Personality, not party’ll shape 2027 polls – Prof Ahmad
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By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin
Professor Ali Ahmad is a professor of Law and Legislative Studies at the University of Abuja and former Speaker, Kwara State House of Assembly, and former member House of Representatives. In an interview with Vanguard in Ilorin, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chieftain spoke on issues that will shape the 2027 polls at the centre and in Kwara among others.
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On State of affairs in the
PDP We are still in PDP. We are not planning to leave PDP. We are still finding aspirations within the main party, so PDP is one. PDP might have its challenge rising and cooling down, but now you can see PDP is rising. We’re going to have a convention in Ibadan, hopefully, and we’ll move on. .
But are you not worried that governors dumped PDP?
Governors don’t make parties. Parties make them. So, people make parties, and that’s where some people get it wrong.
On why in 2019, 2023 general elections in Kwara State your party refused to go to court despite claims in certain quarters that there was rigging
In 2019, you people (journalists) knew what happened, but for 2023, you can’t say that we didn’t go to court. I heard that somebody spoke to you and said that one of the reasons they were leaving PDP was because after the local government elections, we didn’t go to court. That’s factually incorrect. During the primary elections, the party gave the guidelines to everybody: ‘Go home; if you want to be a councillor go to the grassroots. If you want to be local government chairman, go there.’ And that’s what happened, nobody dictated from anywhere, everybody drove the system from the bottom.
So, since it was the people that chose and we defeated APC all through but then they announced what they announced in Government House, which everybody knew. We went to court.
For example, in my local government, I went to the collation centre, I went there without security. We saw that the collation officers locked themselves in the room. About a thousand people, you saw the video, wanted to just push in and i said, ‘look, if anything happens here they will accuse me.’ I knew what they wanted to do. If I had gone forward, it would have been a mob action.
So, I told them to stop, what they could do was to change the results which they did but they didn’t even have the courage to announce it at the collation centre because they knew the people would react. They had to go to the Government House.
So, I went to court and this wasn’t a decision of the party, it was the decisions of local government stakeholders. In my local government, we went to court, i even went to court personally.
A couple of local governments went to court. We went to court and some others went to court. So, if you didn’t go and you are waiting for one Saraki somewhere to call you then there’s something wrong. You are now saying because PDP didn’t go to court that’s why I’m leaving, that’s not true.
On Senator Bukola Saraki’s alleged romance with the APC
There are lies and there are fantastic lies. This is one of the fantastic lies that the African Democratic Congress, ADC, people and other elements are brandishing around, it doesn’t make sense. ADC call themselves a coalition. ADC is not a coalition. Parties come for coalition, not individuals. So these people jumped the gun.
At the time ADC was re-branded, everybody was yearning for a coalition. But you see, they went too fast and miscalculated.
Instead of waiting for PDP or seeking alliance with PDP, APC, NNPP, they just pulled out and went into ADC and called it a coalition. But ADC is just another party, it came to Kwara to say that Saraki was working with APC.
How is that possible? If that was true, why has Saraki spent his time, and energy to lead the push in bringing back PDP from the brink?
If he had anything to do with Tinubu, as the chairman of that reconciliation committee, he would facilitate the killing of PDP but he uses energy, charisma, and everything to work with PDP’s leaders and brought the party back to the chagrin of APC.
When they saw that it was not selling, they said, it was Saraki that said we should go to ADC to hold forth and to be placeholders. Saraki realized the lies and came home and said, ‘look, I did not send anybody to ADC.
So from that day, ADC has been dead in Kwara. They don’t have movement, they don’t hold meetings again, apart from that initial meeting. ADC in Kwara was a flash in the pan.
Can your party PDP take them back to your fold?
Oh, surely. PDP has a large heart. They can come. They are our friends locally. Even nationally, we have friends there. We have friends all over. They are our friends. Let them come and let’s rescue this country. Let’s rescue this state from the clutches of APC.
Going by what you said, does it mean that the story in town that the APC is plotting to hand over Kwara to PDP in 2027 is not true?
It cannot be true. The calculation doesn’t work. There are some things that don’t just add up because Saraki is in PDP and there are people that are in APC. In 2027, what I think will likely happen is that the convergence of law and politics will break down. What do I mean?
Now, the law is that you vote for political parties, right? So you must go get a party to support you.
That’s the convergence of law and politics. But in 2027, you know what will happen? It will be personality. They will look at your eyes and say, Mr. Man, you are good, but you are not in my party but I will vote for you. Mr. Man, you are in my party, but you are not good,so I will not vote for you. So it’s not about the party. Party loyalty will not work in 2027. That convergence will break down. They will look at personality and vote for them.
On worries over credibility of our elections and how to make 2027 polls free and fair
The coalition that Nigeria needs now is the coalition for credible election. Once you go into a credible, free and fair election and lose, we are human beings, you will accept the results.
Nigeria is one of the countries that has the highest number of cases, electoral positions are determined by a judge. This doesn’t happen in most countries. In most countries, once the electoral management institution announces results, that’s the end because they know it’s credible.
But the incumbent won’t do that. i want President Bola Tinubu to ensure credible elections. If I were the president, I would do that and then look for alliances.
Some of his policies are presently hurting. What they’ve been telling us, I have not seen it, down the line. If President Tinubu loves Nigeria, he should do IREF so that in the next 50 years, anytime there is an election, his name will ring a bell. He should do that and look for alliances and coalitions to win his second term.
Can you break down what you have just narrated?
It means that from the polling unit, once you vote, because you cannot rig in the polling unit, it’s not possible. The only thing you do in a polling unit is to cause violence and that’s it.
So once you vote at the polling unit, the result will now be uploaded to the INEC portal at that polling unit, so that I will go back to my house, I don’t need a collation centre. Coalition centre is just for formality. So we want IREF to be constitutional.
All this electoral reform is nonsense. Just constitutionalise IREF, and we’re done. Let’s forget all those long lists of constitutional amendments, Put one item constitutional amendment, IREF, and see how Nigeria will turn out to be. Now, there’s voter apathy, nobody cares.
Without credible elections, there’s no democracy. People are just laughing at us and our democracy doesn’t command respect internationally. So I beg President Tinubu to do this for us, and look at some other ways of winning, and he would leave a lasting legacy.
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