By Igbotako Nowinta
Today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has caught up with Maurice Iwu, alleging that the former INEC Chairman, engaged in concealment, fraud and money laundering of the sum of 1.2billion naira, between December 2014 and March 2015, as part of the 23.29 billion naira allegedly distributed by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison Madueke, to manipulate the outcome of the 2015 Presidential Elections. In not trying to predetermine the outcome of the present case against Professor Maurice Iwu, as far as l am concerned, his current ordeal is nothing, but a matter of nemesis of betrayal, a wholesale treachery he consciously presided over against the Nigerian electorate during the course of the 2007 general elections. If Maurice Iwu had not made the PDP as a party happy in 2007, his negative services would never have been courted in 2015.
In my book ‘Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria,’ published in September 2009, I mentioned that the British colonialists in their desperation to determine those they favored to continue to run the show of governance after independence, deliberately taught Nigerians how to rig elections.
I quote here inter alia, the enchanting historic confessions Harold Smith made as follows: “I was one of the British officers serving on the headquarters staff in Lagos, chosen by the Governor-General, Sir James Robertson to mastermind the covert action to rig Nigeria’s elections.
“This secret operation hatched in White Hall was of course a gross betrayal of trust by prime ministers Sir Anthony Eden and Sir Harold Macmillan.” Moving forward, Harold Smith thundered thus: ‘We are the ones who rigged the elections.
“We are the ones who gave them the examples. We used every dirty trick in the book. We did it to Nigeria,” it is utterly disheartening that Nigeria became a victim of a vicious, malicious and well-orchestrated conspiracy.
No man in the recent history of Nigeria has so blatantly, remorselessly and treacherously stabbed the electorate in the back like Professor Maurice Iwu, when he was Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC).
His incredible feats in rigging the 2007 election in Nigeria for ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and his criminal gang of usurpers in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), rubbished what Harold Smith and his co-travelers initiated in the White Hall.
Undoubtedly, the1999 and 2003 general elections in Nigeria were marred by mind boggling electoral malpractices, and the nation collectively agreed that there must be a paradigm shift in conducting the 2007 general elections.
The nation moodily searched for a distinguished and trustworthy personality that will be fair and neutral to all political parties in the 2007 general elections, but unfortunately, the systemic statutory provisions covertly and overtly threw an Igbo man, called Professor Maurice Iwu on all of us.
In having their way, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and his demonic cohorts recruited Maurice Iwu to do their bidding, quite unknowingly to the electorate then in Nigeria. Then, as the Chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Edo State of Nigeria, l followed the
emerging electoral reform process closely. Personally, l was carried away by the propaganda and concocted lies that were dished out by the powers that be: that with Maurice Iwu, the 2007 elections would be a sharp contrast with the ones we had before.
In his nationwide sensitization tours, Maurice Iwu stopped over in Benin City in 2007.
Precisely, as one of the active stakeholders in the political drama being played out, we enthusiastically welcomed him at the main auditorium of the University of Benin, where in the midst of torrents of questions that were put before him, regarding the conduct of the said election, he swore to give the people of Nigeria credible, free and fair elections.
Most painfully, Professor Iwu took his message of deceits and absolute lies across the nation: l was one of those that fell miserably for his well-rehearsed sermon of falsehood. What befell the people of Nigeria in April in 2007 could be imagined.
As a master principality in election rigging, Professor Iwu manifested the evil script written for him to justify the alleged billions he had been paid by his financiers when he went ahead to conduct a cruelest electoral contest.
Dazed and shocked by Iwu’s absolute betrayal of the mass of the people of Nigeria, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka lamented thus: “The election will be cancelled anyway, so lam calling on all those spending money on congratulatory messages to save the money to buy garri…
“There is overwhelming evidence, that it has been an insult to Nigerians. Iwu has insulted the people of Nigeria and any one to want to sustain this is incredible.” Madeleine Albright, then United States Secretary of State remarked: “Marred by poor organization, lack of essential transparency under real procedural irregularities and significant evidence of fraud.”
In response to the brazen insult Professor Iwu inflicted on the nation, ex-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, knowing that the election that brought him to power was massively flawed, quickly inaugurated the 22 member National Electoral Reforms Committee, headed by former Justice Muhammed Uwais on August 28, 2007.
Indeed, according to Professor Wole Soyinka, “the elections were cancelled” in many states of the federation. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, and Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state, were some of the popular mandates that the judiciary reclaimed for posterity.
Today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has caught up with Maurice Iwu, alleging that the former INEC Chairman, engaged in concealment, fraud and money laundering of the sum of 1.2billion naira, between December 2014 and March 2015, as part of the 23.29 billion naira allegedly distributed by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison Madueke, to manipulate the outcome of the 2015 Presidential Elections.
In not trying to predetermine the outcome of the present case against Professor Maurice Iwu, as far as l am concerned, his current ordeal is nothing, but a matter of nemesis of betrayal, a wholesale treachery he consciously presided over against the Nigerian electorate during the course of the 2007 general elections.
If Maurice Iwu had not made the PDP as a party happy in 2007, his negative services would never have been courted in 2015. I stand to be corrected on this note. The on-going trial of Professor Iwu is a lesson to other public servants to always know that, a “King that will not know Joseph” in our clime will continue to surface as long as the day rolls into day and night.
The monumental national pains, frustrations and wastages caused by Maurice Iwu are unquantifiable in the history of Nigeria; now he is paying for his crimes. The stark lesson here is that public officers must never allow the immediate dictates of their pockets to determine their comfort and future.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – a call for democratic revolution in Nigeria.
