National Assembly members notorious for bribe taking – Jega

National Assembly members notorious for bribe taking – Jega

A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Monday accused the members of the National Assembly of bribe taking.

He said chairmen of committees in the National Assembly were more notorious for bribe  taking antics.

Jega made the allegation in Abuja while delivering a lecture titled, “Peace building and good governance for sustainable development in Nigeria,” as part of activities organised to mark the 2018 Democracy Day.

The former INEC boss told the gathering that included President Muhammadu Buhari; President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, that the federal lawmakers took bribes at will under the pretence of committee work and oversight functions.

He said the present administration should resist the temptation of restricting its ongoing anti-corruption war to embezzlement and theft alone.

He said the scope of the anti-corruption fight should be extended to cover bribe taking and giving especially in government agencies.

Jega said, “The fight against corruption has to be intensified in all its ramifications. There are many successes achieved which are commendable but the magnitude of the problem on the ground is turning these into drops in the ocean.

“Members of the National Assembly engage in bribe taking when they pursue committee works and oversight and I wonder what is happening with intelligence and investigative responsibilities of  security agencies in policing our National Assembly.

“Some chairmen of the committees in the National Assembly have become notorious on this issue of demanding bribes with impunity.

“I have passed through the university system. I have heard so many stories of many vice-chancellors about the horror that they go through on question of budget and so-called oversight assignments.

“I am not saying that the chief executives are saints but all we are saying is that we must point the searchlights so that Nigerians and particularly public office holders should have basic common decency and integrity by which they discharge their responsibilities because virtually everybody seems to forget about what is going on.”

We’re not bribe-takers – Senate

The Senate, however, denied Jega’s allegation, asking him to publish names of senators who had demanded bribes, failure of which he should apologise to the lawmakers.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi, said it was an allegation that the lawmakers were used to.

“Thank God you said it was an allegation, and that is what it remains. We will never stop getting allegations. So, when someone makes an allegation now, why should I react? This is not new. He is not saying anything new, people have been saying that before,” he said.

Principal officers of the Senate and chairmen of committees including the Chief Whip, Sola Adeyeye, and the Deputy Minority Leader, Emmanuel Bwacha, who spoke to The PUNCH also denied demanding and taking bribes.

The Majority Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, said he would first study the context in which Jega said what he said before responding to the allegation.

But the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes, Chukwuka Utazi, denied taking bribes and challenged Nigerians to ask from the EFCC  and the ICPC if they had given him bribes.

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Utazi said, “I did not work with Jega in the same National Assembly, so if he had said such, it should be the people in the 7th Assembly who worked with him. If you want to confirm whether that (Utazi collecting bribe) is true, go to the (Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim) Magu and the ICPC, and ask them whether I have collected anything from them or not.”

Also denying the allegation, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Baba Garbai, said he was at the event where Jega made the allegation. He however referred one of our correspondents to the Senate’s spokesman to speak for the lawmakers.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND, Barau Jibrin, could not be reached on the telephone as his line indicated that it had been switched off on Monday evening.

In his denial, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, Ajayi Boroffice, stated that his committee always funded its oversight trips. He however said gifts were accepted based on the discretion of the host.

Name lawmakers who  took bribes or keep quiet,  Reps tell ex-INEC chair

Also, the House of Representatives replied Jega, challenging him to name committee chairmen or members who either demanded or took bribes from him.

The House noted that in the absence of proof, Jega’s comments would pass as another “unfounded allegation” against the legislators.

The Chief Whip of the House, Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, and the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, responded on behalf of the House.

Ado-Doguwa said he was in shock that a teacher of Jega’s profile would make “unwarranted allegations” against the National Assembly.

He added, “I will only urge him to mention names of members or committees that he knows, have asked or collected money from him or from any institution to his knowledge.

“He who alleges must prove. I call on Jega to prove his allegations and we, as leaders of this great institution, will take decisive measures to penalise whoever was genuinely involved.

“The National Assembly,  as a critical arm of the present administration, is unequivocally committed to the anti-corruption crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari and therefore cannot afford to compromise or undermine it.”

On his part, Namdas urged Jega to help the anti-corruption fight of the government by releasing the names of bribe takers in the National Assembly.

Namdas added, “He should supply the names of those who demanded bribes or took bribes from the MDAs. It is the best way to help the government’s anti-corruption crusade. Mere allegations without proof will not help the nation.

“Perhaps, we should also remind Jega that many Nigerians have accused INEC members of staff of taking bribes to manipulate election outcome or frustrate the entire process.

 “On these grounds, do we now do a blanket condemnation of INEC workers and say they are bribe takers? More than 200 INEC officials are facing investigation as we speak.”

Violence, hate speech threaten 2019 elections – Jega

Jega at the lecture did not just speak about bribe-demanding and taking federal lawmakers, he also identified some potential threats to the 2019 general elections to include violence, hate speech, delay in the passage of the framework for the election and conduct of security agents.

On violence, the former INEC boss said happenings during recent primaries of political parties were pointers to the danger lurking around ahead of the general elections.

He said if members of the same political party could not organise violence-free internal elections, there was no way they would contest against candidates of other political parties during the general elections without resorting to violence.

Jega added, “The first thing to consider is electoral violence and there is no better way to address this than what happened in the recent party congresses and its potential danger.

“If political parties cannot organise their internal elections peacefully, how can they engage the other parties with civility in the general elections?

“It is very important that this is addressed because if there is crisis in the elections, some of these issues are outside the scope of the electoral commission, but in the end, it is the electoral commission that gets blamed.

“It is important that we improve our systemic mechanisms of addressing violence and conflicts related to elections and in particular improving the scope of internal democracy within political parties.“

Jega expressed concern over recent spate of hate speech among political actors, opinion, religious and political leaders.

He said such unbridled utterances facilitated electoral violence during general elections.

The former INEC boss said the situation was capable of undermining the integrity of the 2019 elections if not properly tamed based on the rule of law.

He urged more patriotic and democratic Nigerians to speak against hate speech, adding that government should put its mechanisms in place to identify and prosecute those who constituted nuisance.

Ex-INEC boss wants amended Electoral Act passed

Jega also raised the alarm over the delay in passing the amended Electoral Act.

He said it was important that the electoral body had a better electoral legal framework in place for 2019 general elections “than what we had for the 2015 polls.”

He said some aspects of existing legal framework could have created constitutional crisis in 2015 if not for God’s intervention.

He cited an example of a constitutional provision that requires the electoral commission to conduct a run-off presidential election within seven days, saying it was impossible to meet that constitutional requirement.

“By the time the electoral commission announces result, it would have been two days and then if you take out those two days, you will be left with five days to prepare for the next run-off election.

“Meanwhile, after elections, INEC normally demobilises members of staff: security personnel etc and you cannot demobilise them and get them in polling unit within five days.

“So, in 2015, we had very serious apprehensions in the electoral commission because of that constitutional provision, because if a run-off became necessary, we could not do it within the constitutional provision,” he explained.

Jega said there were many other aspects of the Electoral Act that were contradictory to party democracy.

He said while a section of the law recommended that political parties must conduct free and fair primaries, another section stipulated that whatever names of candidates the parties submitted to the electoral commission could not be rejected for any reason whatsoever.

“INEC is supposed to monitor party congresses. So, INEC has a list of those candidates that emerged at party primaries.

“But political parties have a penchant for hiding under Section 31 to send to INEC people who have not even participated in party primaries and I saw this happen in 2015.

“We wanted to reject it but we were advised by lawyers that if we did that, the electoral commission would be interpreted to be partisan, and in Nigeria, people are often ready to drag the electoral commission into politics and once that is done, the entire integrity of the commission is undermined,” he said.

Jega also mentioned the issue of conducting by-elections in the case of death or in the case of defection by lawmakers.

He explained, “INEC, by law, has to be notified even if it read it in the newspapers. Even if it knows that has happened, unless the National Assembly has written to it to declare a vacancy, INEC will not conduct a by-election.

“There were many cases that we knew before the 2015 general elections, people who had defected and who should have lost their seats by virtue of defecting but the leadership of the National Assembly, advertently, vehemently refused to write to INEC.

“I appeared before the Ethics Committee, provided evidence that a senator had actually defected and by the provisions of the law, should lose his seat and that we wanted to be written so that we could conduct a by-election to replace him.

“That letter never came until I left office. That provision is still there and if we don’t address it, we will continue to carry the baggage of laws that can undermine the integrity of an election.

“So, it is very important to accelerate this process of having a new improved legal framework for INEC to be able to do its job because right now they are operating under serious pressure.

“Again, we should be mindful of the ECOWAS protocol that we have signed, which requires all signatories to ensure that any amendment to the electoral legal framework is concluded at least six months before a general election.

“Ideally, it should be at least one year before general elections because that is how INEC will be able to put mechanisms in place in order to improve the process and enhance the chances of electoral integrity.”

Jega also said security agencies needed to display professionalism, neutrality and impartiality in their conduct during elections.

He said efforts must be made to ensure that the 2019 elections were better than that of 2015.

Jega also warned the Federal Government to desist from treating the herdsmen-farmers’ clashes with kid gloves.

He said only good democratic governance could provide the appropriate framework to make Nigeria peaceful, adding that it was not a manna that could fall from heaven.

2019 polls shouldn’t be less credible than 2015 – Saraki

Saraki, on his part, warned that the conduct of the forthcoming 2019 general elections must not be less credible than the one conducted in 2015.

He warned Nigerians against taking the nation’s democracy for granted.

The Senate President said 19 years of uninterrupted democracy was not a mean achievement.

Saraki acknowledged those who had made sacrifices to sustain democracy, urging the current political actors to work hard to leave good legacies for those coming behind.

“We should not take our democracy for granted. We must work hard. It is indeed fragile. There is bound to be disagreements and conflicts among arms of government but we must be committed to finding solutions.

“It is only in doing so that we can move Nigeria forward. It should be Nigeria first in all our dealings,” he said.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on his part described the nation’s democracy as very fragile.

He said Nigerians should be vigilant to ensure that democracy survives.

He said irrespective of the position some people might be taking, there were reasons for every Nigerian to celebrate this democracy.

“We have to be very vigilant to ensure that our democracy survives. The beauty of democracy is forbearance. A united Nigeria will be a peaceful Nigeria. I call on all Nigerians to unite for the common good. I believe there is nothing that is impossible in a united Nigeria,” he said.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, in his welcome remarks, described democracy as a globally cherished and accepted practice for electing leaders, protecting inalienable rights, preventing arbitrariness in governance, distributing wealth and public goods, enthroning good governance and bringing development to the people.

“In Nigeria, we have for almost two decades, experienced four consecutive and successful transitions of power from one democratic dispensation to another.

“Most notable is the fact that we recently witnessed a transition from an incumbent to opposition. That singular feat gives assurance that our democracy has taken root, the Nigerian people can now freely decide who their leaders would be and their votes now count,” he said.