Varying reactions to Falae’s petition

The bid by defeated candidate Olu Falae to get an appeal court to annul the victory of Olusegun Obasanjo at the 27 February presidential polls in Nigeria has drawn varied reactions. Not surprisingly, Obasanjo called on the court to dismiss Falae’s case “in its entirety”. Others also feel it is time for Falae to give up the fight, while some back his action. Falae, who was the joint candidate for the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD), says he was cheated out of victory by rigging, bribery, vote buying and other fraudulent activities by Obasanjo’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). “We have in our hands documents now to show that as many as five million votes disappeared into thin air,” Falae was quoted in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper of Lagos as saying. Illustrating this, he said 300,000 ballot papers were sent to a polling booth where only 500 people were registered to vote. Falae, who has succeeded in obtaining the court’s permission to inspect electoral materials for further evidence of fraud, said on Monday that he would proceed to the Supreme Court if the lower court turned his bid down. Falae’s move is supported by some Nigerians, such as Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. “He is using a civilised method of disputing political succession,” Soyinka commented recently. Dismissing criticism of the move, he added: “...Olu Falae is performing a service to the nation, ... so that when all the avenues have been exhausted, whoever comes out will feel that a democratic process has been tested and fulfilled.” But critics say Falae should withdraw his petition and let Nigeria get on with producing a lasting democratic polity. ‘The Guardian’ quoted Jolly Tanko-Yussuf, AD’s former national chairman, as saying, in its 18 March edition: “After the military exit by May 29, we should think on how to move the country forward.” “The ability of General Obasanjo to move this country forward under the civilian dispensation cannot be questioned because he has done it before: he voluntarily handed over to civilians in 1979,” Tanko-Yussuf said, adding that pre-election popularity ratings showed that Obasanjo would win. Falae also contests Obasanjo’s eligibility on the grounds that the former general belongs to a secret society - Obasanjo contends that if this were true it would have disqualified him from running for president. Some analysts doubt that another of Falae’s arguments - that Obasanjo was convicted of treasonable felony for involvement in a coup plot - carries much weight. “Even Falae will admit that the grant of a pardon for wrongful conviction does not come within the intendment of the conviction referred to by the law,” Nimi Walcot-Jack, executive director of the Centre for Responsive Politics, told IRIN. “It is widely believed that General Obasanjo was pardoned because there was no coup in the first place,” Abdul Oroh, of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), said. Referring to the charge that PDP officials bought votes, Walcot-Jack said independent observers had evidence that Falae’s side was equally guilty of that. But some legal analysts feel that Falae’s court action is good because it would strengthen the presidential mandate. One analyst said it would show, by a transparent process, either that Falae is entitled to the presidency or that he is not. His failure in court, the analyst said, would give “final authentication and legitimacy” to Obasanjo’s election. How the military will react to Falae’s appeal is uncertain, said Oroh, who coordinates a democracy action project at the CLO. “It may, however, offer an easy excuse for the military to extend its stay,” he said. An annulment of the election result, he explained, would not give INEC enough time to organise another vote before 29 May. “The legal niceties we are about to pursue could lead to the death of this [democratic] process,” Walcot-Jack argued.