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LER June 2003.Pmd Law Enforcement Review, June 2003. Center for Law Enforcement Education The centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN) is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation. It is established to assist in the reorientation of law enforcement agencies in Nigeria, particularly the police and prisons service, with a value system that places highest premium on right to life, security of persons and property, physical and psychological integrity; as well as educate civil society in Nigeria on its basic rights in relation to these agencies. These goals are pursued through research and publications, human rights education and community empowerment programmes. Law Enforcement Review, June 2003. 2 Law Enforcement Review ‘... Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters’ From the Editor Editor-in-Chief Innocent Chukwuma ‘Broken Jinx or Re-formed Crisis?’ loyd David George (1863-1945), Ist Earl of Dwyfor, British statesman and prime minister (1916-22) once poignantly asserted that “Education without God makes clever devils”. Editor LLloyd George’s statement on education is even more truer for elections. Elections without God, anywhere anytime, creates only vagabonds in power (VIPs) who translate democracy Chijioke Odom into a demonstration of craze, with themselves, the bigots and apostates of such insidious order emerging as nothing more than demons crazy for power, more power, and much more power! Elections rigging, or votes manipulation, is, arguably therefore, a hatefully and shockingly evil. Not just because it is at once a bare-faced robbery of the inalienable right of the people to participate in their own government but, put in a more telling metaphor, the stealing, the theft of their voices. EDITORIAL BOARD Both in its notoriety as a factual incident and in the form of its manifestation and precedents, electoral fraud has remained the singular heaviest and biggest albatross perpetually fastened Innocent Chukwuma - Editor-in-Chief on Nigeria’s fragile neck in her much bungled search for a democratic, participatory system Chijioke Odom - Editor of political governance. Its principal forms had been perfected and executed with precision, Anthony Opara - Member time and again in successive elections in 1963-1964, 1965, 1979, 1983, 1999 and, the latest, Eziuche Ubani - Member the just concluded April 2003 general elections. If the incredibly massive riggings alleged to have been perpetrated during the April polls are anything to go by, then Nigeria, with her Edetaen Ojo “ delicate patchwork of over 250 restless ethnic nationalities, is right about to begin another Eze Anaba “ journey into political pain. For votes robbery is a direct subversion of the constitution (with Oguwike Nwachuku “ terrible developmental consequences for the populace) and the democratic form of government instituted by the constitution and this, as such, tantamount to treason, though not in the George Oji “ technical narrow sense defined in the nation’s Criminal Code. But much more painful is the very invidious pattern and method employed in elections rigging BOARD OF DIRECTORS in Nigeria’s 42 years of political history, and it is this that has turned the phenomenon into the sinister, malevolent plague that it has become. Often, the pattern for perpetration is Ambassador Lamidi Maliki - Chairman systemic and private, perfected in great secrecy and, under, unfortunately, the special Dr. Etannibi Alemika supervision of supposedly mediatory umpires in sacred places, thus enabling the whole unholy enterprise to be shielded from the prying eyes of election observer teams (both domestic and Frank Odita international). This further compounds the burden of proof in cases of protest at the law Dr. Mahammed Tabiu courts or tribunals on the elections’ outcomes. Little wonder therefore, that elections have Josephine Effah-Chukwuma remained miniature wars in Nigeria since all parties had to deploy their biggest arsenals to meet their end. Consequently, the nation had trundled along with an unbroken jinx of civilian- Chidi Odinkalu to-civilian transition for 42 years. Jide Nzelibe Mellisa Crow The April 2003 general polls was, therefore, supposed to break that jinx and national curse. Innocent Chukwuma But since the results were declared, beginning with the National Assembly polls of Saturday April 12, the country’s political barometre has moved up a notch. The opposition parties are still crying foul. They accuse the ruling PDP of bare-faced rigging and massive manipulations SECRETARIAT of the polls. Innocent Chukwuma Executive Director And their complaints are not without merit. For the plethora of both foreign and domestic Chijioke Odom Senior Programme Manager election observers or monitoring groups of the polls have attested to various malpractices and Anthony Opara Prog. Manager, Community Policing misdemeanors in the conduct of the elections. One malpractice which have raised the largest dust is the issue of inflated ballots. The international observers, and the domestic groups too, Obo Effanga Jr Prog. Manager, NOPRIN painted lurid graphic pictures of these developments, most of which took place right in their Danesi Jafar Prog. Manager, Police Accountability presence with the active connivance of the electoral officials. There is also specific mention of states or even wards where this practice was very glaring. These include Rivers, Enugu, Imo Kemi Asiwaju Prog. Manager, Law Enf. & Gender and Bayelsa among many others. Nnenna Okenyi Administration Manager Reality, or factual happenings during the elections, which eventually gave birth to the monster Florence Oke Accountant called the controversial results, deserves a fuller, thorough and decisive treatment by way of a reportorial expose. Analytical insight into the observed pattern of electoral fraud during the Toyin Ibrahim Secretary April polls is also very instructive to enable all guard against a reoccurrence. And that was Simon Ibanga Driver exactly what we did in this edition of LER. Why? INEC chief, Dr. Abel Guobadia, the doctorate degree holder in physics and Nigeria’s former ambassador to South Korea has Law Enforcement Review is emerged in the past few weeks as the man who conducted Nigeria’s most controversial and published by the Centre for Law Enforcement vilified elections. Politicians massed across the rest 29 parties have since developed the faces Education of someone trying to give birth in public – knotted faces etched with pain and embarrassment. The human rights community, greatly shocked by the elections outcome literally perceive the 1, Afolabi Aina Street, Off Allen Avenue electoral body as reeking of a combined smell of rotten Okro soup and Dan Fulani pomade. Only Ikeja, P.O.Box 15456 the truth can set the records straight and perhaps prove whether the jinx has been truly Ikeja, Lagos. Nigeria. broken or if it fooled Nigerians by assuming a different, albeit clandestine shape. Tel: 234-1-4933195 LER serves you the self-evident truths about the election which were directly uncovered in the Fax: 234-1-4935339 field both through its own watchful eyes and that of both the domestic and international E-mail: [email protected] election observers. Titled: “WHAT MANNER OF ELECTIONS!”, the overwhelming evidence website : www.kabissa.org/cleen speaks for itself. Stay with LER. Support for the publication of Law Enforcement Review is provided by the _____________________________ Ford Foundation EDITOR Law Enforcement Review, June 2003. 7 FACT FILE By CHIJIOKE ODOM Nigerians Lead in Drug Crimes in The USA, Britain and Saudi Arabia, Says Interpol. Figures from the International Police(Interpol) indicate that about 14,883 Nigerians were arrested between 1979 and 1988 for importing illegal drugs worldwide, with majority of arrests taking place in Britain, the United States and Saudi Arabia. Similarly, in May 1992, before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Melvyn Levitsky, assistant secretary, Bureau of International Narcotic Matters declared that Nigerian traffickers and their surrogates account for most of the heroin seized at US airports. He Bank Frauds on The Increase, N5.5million claimed that in 1991, 31 percent of 756 heroin seizures at airports involved Nigerian nationals Lost Daily and 11 percent involved other Africans likely to have been recruited by Nigerian networks. At the ecent investigative findings by LER A clear instance of the insider collu- height of what appears to be a hyperbole picture is conclusive that fraud and sion or involvement could be seen in painted about the magnitude of Nigerians’ forgeries are on the increase in the the case of Broad Phase Ventures, a involvement in drug trafficking, TransAfrica, a R US lobby group claimed in 1995 that Nigeria was Nigerian banking industry. More startling is Lagos-based commodity trading responsible for 80 percent of heroin trafficking in the revelation that most of the fraud and company. Three members of its finance United States. forgeries are either initiated or aided by and accounts department stole two of bankers themselves. Statistics for last year its cheque leaflets and forged the Indeed, statistics released by the National Drug revealed that for the third quarter, July-Sep- needed two authorized signatures for Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) during its 12 tember 2002, 35 banks or 47.88 percent of an the company’s accounts with the year anniversary celebrations in June 2001 reports average number of 71 banks reported that Marina, Lagos branch of a first the arrest of 14, 937 suspects and interception they had experienced one form of fraud or generation bank. With the connivance and destruction of 405,072.23 kilograms of of the bank staff, the sums of N385,000 narcotics during those preceding 12 years. 658 another in their operations. women were said to be among the suspects arrested. and N620,000 were withdrawn within a The banks reported a total of 257 cases of Thus, on the average, it comes to 1,244 arrests two-month period. To date, only per year. This figure, however is considered low fraud and forgeries during the quarter under N230,000 had been recovered from the given the reputation Nigeria has in drug trafficking, review, meaning that an average of three four suspects.
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