By Rotimi Fasan
NIGERIA’S public officials never seem to mind History’s verdict on them. Their occupation of public office and their performance while they remain in such office often appears to them as exercises meant to satisfy the immediate wishes of those responsible for putting them in office in the first instance.

There is little or no desire on the part of public officers to disguise their readiness to sacrifice the long term interest of the nation for the immediate wishes of their benefactors.

These thoughts run through my mind as I contemplate the latest heist perpetrated by Maurice Iwu’s Indepedent National Electoral Commission, with regards to the removal of Emmanuel Uduaghan as governor of Delta State last week.

When the former INEC boss was sacked from office, last June, not a few Nigerians jubilated. Many thought the sack had been long overdue and demanded he be prosecuted in accordance to the law.

But Iwu never thought so. If anything, he believed his performance in office, specifically his management of the 2007 elections, recommended him for more years in office.

Accordingly, he sought extension of his tenure and eagerly looked forward to retaining his position at INEC even when many Nigerians thought he should be sent to jail for destroying, perhaps more than any other person that had ever served as electoral umpire in this country, the electoral history of Nigeria.

Iwu actually employed both subtle and not so subtle means to ensure he was retained in office. But President Jonathan knew better than that. He couldn’t keep Iwu, he made clear. Not at a time he was just settling into office as president. He knew the clamour for Iwu’s removal went beyond opposition demand and he wisely, it’s now obvious, shoved him aside.

Yet, one sometimes wonder if the end of Iwu’s tenure at INEC signified closure on the flawed legacy of his time at the electoral house. Not any more. The unambiguous statement of the Appeal Court in Benin that ordered Uduaghan’s sack  while calling for the conduct of fresh polls within 90 days is a clear indictment of Iwu.

The judgement put the blame for the flawed election that brought Uduaghan into office at the doorstep of Iwu who was seen as biased. This Delta case makes it the sixth time PDP governors would be removed from office; and coming within a couple of weeks after another court sacked PDP’s Segun Oni in Ekiti State, it’s clear we’ve not heard the last on Iwu.

The man clearly needs to be made to account for how only he succeeded in perpetrating electoral crimes across the country while destroying the electoral calendar in several states.

Certainly he saw his appointment as INEC boss as opportunity to serve the PDP and ensure the electoral success of PDP candidates. Not for once, one can now say, did Iwu see his appointment as national call. What his appointment meant was a call to serve the PDP.

And well did he serve them. But now Nigerians have to bear the cost of that silencing of the voice of millions of Nigerians via the ballot. The electoral history and calendar of this country can never be the same again, no thanks to Iwu.

The worst of it all is that the man continues to create the impression that somebody somewhere is yet to appreciate just how well he handled his INEC job. He certainly looks forward to the day when he would be called upon and bestowed with a national honour for his services to the nation, going by his utterances before and since he left office.

He finds strange the widely held view that he was a biased umpire, a comment that has been repeated from one appellate court quashing his electoral crime to the other. Apparently Iwu’s malfeasance extends beyond electoral fraud.

There are questions being asked about questionable decisions and spendings, especially in the last few months of his stay at INEC. This has necessitated the internal audit of INEC accounts between January and June this year.

Nigerians have been swindled on all counts by Iwu and some of his lieutenants such as Ayoka Adebayo, the Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner who recanted shortly after alleging that she was being pressured to doctor the governorship election result in the State.

She now holds the forte in Ondo State, and despite calls that she be removed to save the State and the rest of the country another embarrassing episode that might put paid to any possibility of transparency in the next elections, those responsible for her appointment look away.

The right thing to do, however, is to remove the likes of Adebayo from office. They should not be allowed to conduct any polls. Attahiru Jega has the task of ensuring that the next elections are conducted under an atmosphere of transparency.

But he cannot do that while he is surrounded by people from the last dispensation whose only purpose is to serve masters with the right type of inducements to make electoral officers violate their oath of appointment.

Jega sure has a lot on his shoulders, not the least the fresh polls that have been ordered in Delta State. How he would ensure that that election doesn’t turn out as another albatross on INEC’s morally thin neck is the next task for him.

Much has been made of his personal credentials but he can’t do it all alone even if he wanted to. He needs the right atmosphere and structures to make his work hitch-free.

Now he has his first opportunity to show us all that he can bite as much as he barks, he should have the courage to choose those he knows wouldn’t compromise his effort.