Presidential candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Dan Nwanyanwu, speaks on the conduct of the February 25 elections and the rescheduled March 18 governorship/house of assembly elections. In this interview on Channels TV Politics Today, monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke, Nwanyanwu, who is also the National Chairman of ZLP, blamed the university dons who were the respective state returning officers for the alleged irregularities that characterized the exercise

What is your reaction to the outcome of the court that allowed INEC to reconfigure the BVAS machine for this Saturday’s election?

Once you are dissatisfied with the process of an election, it is settled that you are entitled to all the essential materials used for that election to prove your case and bring your evidence and your facts. I had in mind that there was no way the petitioners would not be allowed to look at the sensitive materials used in the election. We listened to the lawyer to one of the petitioners, we didn’t hear the other side, that’s why I said let me read the judgements as a lawyer. If the reconfiguring of the BVAS will not tamper with the BVAS as the information is intact, there is no problem, but if reconfiguring will affect the information required by the petitioners then there is every need for us to worry. If INEC is to reconfigure it now, because of the election, then probably if we had the opportunity to speak with INEC and say OK, let us shift this election for a week or two, we still have a window to accommodate that to enable all the petitioners to have access to the information they require to prosecute their petition. Well, I don’t want to be speculative or anticipatory of the tribunals and the courts, but I know that you cannot prevent petitioner access from having vital information he requires. Whether it is the BVAS whether it is the server, his own opinion will help him execute his petition and it is important I say again, that I must have to read the judgment there may be other conditions. you know you journalists, will just take the summary or the highlights there may be other things there, other conditions given, in reconfiguring the BVAS machine so as a lawyer I have to read I don’t want to talk in the abstract if you bring me back here tomorrow I will be able to satisfy you on this I have to read that judgment this night.

Let’s talk about the outcome of the election, what are your views about it as a participant?

I want to say honestly that there were a lot of problems, there were issues across the states, like in any other election. I would be deceiving myself if I said that everything went well. Recall I had to speak after the chairman of IPAC talked during the collation and I made our views very clear that in every election you have people who will never allow things to work the normal way. Let me start with the BVAS. There is nothing wrong with the BVAS machine, it is the way to go, but there’s something wrong with the people operating the BVAS. In this clime, in this country, I’ve always said it I don’t know the kind of people God put here and their hearts, their minds that nothing will work. INEC suffered with political parties to get this in place we interrogated it, top to bottom, front and back and we said BVAS is the way to go. At least, BVAS has shown you that money politics cannot work. It has shown you how many places you heard they carried ballot boxes, apart from the touts, and the thugs that did so in other places. The BVAS will authenticate and you see people who will attempt to bypass the BVAS. So, the problem we had was with the professors and those INEC put in the states, they betrayed the INEC Chairman. They betrayed him thoroughly, and they allowed themselves to be hijacked by the governors in the states and they started taking their dictates. I am not saying don’t follow them for their own lives, follow them but when you come back, put an affidavit, this thing was done under duress and that will be taken care of in the new Electoral Act. Do not put your life in danger, do as they wish, but immediately you are out of danger inform the INEC. The commission cancelled the election of the Majority Leader as a result of obtaining results under duress.

Yes, they said the election result was announced under duress

Good. What stopped all these professors from doing that and the INEC chairman by the time he discovered, it was too late. If you listen to me during the collection, I said that was what I was talking about, when I said when Jesus Christ was here as a person he had only 12 disciples one betrayed him now you have 37 expectedly, I was referring to this Intel so you see a situation where people will not let things work, everybody’s talking about BVAS, there is no system today we have here that is better than BVAS and what I did that day, I think BVAS saved Nigeria’s democracy because it was to collapse that very moment everybody was saying cancel the election, cancel the election, don’t let it go, no we can’t go that way, we cannot pull down the house we cannot pull down the roof because you did not win. I did not win, I was in the election I saw myself by the time I bought my ticket that I was going to take over President Muhammadu Buhari as the next president of Nigeria.

So, what happened?

I saw myself going to take over from President Buhari, but it didn’t work like that, so, I cannot pull down the house. What I did was to provide an opportunity, a window, for those aggrieved to go through this process they’re going through now if I had not done that through IPAC and that thing had collapsed that day they won’t have had the opportunity. We had already said we don’t want interim governments, we don’t want this, so, I brought this scenario to a friend just when he confronted me on this a professor too I said look what if the election was cancelled and the president says okay this election was flawed as you want it or as you wanted it now, start again. You people will come up with arguments we don’t want the same chairman to conduct it the President puts another INEC chairman after one week we’ll talk to Nigerians and next six months, I need one year to tidy this up, then you go on the streets we don’t want it you must do it now. You are getting to the interim government or you’re getting to an unconstitutional change of government people should think and work with the intelligence team on what is happening so I can pride myself on that day that I save this democracy and when people are speaking they should speak with understanding. I have told you I was a runner.

But can you compare yourself to the likes of Atiku Abubakar, who polled well over six million votes, and Peter Obi, who polled about the same figure and won several states? You didn’t win any state, your stake and theirs might not be the same.

No. That’s based on the report that the results are challenging, you see as far as we went to the race we are on the same platform. Maybe in the course of interrogating the results those who are not in court may have votes in their favour it might happen. So, no matter the level or the stake you have, Nigeria must exist before the position you’re looking for. Don’t get me wrong, everything was not right with the election, I do not want a situation where we lose this democracy. We have the governorship election in just a few days, let’s look at the things that went wrong with the hope of I mean and I’m very certain that a lot of INEC officials are watching. Let us have the mind-set to say these are the wrong things and where INEC and Nigeria can get it right. You see, we’re talking about the transmission of results that was part of their concern but I was shocked where I voted, I was there and the result was transmitted in my presence. I saw it.

And it was confirmed?

And it was confirmed. It was when I got to Abuja that I started hearing that they did not transmit. Maybe I was lucky. First, there are two processes of transmitting the result, the result has to first and foremost, when a picture is taken, on the wall as it is pasted, it has to be stored when it’s been stored, it gives you the signal that it’s been stored when you get into a network area, then you can transmit. They have done all that.

Into the IreV portal?
Yes. It started moving 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent, 50 per cent, 60 per cent, 80 per cent and it went. Within the same compound, within the same school premises. The point is that those that betrayed the Chairman didn’t want it to work.

Who are these people?
The professors he kept in the states.

Are they not ad-hoc officials?
No. they’re not. What will the ad-hoc officials do?

Are they the substantive INEC staff?
No, no, no. you know there were people, collation officers in the states, you have some of them in different local governments and wards how they did it, how they arrived at this because before the election we had agreed with INEC that this is the way to go and I must say that I am yet to accept that was involved in this. He gave us all assurances, we asked all questions. Go and ask all the political parties, he told us that he had done this thing, he has put everything he had into this project for two years and he cannot sabotage it at the 11th hour.

Could it be that he overpromised and under delivered?

No. He was ready to deliver but, with due respect to the professors, I don’t think we should have them again. Why destroy all the job we have done for two years and now you want to crucify the man at the head, of course, the book ends on his desk, no doubt about it but you have to give the benefit of the doubt I’m sure you had the result of their meeting with resident commissioners, Thursday, Friday, last week. Yeah. He admonished them.

But do you think he could have done anything better in the manner of handling the situation, in the crisis at the time?
I told you that before he realised it, it was too late.

Were you in communication with him?
No. That’s my ‘intel’ and I say so. On the 20th did I not say this thing will happen? AIT, Arise and maybe you carried it. The prints shut it down. I said the transmission of the result would be tampered with. Get back to the net and verify. I said and I expected the security and everybody to interrogate it. On February 20, I addressed a press conference on this, that critical infrastructure of INEC will be tampered with to stop the transmission of results to the server, I said it, so, I wasn’t surprised the press shut it down because that was not what they wanted to hear in law, they said you must always listen to the other side.

You were analysing the problems of the presidential election, what were the other issues that you saw?

Well, I think you have the issue of disruption of voters, some people were not allowed to vote there were places they were shut from voting.

Some kind of voter suppression?
Yes. Somewhere in Borno, a whole area, the whole senatorial zone was not allowed to vote, but you see in this election we’re going on Saturday, it is a different level. When we say politics is local this one on Saturday is the meaning of politics being local.

If there is one thing that INEC needs to work on ahead of the next election, what would that be?

To ensure that the rule of engagement is kept to. Every Resident Electoral Commissioner, everybody posted anywhere must go strictly by the rules where there are objections to the rules or disruption of the election INEC has to do it again no matter how many days it will take. IPAC has already given INEC chairman this. This has been our understanding and for those that did what they did we have to now name and shame them if they continue with their practice I’m aware that some electoral commissioners are on suspension I don’t know if you’re aware.

One in Sokoto state, he’s been told to step aside.

I learnt too that there one in Abia and others that are been interrogated so these are the things we heard but I know if you claim you won the election prepare your evidence. In 2007, when ex-governor Mimiko’s mandate was stolen with that of Adams Oshiomhole, recall INEC then could not announce the results in Benin and Akure, they announced the results in Abuja. What did we do? We collected all the results in every polling unit add them word by word and went to Justice Garba Musa Nabaruma’s panel, he saw it and shook his head, there was an effort by the government then to change Justice Nabaruma of blessed memory, he refused. He gave us judgement, he restored the victory on another hand he restored that of Adams Oshiomhole. We went to Justice Abdullahi’s Court of Appeal presided by Justice Abdullahi, he refused, and we got the mandate. So, let nobody kill himself, just prepare your documents, election is won and lost at the polling units not on transmission, not on collation, once you have those facts there is no court In the land no matter how compromised that court maybe that will not give you judgement.