{"id":7422,"date":"2018-01-26T11:23:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T11:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=7422"},"modified":"2018-01-26T11:23:26","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T11:23:26","slug":"emulate-jonathan-if-you-lose-ekweremadu-tells-buhari-as-he-laments-over-africas-sit-tight-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=7422","title":{"rendered":"Emulate Jonathan if you lose, Ekweremadu tells Buhari, as he laments over Africa’s sit-tight leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uche Anichukwu,\u00a0<\/strong>Special Adviser (Media) to Deputy President of the Senate.
\nLondon- The Deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to ensure his administration not only conducts a credible, free and fair election next year, but also be prepared to accept in good faith, the outcome of the election should he and his party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) fail to win next year\u2019s presidential contest.
\nThis was even as he decried the sit-tight syndrome in Africa, which he described as a grave danger to African democracies.
\nHe gave the admonition while speaking at the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK), where he delivered a lecture titled \u201cAfrican Politics: The Dynamics and Lessons\u201d.
\nDrawing inspiration from the words of the former South African president, late Nelson Mandela, Ekweremadu noted that his admonition became necessary owing to the pivotal and strategic roles Nigeria is playing in Africa, insisting that for the\u00a0\u00a0African continent to be respected by the rest of the world, Nigeria must not only lead the way, but also earn the respect of the world.
\n\u201cFormer President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan put Nigeria on the global map as a leading democratic nation when he put in everything to ensure a free and fair election, in which he not only lost the presidential poll as an incumbent, but also willingly conceded defeat.
\n 
\n\u201cIn fact, he called the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, and congratulated him even before the announcement of the final results. In addition, neither former President Jonathan nor the PDP challenged the outcome of the election in court.
\n 
\n\u201cTherefore, to whom much is given, much is also expected. The onus is now on President Buhari to likewise provide a level playing ground and show uncommon statesmanship if he and his party lose the 2019 presidential election. That way, Africa\u2019s biggest democracy will further entrench the culture of peaceful and smooth transfer of power from a ruling party to the opposition in both Nigeria and Africa.
\n 
\n\u201cAny attempt to manipulate the 2019 elections to the advantage of self or party will not augur well for peace and democracy not only in Nigeria, but the entire continent. God forbid\u201d.
\n\u201cImportant too, in the present age of technology, I will like to see the countries of Africa deploying the latest technology in voter registration, vote counting, and announcement of results.
\n\u201cWe must ensure that the process is sufficiently transparent and unarguably so, such that losers will see and be convinced that they lost fairly. That way, election tribunals\u00a0will be eliminated\u201d, he said.
\nEkweremadu admonished African leaders to respect term limits, regretting that \u201cMany African leaders do not seem to care about the law of diminishing returns, but you can never cheat nature\u201d.
\n 
\nHe observed: \u201cFrom Zimbabwe under former Robert Mugabe to Uganda under Yoweri Museveni, Cameroon Paul Biya; Equatorial Guinea under\u00a0Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo,\u00a0who has been in power since 1979; Republic of Congo under Denis Sassou Nguesso who ruled from 1979 to 1992 and returned again since 1997; and not also forgetting Togo under late President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled the country for 38 years and now under his son, Faure Gnassingbe, who continued from where his father stopped amidst rising political tension, the story has not been pleasant.
\n 
\n\u201cLikewise, the sit-tight postures of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir\u2019s 28 years old regime in Sudan, President Idriss Deby\u2019s 27-year rule in Chad, President Isaias Afwerki\u2019s 24 years old leadership in Eritrea, President Paul Kageme\u2019s 17 years old reign in Rwanda, and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika 18 years in power in Algeria are soul-dampening.
\n 
\n\u201cThere are also emerging sit-tight regimes in Mauritania underMohammed Ould Abdel Aziz, Burundi under\u00a0Pierre Nkurunziza, etc. President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who succeeded his father, the late Laurent Kabila, in 2001, has refused to step down after the expiration of his mandate. This has triggered political tension and protests in that country.\u00a0\u00a0This is disheartening\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Uche Anichukwu,\u00a0Special Adviser (Media) to Deputy President of the Senate. London- The Deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to ensure his administration not only conducts a credible, free and fair election next year, but also be prepared to accept in good faith, the outcome of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}