Mr Danjuma Mohammed was the presidential candidate of the Movement for Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD) in the 2019 general elections. In this interview with TOPE SUNDAY, KEHINDE OSASONA, HOPE EKELE and ANGELA OMALE, he advances reasons the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, should not challenge the outcome of the presidential polls, as well as appraises 20 years of return of democracy to Nigeria, among other issues.
This year marks 20 years since Nigeria returned to democracy. How will you access the journey so far?
So far, Nigeria’s democracy has been interesting and exciting with welcoming results. Before 1999, we had democracy but it was interrupted by the military, and we never had enough time to learn on its rules.
But the opportunity we got so far is between 1999 till date. For me, going by the fact that this is an African country and the country has the largest part of it most history under military rule, so we have learnt very fast particularly the fact that in terms of conducting elections between 1999 till date, we have a sitting president who is a beneficiary of an electoral process which he himself indicted and the indictment led to the constitution of an electoral reform committee led by retired Justice Muhammed Uwais which now gives us an improved form of electoral process.
Are you saying Nigeria’s electoral process has improved despite several election cases in courts?
Actually, litigation was provided for as a consummate part of the electoral process because it is a way of ensuring that every electoral process ends peacefully. If you do not allow the people the opportunity to appeal to the election tribunal, chances are that people will take laws into their hands. I had said it earlier on that a president owned up to the fact that his own election was marred by irregularities which prompted him to constitute a committee led by Justice Uwais to reform the Nigeria’s electoral process.
The truth of the matter is that before 2003, after the military supervised election of 1999, we had elections that were far below international best practices. We had election in this country specifically in 2003 and the election was described as tally-fixing, which was a horrible experience in the country. But with the recommendation of the parliament, we came first under the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua regime.
And then under Dr Goodluck Jonathan, we had improvement in terms of the sophisticated devices, introduction of the card reader, the PVC and the voter’s register which are credible and acceptable in the electoral process. Then we have this independence of the electoral empire.
You can see recently we had a postponement which the sitting president did not know about until 5am, few hours after the postponement was announced by the electoral empire.
You were a presidential candidate in the election which has been criticised in some quarters; would you say the process was credible?
To me, the election is the best election since 1999, because there was an improvement on what happened in 2015.
In 2015, we had the most credible at that time of all the elections before then. I am not demeaning the place of 12 June election in 1993, because it is a different thing entirely. But between 1999 till date, as far as am concerned, the process of election cannot be determined by just the activities on the election day.
We start with the commencement, with the electoral timetable and that was what happened. We have the best and most matured electoral process from one post to the other; and up till the time the election was postponed. We had a situation whereby the empire was given free the hand to operate, and there was no solicitous influence from the power that be, I mean, the government of the day.
I saw all this, because I operated as the party chairman, I represented my party in all the stages of the electoral processes. Apart from that, it is the 4th general election I participated in as a party executive. So, I am in the position to tell you that you should not mind what some people might have said about the election.
The truth of the matter is that this is the best election, far better than the 2011 general elections. There were questions on the 2011 election that bothered on its credibility, but the beauty of it was that they single-handedly played the role of patriots.
And that is why in this light, I want to join the voice with those calling on the man who came second in the presidential election, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, to simply see reason why he should follow the footstep of the former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan in his own case had a lot of question marks but he did what he did for his country because at that time it was the best election we had seen and now that has been improved upon. So, I expect him to do the same and let the dust settle.
It has been alleged that those asking Atiku not challenge the outcome of the election have been bought over. Can you confirm this?
Truly speaking, there is nothing like being hired or bought over by anybody. The call on Alhaji Atiku to concede defeat and not to go to the election tribunal is purely for national interest. This is the period of reconciliation and display of political maturity.
The truth of the matter is that we just had an election that turned out to be the best but other people may have other reasons. The electoral umpire denied the ruling party the opportunity to field candidates in two states and even that action was upheld, except the one that was reversed by the judiciary. This takes independence on the part of the electoral umpire.
My advice to Alhaji Akiku Abubakar is that the issue on ground is not to test the law of the land but rather the challenge now is how to consolidate the gains of this election.
He has the right to go to court but going to court for what?
We have seen that this is the best election we had and practically as a candidate in that election, I cannot see where and how you can fault the result that was presented.
Looking at the result very well the political party’s candidate got what they got from places where they were politically strong, that is the truth of the matter.
Even if we repeat this election 10 times, from the way it is, Buhari will still win because his political base remains very solid, talking about the North-west and North east they still remain largely and strongly behind him. Reasons have been adduced that even results from where Boko Haram had affected, like Chibok, revealed that the parents of the rescued girls have not forgotten the gesture of the president. So, these are some of the factors responsible for what Buhari scored at the poll.
What Atiku Abubakar scored from the south east and even the south west geo-political zone was quite understandable because he is a politician of note. Because this is the third time he contested the presidential election and he has never had it this good. This is the truth of the matter. He may deny it but go back to history and look at Atiku Abubakar’s performance in 2007 general elections, and this year’s election was quite different. He did very well and wonderfully this time around but the truth still remains that coming from the same region with President Buhari, I believe strongly and having participated in the election myself, I don’t think within that region that anyone will do better than what Atiku had done. I believe at that time the election was held, nobody would have defeated the president in that region, this is the truth of the matter.
Do you foresee division in the country going by the voting pattern in the presidential election?
Let me take it from the pattern of the election. The truth of the matter is that we have two major contenders, the North and the South. In the North there was nothing like ethnicity or religion determining the pattern with which they voted, but coming to the South, I will not say it is ethnicity but rather political interest because if the South voted for Atiku basically it is because of their own son, Peter Obi, who contested as his running mate. And they are interested in having Obi as the vice president of Nigeria; that is political interest and I don’t see that as an ethnic interest.
Also, before the election it was like the all South-east and South-south would go en-block for Atiku but it wasn’t so. In the South- south, Buhari had appreciable amount of votes which was beyond 25 per cent in Bayelsa of all places for the candidate of the APC and also in the South-east. It wasn’t the South-easterners that defeated APC in the two regions. But for me, it was just the political interest and that is why the nation in terms of election has already zoned itself.
The beauty of it all is that we had two contenders and there was alienation of other parties. This is an improvement that shows that election unity has come to stay in Nigeria.
Does the participation of many political parties in the presidential election portend good for democracy, especially since some are alleged front for the major parties?
First, let me start from the constitutional expression that guarantees the registration of political parties, it is based on the freedom of association and when you compare us with developed democratic country like the United States of America (US), it also has a lot of political parties. The only thing they do is that it is not all of them that contest for presidency of the US.
Some are concerned with the local political interest. US political parties are in the region of over 70. Coming to other countries like in India, we have several political parties, but I don’t know the exact number and they still outnumber Nigeria in terms of political parties. Also, we should not forget that India is the largest democracy in the world.
So, coming to Nigeria, look at the peculiarity here, Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and also the world’s largest single black collection and is the most complex in term of religion, ethnicity and in political consideration in Africa. Now, how would we accommodate the views coming from these divergent complicities if you do not allow freedom of association? That is why democracy is growing very fast than anybody you could imagine.
For the past 20 years, like I had said, we had several elections but the level we found ourselves in 2015 and coming to 2019 is something which most of these democratic countries did not achieve at their own election level.
What is your message to President Buhari?
My message to him is he should be magnanimous in victory and also that in every democracy after every contest, there comes political reconciliation and it behoves on him, being the victor, to pilot this reconciliation.
I want to commend him for taking the initiative to tell the nation he is going to form an all-inclusive government, I think politically, he should start with that and he should take us to the next level.
