Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
(Rtd)
President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria
Aso Rock Villa
Abuja
Your Excellency
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR EXCELLENCY TO RIGHT WRONGS -
RE: 25TH FEBRUARY 2023 PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTIONS: A CALL FOR YOUR EXPEDIENT INTERVENTION TO ENSURE CONSTITUTIONALISM,
RULE OF LAW AND DUE PROCESS PREVAILS WHILST SAFEGUARDING NIGERIA FROM NEEDLESS
DESCENT INTO PARIAH STATUS AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL.
Please accept our
compliments as you approach the end of second and final of your 4-year tenure
as the President of the Federal Republic. A tenure that has placed your
goodself as one of only two Nigerians who have had the unique opportunity of
presiding over the affairs of Nigeria firstly as a Military Dictator, and
thereafter a civilian President.
Your tenure has witnessed
several landmark events such as the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act
(after almost two decades of continuous efforts), passage of the Electoral Act
2020 (after close to a decade of efforts to make our electoral laws more just
and equitable), and some efforts at enshrining the autonomy of the Judiciary
and Legislative arms of government; and also some controversial episodes, such as
the inability of our security forces and agencies to effectively stem continuing
ethnic cleansing being experienced across the country masked in the garb of
Herdsmen – Indigenous Farmers/Settler clashes; increased feelings of
marginalization by diverse component peoples of Nigeria and lopsidedness in the
management of affairs of the country; and downturn in the economy of the
country.
In this twilight days of your
administration, providence has offered you a unique opportunity to ensure that
your name is enshrined in the annals of the history of Nigeria, and indeed the
African continent, as one who did his best to uphold the tenets, spirit and
intendments of the Constitution of the Federal Republic (CFR), uphold the
integrity, dignity and elevated position of Nigeria amongst the comity of
nations, in an altruistic manner devoid of partisan or other parochial
considerations. The purpose of this correspondence is to bring to your notice
this unique offer of providence in the effort that you will seize the opening
to right wrongs and be on the right side of history and posterity.
Expectations of the 2023 general elections
In the buildup to the 2023
general elections, your goodself, had severally committed your administration
to organizing the freest and most credible elections to ensure an orderly
transition by the 29th of May 2023. Based on the trust Nigerians had
in your pronouncements and the publicly made undertakings by the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) authorities to use technological advancements to
ensure real-time online transmission of results of voting at polling units via the Bimodal
Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and real-time online collation of
votes via the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portals, Nigerians in their millions,
who had either previously not registered as voters or had lost faith in the
electoral processes, took up the civic responsibility and registered to vote,
and indeed presented themselves to vote on the election day, 25th
February 2023, the date slated for presidential and national assembly
elections.
In a most traumatic
betrayal of a peoples trust and denigration of a country’s image, the
leadership and management of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), in a manner aggressively and directly in contradiction with the
Nigerian Constitution and relevant electoral laws and pursuant regulations,
particularly the Electoral Act 2022 and the INEC Regulations 2022, delivered
what has variously been described as an electoral heist of unimaginable
proportions bordering on repudiation of the basis and fundamental precepts of
democracy.
The Nigerian electorate,
domestic and foreign election observers, and the international community as a
whole, took adequate notice of the charade INEC conducted under the guise of an
election. The elections conducted by INEC on the 25th of February
served to directly impugn Your Excellency’s commitment to free and fair polls.
The Constitution directly
accords your office necessary and cogent powers to ensure that the Federal
Government and all its Ministries, agencies, and parastatals, inclusive of
INEC, adhere to the tenets and spirit of the CFRN. In reality, unconstitutional
acts, none compliance with extant laws, and wrongs generally can only be
perpetuated by entities created under our laws to the extent that the President
of the Federal Republic is either not aware of such infractions, or acquiesces
to such infractions. We write believing that Mr. President is not aware of
these unconstitutional acts, none compliance with the laws and wrongs
generally, and would want to leave office knowing he has done his very best for
the Government and peoples of the Federal Republic.
At this juncture, we must
admit that Mr. President’s patriotic and legitimate actions in response to the
illegalities displayed by the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the
recently concluded Adamawa State gubernatorial supplementary elections, gave us
added impetus to pen this correspondence in the hope that Mr. President will
likewise see the dangers in not nipping absurdities in the bud by similarly
calling on the relevant security agencies to exhaustively investigate the
conduct of the INEC Chairman and some of his associates regarding their
announcement of results and declaration of a winner when the processes of the
presidential elections were yet uncompleted.
Issues Arising: Unconstitutional Acts, Infractions of
Laws and Moral debasement
We shall hereunder proceed
to highlight the constitutional aberrations, illegalities and uncouth acts that
INEC indulged in, to arrive at the most unconstitutional and illegitimate
outcomes it rendered as the outcome of the 2023 Presidential elections, in the
believe that your goodself will direct the Attorney General of the Federation
and Minister of Justice and other agencies and instruments of the Federal
Government on the proper steps to take with regards to containing the
enthronement of illegitimacy and what we will choose to refer to as ‘unconstitutionalism’
in our polity.
1. Declaring a
person unqualified to be a candidate as President-elect
Section 137(1): A
person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if -
(d) he is under a sentence of death imposed
by any competent court of law or tribunal in Nigeria or a sentence of imprisonment or fine for any offence involving dishonesty
or fraud (by whatever name called) or for any other offence, imposed on him
by any court or tribunal or substituted by a competent authority for any other
sentence imposed on him by such a court or tribunal;
As Your Excellency may be
aware, considering the fact that the issue has dominated public discourse and
certainly should have elicited interest of the relevant security agencies, sequel
to investigations and judicial processes conducted by the Federal Bureau of
Investigations of the United States, the United States Government sought for
and obtained forfeiture in the sum of US$460,000 in relation to drug
trafficking and money laundering charges which are offences bothering on fraud
and dishonesty, from the person INEC has pronounced as President-elect (and
indeed the said Mr. Tinubu has never denied that he forfeited the said sum –
his defense being that it was a forfeiture outside the jurisdiction of Nigeria
and that the forfeiture were against his accounts, not his person).
From the provisions of the
CFRN 1999 which we have highlighted above, which are each stand-alone
provisions, default of which renders any person presented as a candidate by a
political party ineligible to contest for the office of President of the
Federal Republic, it is clear that the forfeiture of sums for charges related
to drug trafficking and money laundering, renders Mr. Tinubu ineligible to be a
contestant or candidate in an election for the office of President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Not being a candidate at
the said elections in the eye of the CFRN, the purported declaration of the
said Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the President-elect sequel to the presidential
elections held on 25th February 2023, is gross and an abuse of the
powers delegated to the INEC Chairman under the Electoral Act, thus rendering
the act of the purported declaration, illegitimate and an affront on the CFRN
If this travesty is not
immediately corrected as the travesty of an INEC REC announcing results and
declaring a winner, as occurred in Adamawa State, there yet will be a time when
an INEC Chairman will, of his own accord, declare a person who is not a duly
nominated candidate of a political party as the President-elect.
2. Declaring a
candidate who did not meet constitutional prerequisites as President-elect
Sec. 134(2) A
candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have
been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election-
(a) he has
the highest number of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not less than
one-quarter of the votes cast at the election each of at least two-thirds of all
the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
In his purported
declaration of a President-elect on the 1st of March, 2023, sequel
to the 25th of February presidential elections, INEC Chairman
surreptitiously and deliberately feigned ignorance of the clear and unambiguous
provisions of Section 134(2)A of CFRN.
In the course of the
announcement of the purported collated results from the presidential elections,
the candidate of the Al Progressive Congress (APC), who was declared as
President-elect by the INEC Chairman, scored 20% of the votes cast in the
Federal Capital Territory, Abuja – a percentage that is clearly below the
minimum threshold required of any candidate to be declared as President-elect.
It is pertinent to point
out that the various candidates declared as Presidents-elect under the current
constitutional dispensation (Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and your
goodself) had secured more that the mandatorily required 25% of votes cast in
the FCT.
By virtue of the said
provisions, the person declared as President-elect did not meet explicit and
clear constitutional requirement to be so declared as President-elect. In real
3. Declaring a
candidate as elected when the processes prescribed by the Constitution and Law
for that purpose had not been concluded
In conformity with the
Electoral Act 2020, the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of
Elections 2022, and Manual, the following are the steps that must be taken
between the conclusion of voting and the announcement of election results and
where possible, the declaration of a winner of the presidential polls:
Results are brought in
from the various comprising units (in the case of the Presidential elections,
the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory);
Issues raised concerning
the elections are definitively addressed by the Returning Officer of the
elections; and
Final results are
announced.
In the case of the presidential
elections held on the 25th of February 2023, what were purported to
be results from the States and Abuja were brought in, to which Political Party
Collating Center Agents (PPCCA) vigorously opposed, and raised objections to
their authenticity, validity and reliability as results coming from the States.
The Returning Officer for the Presidential elections (who also happens to be
the Chairman of INEC), undertook to address and resolve the issues raised by
the said PPCCA’s prior to the final announcement of results.
Without addressing the
issues raised by the PPCCA’s, thus skipping a vital aspect of the collation and
announcement of election results protocols, the RO/INEC Chairman, surreptitiously
in the wee hours of Wednesday, the 1st day of March, 2023, announced
what he termed as final results and declared the candidate of the ruling party
as President-elect, and subsequently, within a few hours of the illegitimate
declaration, proceeded to issue what he, the RO/INEC Chairman termed a
‘Certificate of Return as President-elect’
This audacious
none-adherence to laid down procedures INEC had marshalled out for itself
pursuant to its powers under the Electoral Act 2022, ordinarily renders
whatsoever was announced illegitimate and beyond the powers of the RO/INEC
Chairman.
The impunity and total
disregard for laid down procedures by the RO/INEC Chairman, lays a most
dangerous precedent wherein any person opportune to be the RO/INEC Chairman may
delude him/herself into thinking that all it will take to become an elected
public official is pronouncement as such by the electoral umpire, whether that
pronouncement is in sync with the CFRN, the Electoral Act or subsidiary
Guideline and Regulations for elections. This ugly and despicable act of the
RO/INEC Chairman directly served as motivational precedent soon after the
presidential elections of 25th February 2023, when the Adamawa State
Resident Electoral Commission, in total disregard of laid down procedures,
announced results of the Adamawa State Supplementary elections and declared a
candidate as winner.
It is interesting to note
that the INEC leadership at Abuja, who felt blindsided by the audacity and
impunity of its REC in Adamawa State, swiftly annulled the declaration of the
Adamawa State REC, and righted the wrongs committed. The INEC Chairman and the
Commission was disciplining a member of its staff who, in neglecting laid down
Laws and procedures to hurriedly declare illegitimate and ultra-constitutional
results, had acted exactly as the INEC Chairman had done when the said Chairman
had declared the candidate of the ruling APC as the winner of the Presidential
elections and President-elect.
It is intriguing to note
that whilst Mr. President had swiftly, and rightly so, condemned the actions of
the Adamawa State REC and ordered security agencies to investigate and bring
all the culprits to justice, the President had failed to equally condemn and
invite the security agencies to investigate and prosecute the rascality of the
INEC Chairman who had earlier acted in similar vein.
4. Unlawful nomination
for two elective offices within the same election circle.
Section 115(1)d of the
Electoral Act clearly makes it a criminal offense for anyone to be nominated
for two political offices within the same election circle. The Vice Presidential
candidate of your political party in the last presidential elections, Kashim
Shettima, is believed to have being a nominee of your political party, the All
Progressives Congress (APC), for the Senatorial elections for Bornu Central
Senatorial district, as at the same time he was nominated as a Vice
Presidential candidate.
If indeed this crime is
established, the fact that the Vice Presidential candidate and the Presidential
candidate of any party during the presidential elections have a joint ticket,
with the ineligibility of one affecting the other, it translates to the fact
that the ruling APC did not have any candidate during the February 25th
presidential elections. The pronouncement of Mr. Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as
winners of the presidential elections and their declaration as President-elect
and Vice President-elect respectively, becomes a crime in itself.
We enjoin Your Excellency
to deploy the immense investigatory and law enforcement mechanisms available in
the country towards addressing this issue, investigate and where found culpable,
prosecute all involved in the criminal act of declaring an entity who could be
a non-candidate as President- and Vice President-elects.
5. Rectitude
and National Integrity and Standing amongst the Comity of Nations:
(a). The so-called
President-elect’s forfeitures for drug trafficking and money laundering: one of the sterling qualities which had given Mr.
President some moral grounds to navigate unscathed in the murky waters of
national and international politics and maintain a tag of a statesman, is the
unequivocal revulsion to the vice of drug trafficking. Mr. President had in his
first stint at presiding over the affairs of Nigeria, albeit exuberantly,
executed three convicted drug traffickers for serving as couriers of illicit
drugs.
It is thus appalling that
a President, who as Military Dictator in 1985 had executed 3 convicted drug
traffickers (whose crimes, by the way, did not attract a death penalty as at
the time when the three convicts committed the crimes), is now presiding over a
most corrupted process which via unconstitutional means and in violation of
electoral laws, seeks to hand over the reins of governance of Nigeria to a man
who forfeited the sum of $460,000.00 to the United States Government for
involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering offences. If indeed the
said Mr. Tinubu had won the presidential elections, then Mr. President would
have no choice than to abide by the choice of the people. In this instance,
however, there are clear indications that the Constitution, Electoral laws and
Guidelines were subverted, violence deployed and other uncouth irregularities
and atrocities committed to foist the said Mr. Tinubu on Nigeria and Nigerians
– this is most unfortunate.
It is our belief that Mr.
President might not be fully aware of the incongruity of the persona who his
party, with connivance of the INEC Chairman seeks to foist on the Nigerian
State as President, with the need to keep Nigeria as a respected member of the
international community free from the ravages of corrupt practices and the
stigma of being regarded as a narco-State. In the event that Mr. President is
unwilling to……
(b). Inviting the specter of a Presidents Manuel
Noriega (Panama) or Juan Hernandez (Honduras) on Nigeria
Mr. President is very much
aware of the harms the vice of drug trafficking and money laundering has
occasioned the Nigerian State and the fact that the twin vices are looked upon
with derision by the global community. It is our contention that the prospect
of Nigeria being categorized as a narco-state, and thus treated like a pariah
in the comity of nations, on account of having a character with proven track
record of involvement in the twin vices being illegitimately foisted as
President, cannot be the legacy Mr. President will wish to bequeath on Nigeria
and Nigerians.
With Mr. Tinubu’s history
of involvement in international drug trafficking and money laundering, what and
who is there to stop a repeat of the scenario of extra-jurisdictional arrests
visited upon the former President of Panama, Mr. Manuel Noriega – who eventually
died in a United States Federal Prison after being sentenced for drug
trafficking related charges) and immediate past President of Honduras (Juan
Hernandez (who is currently cooling his heels in a US prison on similar
charges. I believe, Mr. President, that you indeed do have a modicum of love
and respect for the Nigerian state and would not wish such calamity upon her.
The prospect of the
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) being ultimately answerable and accountable to an
individual who had in time past forfeited humongous sums for involvement in the
twin vices of drug trafficking and money laundering, is mindboggling and will
be an indelible and destructive stain on the integrity, standing and moral
fabric of the Nigerian state that will no doubt retard efforts by various past
governments to pull Nigeria out of poverty and on the path of development.
6.
Perjury in lying about dual citizenship in affidavit
submissions to INEC:
Not content with
manipulating the electoral processes for own interest, whipping up ethnocentric
sentiments which served to push Lagos, the economic nerve-center of Nigeria to
the edge of inter-ethnic conflagration, and involvement in drug trafficking and
money laundering offences which led to his forfeiture of colossal sums to the
US Government, the same Mr. Tinubu is now, in documents presented to INEC towards
facilitating his candidature for the said presidential elections, revealed to
have lied under oath with regards to whether he has acquired the citizenship of
another country other than Nigeria.
As Mr. President may be well
aware, lying under oath is a serious offence under the Laws of Nigeria, moreso
when the person who is suspected to have committed such offence is being
foisted on Nigeria as its next president by virtue of uncouth practices earlier
enumerated.
For the sake of consistent
abhorrence of unconstitutional acts and illegalities, s Mr. President had
swiftly, and we must add patriotically and lawfully, acted in the illegalities
occasioned by INEC in the case of the Adamawa State gubernatorial supplementary
elections, Mr. President is hereby called upon to act with urgency, to direct
relevant law enforcement agencies to investigate, and prosecute whosoever is
found culpable in the matters of Perjury, presentation of forged certificates
to INEC and other infractions of the Constitution, Electoral Act and pursuant
Guidelines and Regulations guiding the presidential elections processes.
If Mr. Tinubu is allowed
to use the guise of being unconstitutionally declared as President-elect to
avoid responsibility and accountability for his lies under oath in public
affidavits, the Office of the President of the Federal Republic would have been
unfortunately turned into a place of refuge for criminals.
Are issues raised here overtaken by the actions before
the presidential elections Tribunal?
The question may be asked
in some quarters: ‘are the issues being raised here for Mr. President attention
and action not all issues pending before the Presidential Election Tribunals’
and thus subject to the doctrine of ‘lis
pendens’ (matters already before a court for adjudication), and not worthy
of presidential interventions as the Executive arm of Government may be accused
of interfering in the judicial processes?
The answer to the above query
is an emphatic ‘No’! The fact that civil remedies are being sought in a suit
does not preclude requisite authorities from inquiries, investigations,
prosecutions and taking other steps into the criminal components arising from
facts pending in a civil action.
The Presidential Elections
Tribunal is focused on civil claims. Perjury, presentation of forged certificates
and violation of electoral laws are criminal law issues which the relevant law
enforcement agencies can take up whensoever they consider appropriate,
irrespective of the civil matters before the elections tribunals. The urgent
need for law enforcement agencies to step in timeously and investigate the myriad
allegations against Mr. Tinubu is buttressed by the fact that if, for any
reason, the said so-called President-elect gets inaugurated into office, our
Constitution accords him immunity from investigations and prosecution.
Mr. Presidents Valedictory Messages
As Mr. Presidents exit
date from office draws increasingly near, Your Excellency has taken it upon
himself to reassure Nigerians that you want to leave Nigeria a better, more
peaceful and prosperous place then Your Excellency met it in 2015. Your
Excellency asserted at your last Sallah meeting with high profile residents of
Abuja, that you are desirous to return to your hometown, Daura, in Katsina
State, where you will be retiring to, which is a trackable distance to the
Republic of Niger, and that if Nigerians try to visit and disturb you at the
expiry of your tenure, you will simply cross the border to have some rest. At that same meeting, you rightly pleaded for
forgiveness from Nigerians for whatsoever wrongs or errors you might have
committed during your stay in office as President.
Regarding how Your
Excellency will leave Nigeria by May 29th 2023, when your tenure
expires, it is quite late in the day to begin to wish or hope, as the reality
of the impact of your current administration is quite entrenched and impossible
to re-wish, one way or the other, in the 35 days you have remaining in office.
For instance, the reality that at the inception, Nigeria was the fasted growing
economy in all Africa is not in doubt; another reality is that as your
administration exits, the same Nigeria has not only fallen off the list of 10
fastest growing economies in Africa, the country has attained the status of the
Poverty Capital of the World.
To err, Sir, is human, to
forgive divine. The people will no doubt be willing to forgive, as you have
desired for past errors and misdeeds. I believe your assertion that since your
hometown is a few kilometers to Republic of Niger, that you could easily walk
away from Nigeria’s problems which you might have helped to foster, was a mere
joke. It is however apt to correct that impression here, by reminding your
goodself, Sir, of the happenings in Sudan, where citizens of Sudan are already flowing
over into neighboring countries to take refuge. The Republic of Niger may not
provide your Excellency the desired refuge, if you do not seize the present
opportunity to right wrongs in Nigeria.
Presidential interventions sought:
The interventions hereby sought
from Mr. President regarding the matters contained in this correspondence are germane,
explicit and concise:
1.
order all
relevant law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate the sundry issues
raised in this correspondence, and where deemed appropriate, prosecute the
culprits, including the erring INEC Chairman and his collaborators – as Mr.
President had done in the case of unconstitutional, unlawful and immoral acts committed
by INEC in a wrongful declaration of a winner in the Adamawa State
gubernatorial supplementary elections
2.
more
specifically, order the NDLEA and the EFCC to investigate the forfeiture by Mr.
Tinubu to the United States Government, to determine the likely consequences of
such forfeitures to the Nigerian State, her peoples, integrity, and standing in
the comity of nations; and
3.
ensure that
inauguration into the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is
not used as a shield or ruse to avoid accountability and responsibility for
crimes earlier committed.
Dear Major General
Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.), Your Excellency, we hope you will seize this unique opportunity availed you by providence to right wrongs and assuage the multiple harms that have befallen Nigerians during your now-ending tenure. Quite a sizable number of Nigerians believe that Your Excellency may have vested interests in the unfolding impasse - we, however, write believing that altruistic patriotic considerations will trump whatsoever other considerations that might exist if indeed they do exist. As you exercise the powers conferred on
your office by the Constitution to do what is right for the people of Nigeria,
we wish you a peaceful and quiet retirement within the borders of the country
you have been opportune to rule for a cumulative period of over 9 years.
Yours respectfully,
Eze Eluchie, Esq.
NB: In view of the fact
that this correspondence will be broaching on legal issues, we have routed this
letter through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and
Minister of Justice, in the believe that the said Minister will accord you
deeper perspectives and insight into the contents thereof and the need to act timeously to safeguard the integrity of Nigeria, its Constitution and its position as a responsible member of the international community governed by the rule of law.
Pix: President Muhammadu Buhari and Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu
