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Rt. Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, represents Ogbaru Federal Constituency of Anambra State on the platform of the Labour Party. He is also the Leader of the Labour Party Caucus in the House of Representatives. He served as Deputy Spokesperson, House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. In this interview with CHUKWU DAVID, he looks at some issues of national importance including factors that influenced the successes of Labour Party in 2023 general elections, Electoral Act and the state of the economy, among others.
The Labour Party is relatively new in Nigeria politics. How were you able to dislodge the established political parties in Anambra State to come to the House of Representatives under the Party?
Well, of course, even besides Anambra, in the entire country, Labour has existed. But of course, its influence especially in national elections has been very minute because the people who should form the crux of the Labour Party are the working class, which are actually the people who got the party registered. But we also know that they all have their own preferences, based on their various States. The tendencies that were at play in the different States had helped to know what their power was in terms of political gains through elective office.
You will recall that Dr. Olusegun Mimiko had used Labour Party to serve two tenures as governor, and they had one or two National Assembly members at different intervals. But coming specifically to your question regarding Anambra State, well, generally there was a clamour for change in the entire country. And the person who led the crusade so to speak, former Governor Peter Obi, had over the years proven to be a politician with a difference, even during his time as Governor of Anambra State between 2006 and 2014. Within that period, he was able to do things differently.
He had been able to talk and cause a reduction in the cost of governance. He was able to bring civility to the political space in Anambra, which before him, a kind of agbero (gangsterism) politics was on display. Then, coming to the national scene, the people, especially the emergent youth that you might call the internet age saw a glimmer of hope because if we are going to return our country to the glorious days and push ahead, then we are going to do certain things differently.
And they saw in Obi an arrowhead to bring such a dream to fruition. So, all over the country, there was a clamour for the Labour Party. But Mr. Peter Obi could not have done it alone; so he also needed lieutenants in terms of people who will run as Senatorial and House of Representatives candidates, State Assembly and even governorship candidates, that will actually drive this message to the grassroots. So, I think that Anambra, where he comes from, being an immediate beneficiary of his brand of politics, it was quite easy for the people to identify with this new message of the ideal change.
And to my mind, I think that was what actually led to the emergence of Labour Party as a major opposition voice. So, essentially, it’s a combination of factors: the pedigree of the man who led the charge; the buy in of the Nigerian electorate into his message, and then the little contributions of other political players, who at the end of the day formed the structure of LP.
Before the 2023 general elections, some Nigerians expressed fears that the Labour Party did not have solid structure across the country to win elections at various levels. Do you see your Party doing better in future than it has done in the 2023 general elections?
When people talk about structure, I laugh. Are we talking about a structure of corruption or a structure doing things the opposite way? Structure to my mind, in an elective office, is about human beings. So, it is human beings that come out to vote. It is not an organogram. In fact, a self-propelling structure like that which the LP brought on the scene is something that is commendable. And when you talk about future elections, for me the future is now. The future is what we are confronted with.
We all know that, but for the feigned glitch- es that the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) came up with, it’s public knowledge that, given the spread of the Labour Party and the vivid suppression of their votes in certain areas and blatant and obvious doctrine of certain polling units results, which we all saw, will tell you that even that future that we envisaged is right here. But Peter Obi, being a man of peace, chose to go the right way by approaching the judiciary. And make no mistake about it, this is a man whose politics has been defined by laws and regulations. He is never in a hurry to achieve any short-term game.
When he won election in 2003, it took all of three years for him to retrieve his mandate. People have forgotten. And even after retrieving that mandate, it took another year for the Supreme Court to decide on his tenure interpretation. And in all of these things, he remained patient, waiting on the judiciary. He also continued on the same part by going to the Presidential Election Tribunal, which is the Appeal Court. And from the beginning, he made up his mind that, whichever way it turned, his resolve was to reach the jurisprudence of the country.
So, from the day one of pursuing his case in court, he believes that whatever the outcome might be, there is also a tomorrow, that we must not kill ourselves for political power. If you are shortchanged today, certainly, you cannot be shortchanged tomorrow. This is why even after the Supreme Court judgement, which dismissed his appeal, did not incite his supporters to do anything that would cause a breach of peace and security.
The 2022 Electoral Act, which was authored by the 9th National Assembly, initially brought a lot of hope to Nigerians, but after the general elections, Nigerians tend to lose hope and confidence in the Act as well as in the Judiciary, because of the court verdicts that came out on the electoral cases. What is your take on all this?
There is never a time to lose hope. Anybody who loses hope, be it an individual or corporate body, association or even a nation, then that’s the end. Hope is just a four-letter word, but it gives us enough courage to face the future. So, no matter what has gone wrong, it’s in the line of separation of power. The Legislature makes the law, the Executive implements and the Judiciary interprets.
So, if in the interpretation of the laws, we feel that there are hazy areas, it behooves the Legislature to revisit the law and fine-tune it to be in tandem with the expectations of the people, because they are actually the people’s voice. And a law that is not tested is as good as frozen on the paper in which it is written. So, what you see going on is a test of the laws, particularly the Electoral Act 2022, which you referred to. At the end of the judicial proceedings, when Nigerians begin to dissect the outcomes, you see people say no, we think we should do A, B, C.
Then, it is incumbent on the National Assembly to pick up these comments; and don’t forget no law passes without a public hearing, for the public to make input. At the end of the day, being the representatives of the people, it is what the people want that you actually give to them. So, there is no perfect law anywhere. Those areas we feel are contentious, the 10th National Assembly will look at them and fine-tune them for future elections. It is work in Progress. Every election is supposed to be an improvement on the previous one. So, we have not lost hope at all. If anything, we are further energised to do the needful.
The massive application of “technicality” by the courts, in the determination of most of the 2023 electoral cases appears to be an instrument in the hands of judges to subvert justice. Are you not worried about this development?
I do not agree. We could also be considerate on what goes on in the judicial arm. By our jurisprudence, for instance, every matter can go up to the Supreme Court, if you want. Even a quarrel between husband and wife can go up to the Supreme Court. I can hardly think of any country in the world that opens the doors of its Supreme Court to all kinds of matters, be it traditional, customary, between companies, between associations, between States, between federal bodies; everything ends up in the Supreme Court.
And an immediate drawback on that is that we do not give the country’s Judiciary ample time to look at the issues and bring out the philosophical aspects of law; of judgements. You know, judgements are not just looked at. After looking at the facts of the matter, there is also the sociological aspect, where the justices as philosopher kings, will enunciate certain principles behind why they arrived at certain decisions, to help guide the body of laws. So, in most climes, what you have in the apex court, for instance, are constitutional matters.
And so, that gives them the latitude to devote enough time and attention to cases. Now, having said that, there is also the hierarchy of courts for every court of record, beginning with the high court. When you go to the high court and you don’t get justice, there is Appeal Court. If you don’t get justice, then the Supreme Court. And as I said earlier, all gamut of cases goes this whole hug unless the people want to stop at certain place; else, there is nothing precluding them.
I give you a typical example, at the Tribunals, the first judgements that came out, were those who said that some members of Labour Party were not properly nominated because, of course, when they asked when did they submit members’ register as required by the Electoral Act, but the Electoral Act cannot override the Constitution, which also makes it impossible for someone who did not participate in the primary, first, if you are not a member of a political party, you cannot query the outcome of the primary of another political party.
Secondly, even if you belong to a political party and you did not participate in the primary, you have no ground to query it. Thirdly, should you even desire to query it, there is a time frame given for that to be done. So, we are not supposed to import everything to the tribunal. The tribunal is just supposed to look at the issue: was this person validly elected? And some of these extraneous issues that you refer to as technicalities, you see that when some justices stood on that, at appeal level, all that was thrown away.
So, all the judgements that were gotten against Labour Party people were restored at appeal level because that of course is the law. The Electoral Act, yes, is a law but there are established laws regarding nomination of candidates. So, you cannot pick one technical aspect and hold on to that. So, even when you do that, the next court of record is sure to overturn it. So, the Judiciary requires a little patience to understand the modus operandi.
Hon, Nigerians are currently in great economic destress, and this is a function of the state of the economy. Are you not concerned about the pathetic situation?
Every Nigerian should be concerned because even mono product you talked about which is basically fossil fuel crude oil is something that is diminishing; is something that is taking the back seat. Yes, I know that we still have large chunks of oil fields (wells) yet untapped, but there is also environmental aspect of it which is why some people are talking about green energy known as renewable energy, and we have so much sunlight in this part of the world. That is actually the way to go.
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