Chief Chekwas Okorie is the founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview with FELIX NWANERI, he speaks on the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal and other issues
What is your take on the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu?
I am not surprised at the outcome of the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT). I took time to read through the petitions of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) before now.
The petitioners failed woefully to spec- ify the polling units or collation centres, where they were denied lawful votes, which could have earned either of them victory at the polls. Rather than prove a case of substantial non-compliance with the electoral law, they seemed to have relied on scoring technical points to win their petitions.
Their strategy failed. It is clear even to the unwary that the framers of the 1999 constitution could not have intended to confer on the Federal Capital Territory, superior status to the rest of the states of the federation.
What is clear to the discerning public that painstakingly followed the delivery of the unanimous judgements by the five judges of the tribunal, which lasted for more than 10 hours and which was broadcast live by all major television and radio networks in Nigeria is that the declaration of President Bola Tinubu as the lawful winner of the February 25 presidential election was well founded.
What do you make of Atiku and Obi’s rejection of the verdict of the tribunal and their resolve to take the legal battle to the Supreme Court?
While the petitioners may wish to exercise their right of appeal, l do not expect a different outcome. I you recall, I was one of the earliest persons to congratulate Tinubu, when he was declared winner of the presidential election but some people quietly criticise me then for ‘congratulating him too early’ but I told them that given my experience, I did not see anything that showed that he did not win the election.
I insisted that the outcome of their petitions will not be different from what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced. You will also recall that I insisted that the ruling by the tribunal will not be based on technicalities as the petitioners need to produce sufficient evidence to prove their claims of having secured the highest number of votes cast to prove their respective claims of having won the election.
I also said that I want to them to pursue their cases to a logical conclusion because lessons would be learnt from the rulings of the court by the candidates in particular and Nigerians in general because some of them like Obi are still young and may want to run again.
Going forward, what is your advice to President Tinubu?
The President should be focused on the onerous task of governing a complex and complicated country without further distractions. In addition to delivering on his campaign promises, Nigeria’s geopolitical structure is in urgent need of resetting. President Tinubu is a well-known champion of true federalism.
So, much is expected from him in this regard. I have always insisted that except Nigeria is restructured in such a manner that every federating unit is given the latitude to develop at its own pace, no president, no matter how well his intentions are, will succeed because Nigeria is structured to retrogress.
The nation is structured to stagnate, so it needs to be restructured. And the president we have now, at one time, was one of the champions of true federalism. All of us were in the trenches at that time, so I expect him, to beyond anything he is doing, give us a Nigeria that is restructured to develop.
All the talks about oil theft and illegal mining of our solid minerals will be a thing of the past if Nigeria is restructured and every federating unit is allowed to control its resources and contribute to the national coffers as obtained during the First Republic, when allocation was 50 per cent by derivation.
How will a return to the First Republic arrangement benefit the states and Nigerians?
If we do that, every state will explore its own resources and give 50 per cent to the Federal Government and use what is left to compete with others in terms of development. So, I believe that President understands how transient power is and that his name would be written in gold as someone who laid the foundation for Nigeria to achieve nationhood and exponential growth if his administration restructures Nigeria.
Is that not better than holding onto power and at the end of the day he goes with a bad name? President Buhari has just left office; I want to see one person who will come out tomorrow to say that he was one of the best presidents we’ve ever had. Unfortunately, he is recorded as the worst in terms of everything.
This is somebody, who said that he will not touch the report of the 2014 National Conference, but look at how he ended. The side of history he ended is not an enviable one. Nobody would want to be associated with how he left the country.
Division in the country has become so glaring; every department of government you go to, you see lopsided appointments. Now, it seems that Tinubu has copied Buhari although with some improvement. What he has done is not exactly what Buhari did but some northerners believe that what we have now is Federal Republic of Oduduwa, which is a very uncharitable statement.
The question is: Why didn’t they say that we had Federal Republic of Fulani, when Buhari was in power? But this is the kind of package you take home when you fail to restructure Nigeria as a president because after eight years, another person will come to office and may likely abuse power more than you did.
There have been arguments on what to be restructured…
Like I said before, I want each of the federating units to have the latitude to develop at their own pace. What restructuring also means is that the Federal Government of Nigeria will only be responsible for federal matters such as monetary and fiscal policies, foreign affairs, military, immigration and customs.
These are the basic things that the Federal Government handles anywhere there is a federation. Again, instead of having 65 items on the Exclusive Legislative List, all those things that do not touch on these particular areas that I’ve listed, will now go the Concurrent and Residual lists. That is what restructuring is all about.
What is your advice to Nigerians, particularly those who disagreed with the court’s reasoning and conclusions in the judgement it delivered?
I am confident that President Tinubu has the capacity and ability to launch Nigeria on the path of rapid and sustainable development. So, I urge Nigerians to pray for him and cooperate with his administration. I also urge those in opposition to be constructive and patriotic in their criticism of government policies and actions.
All of us as Nigerians should come together because the success of President Tinubu is our success as a people and his failure impacts on us negatively. He needs our prayers and cooperation. I say this with all sense of patriotism but that doesn’t stop us from criticising him constructively if things are not going well.
I will also add that the legislature has a responsibility to revisit the electoral laws to remove all established lacunae and ambiguities to make future elections less contentious.
