The Kogi state government has written the United States Government over the electoral fraud allegation levelled against it and visa ban to politicians accused of masterminding electoral violence in the state.
The Yahaya Bello-led administration justified its win in the governorship election by pointing out that opposition parties failed to prove they won the election in all courts the case went through.
The Kogi state government who noted that it is not challenging
the visa ban in any way, however protested against US' "collateral and
unwarranted interference in its political and social processes."
The letter written by the Secretary to Kogi Goverment, Mrs
Folashade Arike and addressed to the US Ambassador to Nigeria read;
KGS/GO/ADM/25/II/XXX
16 September 2020
The Ambassador Of The United States of America
Embassy of The United States of America
1075 Diplomatic Drive
Central Business District
Abuja, NIGERIA
Your Excellency,
RE: VISA RESTRICTIONS ON INDIVIDUALS AND INCLUSION OF THE
2019 KOGI STATE GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS IN US STATE DEPARTMENT LIST OF
ALLEGEDLY COMPROMISED ELECTIONS – A LETTER OF PROTEST
1. I have been so directed by His Excellency, Governor
Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and I hereby make and forward this Letter of Protest
to you in respect of the matters contained in it.
2. The Kogi State Government became aware of a United States
Government list of individuals who received US visa restrictions for alleged
electoral malpractices via a Press Statement to that effect posted on your
Embassy website at https://bit.ly/32vD96M. In your own words, the still unnamed
individuals are cited as guilty of ‘acts of violence, intimidation, or
corruption that harmed Nigerians and undermined the democratic process.’ They
are also alleged to ‘have operated with impunity at the expense of the Nigerian
people and undermined democratic principles and human rights.’
3. You also noted in the Statement that the sanctions are
derived from unspecified misconducts by the said individuals which extend from
the February/March 2019 General Elections in Nigeria through the off-cycle
November 2019 gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa to the as yet unheld
governorship contests in Edo and Ondo States. Please note that for the purposes
of this protest letter we are only interested in the citations to the extent
that they are referable to Kogi State and her citizens.
4. For the most part, we concede that elections in Nigeria
are complex affairs which will continue to require improvements for the
foreseeable future. The 2019 Kogi State Gubernatorial Election was also not
without its challenges. However, it is also crystal clear from critical and
composite analyses of the records (official, media, observers, etc) of the
November 16, 2020 polls that regrettable incidents were limited to a few
polling units, while the overwhelmingly larger portions of the ballot were
free, fair and credible.
5. Further, and in line with Nigerian law, the few political
parties and individuals who alleged widespread electoral malpractices had free
rein to contest the outcome in court. They vigorously litigated their claims
over a grueling 9-month period, through a 3-step hierarchy of courts, to the
inescapable conclusion at the Supreme Court of Nigeria that the said elections
satisfactorily complied with the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act.
6. Our concern right now is not the prerogative of the
United States of America to impose entry restrictions on anyone, for any or no
reason at all, which prerogative remains unfettered, but the room for atrocious
misinformation which the timing of your Press Statement and the mention of the
Kogi elections therein has created in our state.
7. For the February and March 2019 General elections, your
advisory came out in July 2019, long before the Supreme Court delivered her
judgments in the petitions against those elections, including challenges to
President Muhammadu Buhari’s reelection. The presumption is that in spite of
your intervention, the Supreme Court still discovered no merit in the petitions
and dismissed them accordingly.
8. In our case, ie, Kogi State, you made the tactical
decision to release the update shortly after the Supreme Court delivered
judgments in the 4 petitions which made it before her. Amongst a plethora of
well-reasoned pronouncements the Apex Court dismissed the said petitions for
failing to prove their allegations and for having no ‘scintilla of merit’. The
inference from your timing is that the judgment is somehow tainted and did not
meet the justice of the case, thereby casting aspersions, not only on the
Nigerian Judiciary, but on the second term mandate freely bestowed on His
Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello by the good people of Kogi State.
9. We find this unacceptable, and we protest your
presumption. The least you could have done, if indeed this is about democracy
and human rights as claimed, is create room, no matter how slim, for fair
hearing. As it is now, partisan speculation as to who is indicted, who is not
and for what, has become cudgels, furiously swung in the media space by all
comers. Your action has therefore added abundant grist to the rumour mills and
electrified the merchants of fake news.
10. For instance, a United States based blog,
saharareporters.com, has made inflammatory publications in which they named His
Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, among others, as a definite
recipient of your visa restriction. Though you have named no names, accuracy is
of no moment to them, just base political expediency, and they quote unnamed US
State Department sources to give credibility to what is otherwise unproven.
11. Also, other players in the Kogi political space,
including candidates and officials of opposition political parties which lost
the elections and could not prove their allegations in court as aforesaid have
now latched onto this action, holding media conferences and making press
releases, claiming that the United States has justified their wild allegations
and conspiracy theories where the courts and the administrative quarters
failed. This is utterly regrettable.
12. Let it be noted that we are not challenging your visa
bans in any way, whoever they may affect and for how long, but we do register
the strongest protest possible as a State to the collateral and unwarranted
interference in our political and social processes which it represents. You
have reignited already dying embers of discord around the February/March General
Elections and the November 16 Kogi State Gubernatorial Elections of 2019. This
has invariably made our usual post-election duty of reconciliation with
fair-minded political opponents all the more harder. We are hurt and
disappointed.
13. Digressing a little beyond Kogi State to our contiguous
states of Edo and Ondo, we wish to advice generally that by so preemptively
interfering in their elections, both of which are yet to hold, events on ground
since your publication indicate that the United States has foisted on our
political process, not the expected caution or good behaviour by politicians
which may have been your intent, but further calcification of hardened
attitudes, more violent polemics, and increased sabre-rattling.
14. Even now every camp is trying to spin your action as
evidence of US support for themselves and hostility to their opponents.
Everyone involved in those elections is now stoked with an aura of
invincibility and hellbent on displaying all manners of outrageousness on
election day to prove their opponents the aggressors. After all, with sanctions
looming over everyone like the Sword of Damocles, every stakeholder, including
the security agencies are on tenterhooks and less likely to be lively. We fear
you may have done our democracy more harm than good with this action, and we
consider it most unfortunate indeed.
15. In conclusion, we believe that if the United States of
America, despite her commanding heights and much longer experience as the
acclaimed Bastion of Democracy in the world, is still locked in a fight to
defend the integrity of her own electoral processes to this very day, then she
ought to accord greater empathy, more civility and much less disruption, to
nascent democracies.
16. Please be assured of our high regards always.
MRS FOLASHADE ARIKE AYOADE, Ph.D
Secretary to the Government of Kogi State
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