How Nigeria's [then Ruling] PDP Paid EC Officials To Rig The 2015 Elections

QUOTE:
It may be asked, why should what allegedly went on during Nigeria's elections be of any interest to us in Ghana? The answer is that the two countries are socially and politically linked together. When the Internet crime known as “419” became rampant in Nigeria, it soon made its way to Ghana too. The Ghanaians refined it to become what we call sakawa.

More seriously, after supervising an election in which such huge sums of money (as revealed by Punch) were allegedly distributed to officials of the Nigerian Independent National Elections Commission, the chair of that Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, came to Ghana in December 2015, to give two lectures – one in Accra and the other in Kumase-- on how efficiently INEC had conducted the Nigerian elections. The intention, no doubt, was that Ghana should follow Nigeria's example UNQUOTE:

My late friend, Fifi Hesse, who was Principal Secretary to the Ministry of Education in the 1970s, told me how he and his Minister once attended a conference in Nigeria shortly after the June 4 1979 events in Ghana.

At one social gathering, their Nigerian hosts surrounded them and interrogated them:

“Ei, (they asked ) so your soldier rulers shot some big people for eating government money?”

“Yes.”
“How much money at all did the dead people eat?”

“Well, the trials were conducted t in secret so we don't really know. But we heard that someone used his office to borrow $50,000 or so....”

“And because of $50,000 they shot him? Ei, then what would they have done, were they in this country? Here we don't eat small moneys like that o! Here, we eat budget!”

Everyone laughed.
But it wasn't a joke, as the following report from the Punch newspaper, one of the oldest newspapers in Nigeria, illustrates:

QUOTE: “[A] panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari.. to probe arms procurement between 2007 and 2015 has allegedly uncovered massive fraud in the Nigerian Army...

"It will be recalled that the panel had, so far, submitted two reports on its probe to the President.

“While the first interim report was submitted in November 2015, the second report was submitted in January [2016] following which Buhari ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] to investigate 18 serving and retired military officers, mainly from the Air Force. The … panel, which has Air Vice Marshal J. O. Ode (retd.) as its chairman, was concluding work on the probe of the Army.

“It was gathered that part of the panel’s discovery was that the total amount involved in arms fraud was $15bn and not $2.1bn..... The $2.1bn earlier reported as the mismanaged arms procurement money, was just for one transaction.

A top government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said ….“The committee is still working. What they discovered in the Army is enormous....

“When asked when the third report would be submitted to the President and be made public, the source said Buhari had directed the panel to change tactics. “The President has directed that we explore the option of prosecuting indicted persons immediately, instead of first publicising their names, thereby giving some of them the leeway to escape justice,” he explained.....

"Meanwhile, in a continuation of the probe into how the People's Democratic Party [PDP] allegedly bribed some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] before the 2015 presidential election, the EFCC has arrested an oil tycoon, [name withheld] for his alleged role in the $115m (N23bn) bribe funds. It was learnt that [the tycoon] who is the Chief Executive Officer of [an oil company] was arrested by the EFCC in Lagos on Friday [29 April 2016].

“The anti-graft agency had [also] arrested the Managing Director of [a bank] and the bank’s Head of Operations.... [The MD] was alleged to have handed $1.85m to the bank, based on the instructions of a former Minister....Other companies, which allegedly handed over money to the bank MD, included [a] Gas Company ($60m); [another petroleum sector company] ($17.8m); and [a third] Oil and Gas [Company] ($9.5m).

“[The former Minister] was also alleged to have given the bank MD $26m in cash which was ultimately disbursed to officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission ahead of the 2015 presidential election as bribes.... The money was given to the bank for safekeeping and there was no intention for it to be used to open an account.….The money was meant for distribution to INEC officials. When the bank MD was collecting $26m cash from a serving minister, why didn’t he ask where [it came] from?” UNQUOTE

http://punchng.com/15bn-arms- scandal-presidential-panel- uncovers-massive-fraud-army/

Now, it may be asked, why should what allegedly went on during Nigeria's elections be of any interest to us in Ghana? The answer is that the two countries are socially and politically linked together. When the Internet crime known as “419” became rampant in Nigeria, it soon made its way to Ghana too. The Ghanaians refined it to become what we call sakawa.

More seriously, after supervising an election in which such huge sums of money (as revealed by Punch) were allegedly distributed to officials of the Nigerian Independent National Elections Commission, the chair of that Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, came to Ghana in December 2015, to give two lectures – one in Accra and the other in Kumase-- on how efficiently INEC had conducted the Nigerian elections. The [unstated] intention, no doubt, was that Ghana should follow Nigeria's example.

Prof Jega also met with key stakeholders, including the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, the Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Wood, Ghanaian political party leaders and candidates, traditional rulers and religious leader, as well as members of civil society and international development partners.

Of course, there is no reason why Prof Jega should necessarily have been aware of everything that was going on inside some pockets of the Commission over which he presided. But if the allegations levelled against the PDP are true, then it is clear that it is not enough just to have an upright or efficient person in charge of an institution, for it not to become corrupt. The current chair of the Ghana Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, does not seem to understand this, as she appears to fight doggedly against a number of the measures through which some of the political parties wish to ensure that a free and fair election takes place in November 2017.

In an election, the ruling party always has an advantage over its rivals. For one thing, it is the ruling party that ensures that the electoral body obtains, in a timely fashion, the funds and other resources necessary to do its electoral organisation functions. In Mrs Osei's case, her very appointment seemed was greeted with distrust by some of the opposition parties. And that has placed an obligation on her to prove the doubters wrong. She doesn't need to bow down to everything the opposition parties say, of course, but she definitely needs to win their trust, for they speak on behalf of the people, and the people need to perceive that the Electoral Commission, under Mrs Osei, is totally neutral and trustworthy.

The revelation in Nigeria that a seemingly competent a Chairman as Attahiru Jega was, managed to be blind-sided by subordinates cherry-picked by the party in power to rig the vote in its favour, must make Mrs Osei first shudder, and then -- reflect deeply. She must realise that she is not the only one working at the Electoral Commission, and if she wants to run the place with transparency and integrity, then she must, as stated before, be perceived to be someone to whom -- for instance -- secret information can be passed, without the whistle-blower(s) engaging in an exercise in futility.

All Mrs Osei needs to do, in order fully to understand why the opposition parties are so apprehensive, is to read what some of the Supreme Court judges who sat on the 2012 election petition, had to say about her predecessor, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, (who had an international reputation even greater than that of Prof Attahiru Jega.)

In a much-quoted finding, Mr Justice John Dotse said: QUOTE: “My observation is that Dr. Afari Gyan appeared to have concentrated his oversight responsibility at the top notch of the election administration, therebyabdicating his supervisory role at the grassroots or bottom, where most of the activities critical to the conduct of elections are performed. In this instance, he even appeared not to be conversant with some of the basic procedural steps and rules that are performed by his so-called temporary staff.

“So far as I am concerned, Dr. Afari Gyan has cut a very poor figure of himself, and the much acclaimed competent election administrator – both nationally and internationally-- has evaporated into thin air, once his portfolio has come under the close scrutiny of the Courts."UNQUOTE

Mrs Osei has to understand that elections mean so much to the people of a country that even where an incumbent political party tries to subvert the process – as the PDP did in Nigeria – it can still fail.

But that does not mean that the PDP didn't try or that other parties elsewhere won't emulate what the PDP did.

In Mrs Osei, Ghanaians would like to find a person who will ensure that whatever the blandishments dangled before her eyes (and these need not necessarily be monetary) she will rise above them and protect and preserve the will of the people of Ghana, as expressed in a free and fair election.

If she fails, and allows the coming election to be gamed,she can be sure that, as was the case with Dr Afari Gyjan, her fellow citizens will detect her inadequacies and pronounce judgement on them; a judgement that will turn her name into mud in Ghana.

Does she care enough about her good name to avoid that? Only she alone knows that – for the moment, at any rate.