President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday said it would be improper for him to declare interest at this time to run in next year’s general elections because doing so would amount to contravening the electoral laws.
Jonathan had said several times previously that he would announce this year whether he would seek re-election in next year’s polls.
The most recent time he restated this publicly was in his letter to former President Obasanjo in December.
Speaking on CNBC Africa yesterday, the president said he was awaiting the go-ahead from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in line with the Electoral Act.
“I am not going to talk about whether I am standing for election or not because it is not in line with our laws,” he told the television station on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland.
“INEC have a time frame within which candidates are expected to declare. If you declare before that time you are actually contravening the Nigerian laws. So I won’t tell anybody that I am contesting or that I’m not contesting.
“It is not proper for me to do that. It is not proper for any Nigerian to declare any interest now. If you do that you are contravening our electoral laws.”
Given that Jonathan said he was waiting for the time stipulated by the law, Daily Trust contacted INEC to clarify the position of the law on candidates’ declaration of intention for election.
“According to the Electoral Act, candidates can only declare their interest to contest for an office when INEC issued the timetable for election,” Nick Dazang, INEC’s deputy director of public affairs, told Daily Trust.
“After that, their parties can open the sale of forms for interested persons…. Unless INEC issues the timetable for the elections, candidates cannot declare their political interest. But mark you, we have not yet issued the timetable for the election,” he added.
INEC had recently said the general elections may hold in January-February next year. The commission’s top officials are holding a retreat in Kaduna to discuss preparation for the elections, following which a timetable would be published.
Jonathan also yesterday spoke on the circumstances of his becoming president in 2010 and his subsequent election in 2011.
He said, “But when you talk about election, 2011 I contested. I became a president when the late president died. I took over by virtue of our constitution.
“We have challenges, I can say that I was just a president standing on one leg because I was not formally elected but still I promised the world that we must make sure that our elections are free and fair. At the end of that election both local and international observers said, ‘yes, it is the first time Nigerians have conducted elections that was free and fair.’
“I am telling the world now that the 2015 elections will be free and fair, credible and will be peaceful though we know there are flash points now, but before the middle of this year most will die down and the world will know that Nigeria will again conduct election that will be free and fair.”
Asked if he has put behind the dispute that led him to asking Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to resign, Jonathan smiled before replying: “The central bank of any country is very sensitive. I wouldn’t want to discuss the issues of the Governor of the Central Bank. We are discussing, we will get over it.”
On the insurgency in the Northeast, the President said: “The northern part of our country is highly populated with quite a number of young people so you easily brainwash them to do what is not right. Though they come under a religious platform but we believe that some other interest, political and otherwise are also there. Some disgruntled elements also use it (terrorism) as a way of expressing vendetta if they perceive that they didn’t get what they want from society.”
He said government was addressing issues affecting the North.
“On the whole we are improving the educational system. When we came on board I opened 12 new universities in the whole country, out of this twelve nine are located in the northern part of the county,” the President said.
“Naturally the Federal Government doesn’t participate in basic education, that is, the first 16 years of education in our country but because of the challenges we have in the North, we are intervening robustly.
“We are making agriculture as a business. Only Monday this week I launched what is called dry season farming. This is concentrated only in the North to make sure that we grow food and create the middle level manpower so this trickles down to the people.”
Jonathan admitted there is corruption in Nigeria but said corruption was never the major inhibition for the growth of the economy.
Speaking on the volume of crude oil lost daily to theft and vandalism, Jonathan came down hard on people he described are saboteurs of the government. “That tells you that some criminal elements or saboteurs are deliberately trying to pull the government down, otherwise how do you go and blast a gas line, and you don’t steal gas,” he said.