Postpone 2011 election, Says El-Rufai

 Daniel Elombah

DANIEL ELOMBAH: You were quoted as calling for the postponement of the 2011 general elections and the May 29 handover date while speaking on ‘Credible voters register’ at a conference organised by Change Nigeria Project and the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. For some us that admire your record of service to Nigeria, that call is troubling.

NASIR El Rufai: it is up to Jega to decide....for me it is better to amend the Constitution to postpone the handover date to ensure that the adequate money, appropriate staff, communications infrastructure and trained monitoring personnel are on ground with an accurate voters register - thus leading to clean elections than rushing and repeating 2003 or 2007...i do not like the guys in NASS and many in the executive and wish they would leave tomorrow....but I am prepared to grudgingly live with them for a few more months if that will give Nigerians a chance to vote all the criminals amongst them out in clean and credible elections.

If you find this view troubling, then perhaps the status quo or its slight improvement is ok with you. Trust me, I have been closely involved in the preparations for 1998-99 elections and 2007....you need time money and people to do these things, and my assessment is that Jega has none in enough quantities. But it is up to him.

I am not in this government and will never be. I will not be a beneficiary of an extra month or more of their tenure...but will benefit ultimately if clean elections take place in Nigeria in my life time.

DANIEL ELOMBAH: Thanks for your response and the explanations. Someone wrote on FACEBOOK that as we approach 2011, "politically-expired" individuals are now desperately seeking relevance, working on behalf of their 'paymasters' but pretending to be nationalists. Mallam El-Rufai fired the 1st salvo, calling for 2011 elections to be postponed. Mallam, we know who your 'godfathers' are. If UMYA was alive, will you have asked for the election to be postponed? For how long will u continue to b a hypocrite?”

What clarifications do you have because for good or ill you are somehow perceived as being close to President Jonathan, and your statement could be taken as the president tasting the waters (The hands of Esau and the Voice of Jacob?)

NASIR El Rufai:  I am not close to Jonathan and have made it clear that I will not be part of his administration. I do not advise him or speak to him on his job. I feel affronted that at my age, experience and achievements in this life, any one would think that there exists any human that can tell me what to think say or do. So this hand of Esau is just nonsense. Even when I worked for Abdussalaam and Obasanjo, I do not do what they tell me but what makes sense to me professionally and in the national interest.

I do not care who runs for president and frankly would not even advice Goodluck to run if he would listen to me. And it is not because of zoning - I have voiced my opposition to it while in government, in exile and back home in Nigeria. It is because I think we are more likely to have credible elections when the incumbent has no interest in the outcome - and that I think will what will make Jonathan the most loved President Nigeria will ever have in our history books. Besides, I think he can always contest in the future and win easily!

What I care about above everything else and every one else is that we have elections that throws bad people out of office and elects decent ones. Everything I have tried to do while in public office, exile and back home is along this singular trajectory. I believe that good elections enable an organic link between politics and governance which is currently non-existent. If we have clean elections, and by consequence accountable governance, I am quite capable of succeeding as a private citizen in Nigeria. I have done so before. I have no business with involvement in politics and desire to EVER be in government if my country functions minimally. Nigeria used to function as a state, even minimally. In the last three years, it has deteriorated beyond belief.

People like the guy you just quoted are entitled to their views. I do not care about them or owe any one any explanation. I explained to you because you cared enough to ask...It is a free country and I am not in the media, activist or education business. I am a private citizen.

With regards the timeline for credible elections, it will not be up to Goodluck to decide if Jega has enough time, qualified honest and motivated staff and the communications and logistic infrastructure to conduct clean elections. Jega and his commissioners will determine that. If Obasnjo had asked me to do the job I did in Abuja over 4 years, without resources with all the staff I inherited in MFCT in 2003 and without any flexibility to hire and fire staff, deploy IT infrastructure in time, but to do the job in one year - I would have declined his ministerial offer and gone back to my consulting business!

Knowing his pedigree, I believe Jega will give up the job unless he is certain that all the resources, personnel, infrastructure and time he needs to do a decent election are available. If he resigns because he concludes otherwise, it will be more damaging to Jonathan. My views are mine and I stand by them because having been an observer and participant in election preparations in 1998 and 2006, I have an idea of the challenges ahead. Everyone is free to disagree with me, but I leave all those imputing motives to the judgment of God and posterity.

DANIEL ELOMBAH: I am happy that you took your time to go this length to explain your stand...especially your stand on Jonathan running for the presidency. Bottom line- give INEC ten years to prepare for election, they would still be found not ready! But mount pressure on them, ensure they have all the resources they need, give them all the political and financial backing, plug all the loopholes for corruption, and you will be surprised to see that all the materials for an election will be in place.

NASIR El Rufai:  It is only clean elections that will ensure political office holders wake up from their current culture of impunity. Hastily prepared, "sub-standards will not do...new voters register requires at least 4 months from the date of contracting those that can do the IT platform, then you need to display it for objections and corrections, then print between 60 and 70 million voters cards - another 2 months minimum, tell me with just these timelines, how can we have elections in January?

These are the issues....and we have not even talked about whether INEC and the ad-hoc staff have been trained and motivated etc, etc.....and Jega is not the sort of "business as usual" incompetents in sports and so on....let the man review the situation and decide....it is his call, but we must trust him and his independence to make that call.....all those commentators are neither aware of the full range of challenges he will face, nor on the hot seat...and when he fails, they will insult him and blame everything on him and his commissioners.....let them shut up and stop passing judgment.....and let him decide what works...we can only give the benefit of our experience as past participants and observers, not professional critics!