A former national president of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Sir (Chief) Ernest Elochukwu has debunked accusations that he aided the Chairman of the Association Electoral Commission (ASECO), Mr. Obiora Elochukwu in any ways and form to undermine the process leading to the Apapa chapter exercise before it was inadvertently declared inconclusive.
Chief Elochukwu who is currently on the association’s Board of Trustees (BoT) also objected to assumptions that he was opposed to a compromise arrangement to mediate peace between the two camps that contested the election in Apapa chapter.
In a very lively and engaging interview with our Editor-in-Chief, Eguono Odjegba, the respected former president after ruminating over the just concluded election scored the association low in electoral culture. Enjoy the conversation.
Excerpt:
You were saying you wanted to react to our publication’s report on the board’s resolution that declared the Apapa chapter election inconclusive and our analysis on its moral burden on the board.
Yes, l actually wanted to know whether it was a feature article or it is your opinion or something you know…because the content were a little bit…I don’t know whether to say, curious. Because if somebody has said that the ASECO chairman and his brother who was a former national president, of course the person meant the ASECO chairman, Obiora Elochukwu, his brother, the former national president is Ernest Elochukwu. So it probably would have been better to call their names, because that would make it a bit straight that there is an allegation. I thought it might also be good by your level in journalism to get across to the said people to say this is what has been said, what is your reaction? So that the reader can read and judge for himself so that the person who spoke anonymously can maybe be called out, because if the report had said the ASECO Chairman and a board member, it would have been opened to conjecture. So l was not expecting that that sort of report should come from your stable judging from our relationship, since you always have access to me on any issues. It would have just been much, much better if in the process of that, the report didn’t allude to me but because it has been so done, I feel there is the need for us to address issues arising there from even though l will never oblige any other stable if the editor didn’t think it is proper to call to balance issues of allegation so that the accused can also state his position.
No problem sir, forgive me but the fact is that l tried reaching you and l also called the ASECO chairman but got no response. I am sure you must have missed the calls.
So where do we start?
To put the facts right, is it true that there was a parley and that the board suggested that one of the contesting camps should make concession? Were concessions made and if yes, why were the agreements not respected and kept?
First and foremost, it was not the board suggestion; the board did not suggest anything. And I want people to always come from what is known, what is the norm all over the world? And what has become, shamefully, our country’s mould or would I call it morality in election? The issue was that some vested interests did everything possible to put trouble into the Apapa chapter election. And the story of over voting that cropped up was the excuse some people needed to truncate the Apapa chapter election, and so the issue of inconclusive exercise that was hastily ascribed to Apapa election was also part of the whole plan; looked at broadly. However, somewhere along the line, we were told that some elders in the western zone met with some of the parties, and have come up with some kind of resolution.
To the best of my knowledge, and in all the elections I’ve ever seen, the issue of harmonization has always happened before the election itself. I have never seen a harmonization that sits when votes have been cast and everything has become clear which is the winning party or camp. I don’t know how that become a moral issue or duty, but then like everything in Nigeria, we have come to the least low, the lowest low as far as elections are concerned.
You sound really very worried.
Yes…but nothing surprises me anymore, so that purported discussion or arrangement with the camps was not initiated by the board to the best of my knowledge. But then, some of us felt that anything that can bring about peace, whatever it is, so long as it is acceptable to the people concerned, I wouldn’t be the one to oppose it. Are you with me?
Yes am with you sir.
So that was exactly what happened, there are many questions that need to be asked, for instance, even when you say an election is inconclusive, it doesn’t mean that the election is canceled, it’s just to resolve things that we’re not clear at that point in time. But then, when the ASECO gave the report, the unanimous report…that is the four members ASECO attested to that report when it was given…it threw some people off balance. And rather than go with the ASECO report some people insisted that, ‘oh, whatever it is that had been started as the supposed reconciliation should be carried to conclusion.
So like I said, it’s not my election, it’s not my problem, so long as it’s acceptable to the parties concerned. The only thing that was curious at this particular point in time was something that looks like trying to give a man who has actually lost an election, the upper hand. By the time you are talking about what position that should be allocated to the camp that has lost…after all when people say election is inconclusive, for the avoidance of any doubt, whenever votes are cast when those votes are been separated, agents of the contesting camps were there to ensure that the counting are not manipulated.
I need a clarification chief, are you saying that as a member of the board you were not aware of this alleged dialogue and compromise? And are also saying that the request to allocate or concede two elective positions to the opponent’s camp is a misinformation and aftermath of the election and not prior to the election?
Whatever that is happening prior to the election is entirely between the campaigns of the camps that are going for election. It is natural, if there is any way they want to harmonize the two camps…it has always happened, but that is the one that is always done and then presented. And usually in such case, you find where there is a line up in a chapter, where there is only one contestant for each post. If it’s a time that there has been harmonization, especially prior to that time, many candidates who are vying can come out and make open withdrawal from the race. So those are the harmonization that somebody like me knows about. If it happens in any chapter, but then a harmonization that was supposed to have been initiated after votes have been cast…and then a particular election was declared inconclusive because there was allegation of over voting that we cannot even prove, I find it very curious. So but then, like I said, I am not opposed to anything that is acceptable to the parties that are involved. But then I think it is also an indictment on ANLCA’s electoral culture that an election had started, winners have apparently emerged and then, somewhere along the line, some people say ‘oh, this election recorded over voting’, which was not true, and because of that allegation and in order to avoid maybe chaos and situation getting out of control at the venue of the elections, so it was hastily declared as inconclusive.
Say sir, was the declaration that the chapter election is inconclusive based on the BoT resolution or was it an individual’s decision based on credible concerns?
Well, the chairman of the board declared it inconclusive, he had actually tried to justify it based on what was happening and I guess everybody was there. There were no conclusion but then, he gave satisfactory explanation because he said he felt that when the shouting…people started shouting and all that…he felt it could degenerate to something else. So to that extent, yes, but then the fact that it was hastily declared inconclusive is not being contested.
Okay, what exactly is being contested?
I was coming to that. It was after that that there is this purported meeting of the elders. One of the things that is paining me is that…when l was president in 2004 to 2008 I tried to remove this sentiment, this tribal sentiment, because what has happened was totally and entirely tribal between the Yoruba and the Igbo. I have always wondered, the Association of Nigerian Licensed Custom Agent is not an association of Yorubas and Igbos, it is a Nigerian association, it is a national association. And as far as l know there are many other tribes that are involved in freight forwarding so why could it be that whenever it comes to the issue of election some people will gather and say ‘oh this position must go to the Yorubas, this position must go to the Igbos. That’s exactly what happened and like l said it brought ANLCA to an all time low as far as the election morality is concerned. Some people felt that those of us who did not embrace the so-called peace are not gentlemen. To the best of my knowledge a lot of things happened there…about the ways that all this harmonization was going on. Some of the people who were already on the part of victory were now put out of calculation and some were asking what it was that warranted that this should be done to them. Nobody has answered them.
At this point what is the outlook, is the resolution to concede one or two positions to the opposing camp for peace to reign going to be implemented? And if yes, do you foresee any problem?
Well l don’t foresee any problem if their leaders can appeal to them to forego their electoral victory for now and they accept. However l am also not given to star guessing to know what would be the outcome. All l said was that what brought about this was not as a result of any particular concrete arrangement that is worth talking about…this position must be occupied by a Yoruba or Igbo. In fact l keep hearing of an arrangement that said if Igbo hold this position for this tenure, the Yoruba will do this other tenure and l ask what about members from other sections of the country? Are they not entitled to positions too? And why must we put this tribal chauvinism unchecked in ANLCA? And then to understand that people at high positions in ANLCA are condoning and supporting it, l find it a little bit disgusting. Like I said, I am not opposed to anything that will bring peace, whatever type of peace that Nigeria wants.
Sounds like you have given up hope of a better Nigeria.
Not exactly…you know it also tells me a whole lot of things, people like us who always talk about what is not decent, what is not acceptable all over the world, we will always been seen as those making trouble. Because the question is, we know it is wrong against the principles of democracy if one who has won or appears to have won an election is not given the victory. There was something that happened in 1954 or 1959 , can you remember, the election which NCNC won at the Western House of Assembly?
Is it the electoral victory that resulted carpet crossing and all the rest of it?
Yes, carpet crossing because people were intimidated into either carpet crossing or being killed. Of course people choose to be alive and carpet crossed. Now that happened in the late 1950s, in 1993 MKO Abiola won an election that was ajudged as the most fairest, the freest in human history, even in America. People queued up behind the candidates they were voting for, the people they believed will serve them better, and what happened was the infamous annulment. And 33 years after IBB came up to tell us stories that were tales by the moonlight, and in our individual Nigerian ways, we are trying to justify it. Since then there has been precedence. Now it is for us to know that circle of injustices will never bring progress to any nation. In the same vein circles of injustices will never bring progress to any association. I rest my case.
