women to go into politics and governance?
It is the people who vote, isn’t it? Many women have presented themselves for various positions: for the presidency, for governorship and so on. Unfortunately, Nigerians have not voted into office a woman at the level of governor, like you said. But we have to understand that within the context of our own political set up.
You know, recently people have been talking about South Africa and how a certain family has had a hold on the state. They called it the state capture. We may have a group of people in Nigeria, too, who have captured the state and who determine who gets into what positions. These are the issues we need to deal with. In particular, I believe that keeping the people impoverished and uneducated is not a good thing. In fact, it is a strategy that is used to control others. When you have an impoverished majority, the primary concern would be their stomach and then you can easily buy them over during elections.
You also asked what people like me are doing. We are now advocating reserved seats for women. It is not a position I like to support because I believe Nigerian women are capable. We have seen them demonstrating that capability in many areas of human endeavour. It is only in politics that doors seem to be shut against Nigerian women. And it is because of godfathers, money bags or whatever you want to call them, who have captured the political terrain.
So if they are not going to allow for a level playing ground, then we have to legislate and to require that a certain no of seats be reserved for women. So you know probably now that it has been suggested and I hope the Senate will pass the bill, that in the Senate, one more seat be created for senatorial districts which should be reserved for women. It will also create more seats for women in the House of Representatives. It is not the kind of solution that I would have like to have but unfortunately, it is not like the political class is willing to play by the rules and have a level playing ground for everybody so that women can compete favourably.
Our politics is politics of money, of vote buying and things like that. Many women cannot engage in that kind of situation. It is the country that is suffering by not having women participate in politics.
What will be your advice to the womenfolk as we begin preparation for the 2023 general election?
There is no need to be advising the womenfolk. Many of them are interested and they are showing interest. But they are being harassed in different ways. Look at what happened during the last general election. When they see that a woman is coming up, they will go and burn her campaign office. So what kind of advice do you think we should give? It is not to the women, but it is to the state, the men and the police.
It is the duty of government to ensure that a system is created where women can participate fully. That is the thing. Women have already shown that they are interested. Even in the current march towards 2023, they are already showing interest. But are the people going to play a fair game? Are they going to play by the rules? In the election coming up in the Federal Capital Territory, there are several women who are candidates. So let us see what will happen. And the mentality of our people, who think that women are not supposed to be heard, but seen, an idea that was unfortunately backed by President Buhari when he visited Germany some years ago and he was saying that his own wife is meant for the kitchen and the other room and things like that. So there is a whole mindset that we also don’t need among the population.
Many people are already showing interest in 2023 presidency. What are the qualities you expect the next Nigerian President to possess?
We want candidates with skill, capacity, ability, with compassion and integrity. I think we should scrutinise the aspirants properly. It is not a candidate with money, who has a bullion van loaded with money and able to buy everybody over. That is not what we need this time.
We want a well educated and well informed person to represent us in the public arena and international spaces. Sometimes, one becomes basically ashamed of the kind of people who represent us at international gatherings, honestly. And people know that we have very capable people.
We have seen Nigeria’s leading in so many places around the world. Two Nigeria women are occupying two important seats globally, the World Trade Organisation with Dr Okonjo- Iweala and the United Nations with Mrs Amina Mohammed. Also there is the President of the African Development Bank and so on. So it is not as if Nigerians are not capable. We are supplying even politically to other countries. We are supplying manpower to them, people who are running their affairs. The world is wondering at us and saying how come we are helping other countries to work and excel and develop them, but we cannot do that for ourselves at home. It is a real shame on us. I hope we will be mindful of the fact that it high time we got rid of this shame and prove to the world that we can really lead our affairs well and we are not going to allow this corrupt system to continue to determine how we run our affairs. It is not just acceptable at all.
What do you want the Independent National Electoral Commission to do differently ahead of the 2023 general election?
I believe that Nigerians have also been expressing their opinions in this regard. INEC should engage more technology in the conduct of elections. It should begin to think outside the box. I am even of the opinion that we do not have to run our elections in the same way in every part of the country. There are places around the world where elections are conducted on state by state basis. So a state can determine that it is not going to even use physical ballot on the day of election. May be they will send you your ballot and you will mark the person you want to vote and post it. Some do it electronically, others will do it with hard copy ballot and some with a mixture of both.
Let us not box ourselves into this unworkable system. It is because we are trying to be so uniform that elections must happen at the same time, in the same manner and in every corner of the country, that we are having problems with our population, bad roads and so on.
So we say election materials did not get to a particular place on time and they have to deploy thousands of policemen. It is wasteful. Let us seriously consider how we can use technology to make election cheaper for ourselves, for one thing and to make it more free and fair and valid. These are my own suggestions.
I think we box ourselves in and waste a lot of money. Many educational institutions, hospitals don’t have that kind of money. They are not given the kind of budget that INEC is given to conduct elections. Isn’t that a waste? How do we spend so much money on an election? Hundreds of billions of naira for just one day, whereas a university that is supposed to conduct research, innovations that will transform our lives and solve our existential problems, does not have that kind of money. So I hope that INEC will put together a small think-tank, that will say look, our goal is to cut down the budget. May be we should start by saying cut it to half and ask what are the areas that we can deploy technology in order to achieve that.
About the Author
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
