EDO 2016: Obaseki, Oshiomhole Unsettled, Ize-Iyamu Smiles as Prominent S'WEST POLITICIAN's Comment on Results Set to Land INEC in Trouble

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PARIS, OCTOBER 16, 2016: (DGW) The All Progressives' Congress governorship candidate and Edo State Governor-elect , Godwin Obaseki , maybe thrown into a tight corner to convince members of the Edo State Election Tribunal when hearing of the suit filed by Pastor Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party challenging the results commences.

Many Nigerians and international observers comprising the US,EU, AU and others have condemned the results saying it did not tally with the results at the various polling stations across the state.

Meanwhile, another top southwest politician, Adedeji Doherty, has described the results that declared Obaseki winner as a complete sham. He stated this in an interview he granted to the NIGERIAN TRIBUNE.

Below is an abridged version of the interview which touched on the just concluded election, Nigeria's ailing economy and other national issues.

Excerpts:

WHAT is your take on the recently conducted governorship election in Edo State?

I am not comfortable with the outcome of the election and my reason is predicated on the excuses given by the returning officers that came from different local governments for cancellations of votes. For instance, an average of cancelled votes in each local government was about 2,000 votes and all of them had reports of violence and ballot snatching. One even said he had an accident and the results were damaged. The report we had on television and the statements made by the returning officers showed that there was a symbiotic relationship between the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and those officers [security operatives]. But definitely something was faulty and not transparent and I call on the tribunal to do something about it.

Also, considering the level of preparedness by the police with a deployment of 25,000 officers and other security operatives, coupled with the postponement of the election by two weeks, there shouldn’t have been any hitch because the excuses for cancellation of votes and reports of ballot snatching made a mess of all the efforts put in place by the security operatives and INEC. And we should not forget that these reported situations also negated the reports we got from observers and voters, who, in their opinion, revealed a peaceful exercise. To me, the cancellation only undermines the preparedness and gallant effort of our police for letting all these happen and not being able to prevent them.

As an industrialist, considering the high exchange rate of the naira to other major currencies, what is your take on the Nigeria’s monetary policy and the Central Bank of Nigeria?

My take is simple. But before that, let me hint on this. One, we have the fiscal policy and the monetary policy. For the monetary policy, I expected the CBN to withdraw the higher denominations, namely the N1000 and N500 notes, change the design so that all those who have stolen the money won’t have access to them any longer, instead of using them to run after the dollar that is not there. Those stolen money should be rendered useless.

But that will gulp a lot of money in designing and printing the newly designed notes.

But is it not better than to have our money going for an exchange rate of 500 naira to a dollar? If that money has been changed, the pressure on the dollar will be minimal because the looters will not be able to take it to banks because the EFCC will be waiting for them. And that is the way to cleanse the system. When that is done, it will reduce the pressure on the naira.

Secondly, there is the fiscal policy. In this regard, I believe the government should have stepped in. Instead of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), we should have a Treasury Ministry. I pressed for this during the Jonathan government. Without a treasury ministry, we can’t move economically. The Treasury Ministry is an audit-cum-statistical ministry that will be able to determine the income of the country at any time. It monitors, collects and predicts what the income should be. This gives the president a clear picture of what the income and expenditure are.

The TSA, as an account in CBN, sucks out all public funds from the commercial banks, giving rise to inadequate circulation of money in the system, whereas government cannot do business with itself. As it stands today, the government is doing business with itself. The creation of Treasury Ministry gives rise to audit, transparency and accountability. When treasury speaks, it affects the economy of the country. Hence, we need a Treasury Ministry and not the TSA.

Jonathan created it but could not implement it because of its implications on the economy as it was noted that it would strangulate the commercial banks and that is what this present government has done, strangulating the commercial banks and in return cannot move the economy because the private sector is are the major stakeholders in moving the economy forward. I am afraid Nigeria will not come out of this recession until we jettison TSA, and if we continue to maintain it, we will go into the hyper-inflation to depression and finally to a collapsed economy.

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