Monrovia – Much of last week’s confirmation hearing of President George Manneh Weah’s nominees to the National Elections Commission was centered on one man, Cllr. A. Ndubusi Nwabudike.
Report by Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
The embattled naturalized Nigerian who had previously wiggled his way around the Liberia Bar Association en route to becoming head of the Governance Commission and the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission endured a wave of missteps and inconsistencies which in the end sealed his fate.
One by one, Senators, led by Senator H. Varney G. Sherman grilled the nominee over his nationality and inconsistencies regarding his age and documents presented at confirmation.
As Senators zeroed and zoomed in on Nwabudike, the other nominees, equally flawed as the naturalized Nigierian- Davidetta Browne Lansanah Co-Chairman, Cllr. Ernestine Morgan-Awar Commissioner, Floyd Sayor Commissioner, Barsee Kpankpa Commissioner and Josephine Kou Gaye Commissioner, rumored to be romantically-involved with the Pro Temp of the Senate.
Besides Nwabudike, Sayor was the most problematic, a controversial figure still haunted by his misdeeds of the District No. 15 Montserrado County Legislative Elections to fill the void of the late Adolph Lawrence.
“The reason for my Motion for Reconsideration is that issues of integrity and credibility of the Commissioner-Designate were raised by several Senators, which I believe were delved into with the degree of intensity to bring to bear on the Commissioner-Designate the importance and significance of these characteristics in a Commissioner of the National Elections Commission. In a meeting on Friday, April 3 ,2020, I and several Senators met with the Commissioner-Designate and carried out that exercise. At the end of the meeting, we were satisfied that the Commissioner-Designate understood and appreciated our concerns for integrity and credibility in the performance of the duties and responsibilities of a Commissioner of the National Elections Commission.”
– Cllr. Varney Sherman, Grand Cape Mount County, Unity Party
NEC’s Data Guru on the Hotseat
Saryor, who told the Senate Committee on Autonomous Agencies and Commissions that public perception about him have been wrong, insisted that he is the right man for the job, boasting 16 years of experience in conducting elections.
The scrutiny over Sayor was valid.
As Data Director at NEC for nearly a decade, Sayor has always come under public criticism of manipulating data at the NEC against certain individuals who for some reasons felt cheated in ever electoral process. In 2017 Sayor was made to appear before the court as expert witness in the case Liberty Party versus The National elections Commission.
In an attempt to question the nominee integrity at the NEC judging from his past records, Senator Darius Dillon of the Liberty Party asked the nominee whether he has been investigated by the NEC for electoral malpractice (es).
In his own defense, Mr. Sayor denied being investigate by the NEC. Contrary to his denial, Senator Dillon display a report from Cllr. Muna Ville, NEC’s hearing officer where he ruled in the case Telia Urey versus the NEC as a result of election dispute between she and Mr. Abu Kamara, where he ordered the Investigation of Mr. Sayor.
In his delivery of the verdict, Cllr. Ville said the chief reason for calling a rerun of election in all the quarantined polling places was because the director of the NEC data center director, Floyd Sayon compromised the integrity of the District #15 polls by failing to obey instructions from his immediate boss, to quarantine ballots from the polling places where irregularities were said to have occurred and withhold the inclusion of votes from those areas from the final tally, until all such complaints had been addressed.
Cllr. Ville continued, “The hearing officers, having asked witness Floyd Sayor to state the date he began the counting upon the close of the voting centers, he did not. Additionally, the hearing officers were informed by witness Sayor that he disobeyed the order of his immediate boss, Emma Togba, when he was told to quarantine the polling centers said to have had some problems as claimed by Telia Urey and her campaign team,” Cllr. Ville said.
He added, “Knowing that Emma Togba is the most senior officer at the NEC and that witness Floyd Sayor had no reason to have heard from the Board of Commissioners (BOC) first before taking an immediate action in order to contain any future problem for the electoral process, he was wrong and, for this reason, we hereby order a rerun for the six precinct centers from which the 20 polling places were created”, he declared.
Ville, reading the ruling on behalf of his colleagues Wednesday order a rerun of the six precincts in the District, which amounts to 20 polling places.
It was in the backdrop of Sayor’s past that some Senators felt the need to put him under the microscope.
Why Motion to Reconsider Failed
But with so much attention Nwabudike, Mr. Sayor and the rest of the nominees slipped under the radar. But even before then, reports surfaced that Senator Abraham Darius Dillon(Liberty Party, Montserrado County) had filed a Motion to Reconsider. It was later learned that Senator Sherman, not Senator Dillon, filed that motion.
Rule 55, Section 1 of the Executive Session Proceedings on Nominations state:
“When nomination shall be made by the President of the Republic of Liberia to the Senate, they shall unless otherwise ordered, be referred to the proper committee for its action. Section 2: All confirmation in the Senate shall be transacted in closed door Executive Session. The vote shall be by ballot unless by unanimous consent to the contrary, and the proceedings shall be kept secret; provided that the injunction of secrecy as to the whole or any part of the proceedings may be removed on motion adopted by a majority of the Senate. Section 3: When a nomination is confirmed or rejected, any Senator may move for reconsideration on the same day on which the vote was taken, or on either of the next two sitting days. Unless a notice of reconsideration is announced, all confirmation or rejection by the Senate shall be communicated to the President of Liberia after two working days of the Senate. A motion for reconsideration shall be deemed as a stay order on the original question against which it is filed. No action shall be taken on the original question until the motion for reconsideration has been considered and disposed of. Section 4: Nomination confirmed or rejected by the Senate shall not be returned by the Secretary of the Senate to the President of Liberia until the expiration of the time limited for making a motion to reconsider the same, or while a motion to reconsider is pending unless otherwise ordered by the Senate.”
So, Sherman was picked to filed the motion. But somewhere in between negotiations and meeting with President Weah, the veteran lawyer and Senator apparently changed his tone and in the end Floyd was confirmed.
In a communication to the Pro Temp and his peers dated April 3, 2020, now in possession of FrontPageAfrica, Senator Sherman wrote:
“I have the honor, most respectively to inform you that since my notice of a Motion for Reconsideration on the vote for the confirmation of Hon. Floyd Sayor, Commissioner Designate for the National Elections Commission, I and several Senators have had the opportunity to re-assess and re-vet the Commissioner-Designate.
The reason for my Motion for Reconsideration is that issues of integrity and credibility of the Commissioner-Designate were raised by several Senators, which I believe were delved into with the degree of intensity to bring to bear on the Commissioner-Designate the importance and significance of these characteristics in a Commissioner of the National Elections Commission. In a meeting on Friday, April 3 ,2020, I and several Senators met with the Commissioner-Designate and carried out that exercise. At the end of the meeting, we were satisfied that the Commissioner-Designate understood and appreciated our concerns for integrity and credibility in the performance of the duties and responsibilities of a Commissioner of the National Elections Commission.
The Commissioner-Designate also expressed his appreciation for the meeting, assured us that he will perform with integrity and credibility in the performance of the duties and responsibilities of a Commissioner of the National Elections Commission. The Commissioner-Designate assured us that whatever reservation any member of the Senate may have had about his conduct in the past will be remedied to the satisfaction of the Liberian Senate and the Liberian public.
In view of the foregoing, I hereby forthwith withdraw my Motion for Reconciliation with immediate effect.
“We insisted that Senator Dillon be the one to do the motion. But Senator Sherman convinced us he was serious. We believed because of the way he proceeded with these hearings, especially, Nwabudike.”
– Senate Source
So, what changed overnight? How did Senator Sherman, in just a matter of hours go from hero, to villain and in the words of one Senator, a betrayer?
More importantly, how did Senators, fall for Sherman? One Senator speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday said, Sherman convinced his peers that he was on the side of rejecting Floyd and supporting a Motion to Reconsider. “We insisted that Senator Dillon be the one to do the motion. But Senator Sherman convinced us he was serious. We believed because of the way he proceeded with these hearings, especially, Nwabudike,” the source said.
The answer laid bare in how Sherman won his peers owing to his performance during the grilling of Nwabudike during the hearings.
Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrency acknowledged to FrontPageAfrica Sunday that Senator Sherman decided to join the fight. However, “on the voting day we didn’t have the votes to deny the rest of the people because they brought in all the Senators who had been out of town for months to go against us. So, we decided to file motion for reconsideration on Floyd.”
According to Senator Lawrence, the procedure is when there’s a vote that a Senator does not support, one of them can file that motion and have three session days to justify reason in a communication on the floor and vote again after the communication has been read. “The plan was to kill time to start an aggressive fight and get the votes to deny Floyd,” the Senator said.
Under Senate rules, it is also the right of the person who has filed the motion of reconsideration to either file it or let it go. In most instances, when serious and more credible people want to file such a motion the presiding, Senators have a tendency to play a game and recognize the person they can control so it can be abandoned after because only one person can do that at a time. “We thought Varney was passionate about rejecting Floyd so we trusted him to do that,” Senator Lawrence averred.
However, after two days, Senator Sherman withdrew his motion to reconsider.
Sayor, one of the most controversial data analyst in NEC’s history is now confirmed because Cllr. Sherman dropped the ball when his peers needed him the most.
One Senator said, they did not agree with Sherman in any meeting on that. “We insisted that this guy doesn’t have the integrity and it’s proven that he’s tempered with the voters roll many times and his presence would raise a lot of concerns from the political actors. Results could be contested because of him. How can you say it’s better to warn such a man ??? But only him could keep or reverse the decision.”
Gloating Time: No Mercy From Rep. Gray
With Nwabudike out of the way, Sayor and others have found their way in.
For the ruling party, the decision is already gaining bragging rights. Rep. Acarous Moses Gray(District No. 8 Montserrado County), in a Facebook post, boasted that the CDC’s plan worked to perfection. “The strategy worked and the result was perfect. The opposition said we were dull(true). We played them to their game of emotional outbursts and hate(false). We deployed into the political theatre the figurative expression, “Take it to the Bank” with the rightful faces of the movement(false). The opposition hate those faces so much and ran behind their public arguments while we have plotted the needed result(false). We are now debating the next strategy to be implemented by the SMART OPPOSITION(BIG TRUE). Take it to the bank that we the dull people will unknowingly equip them to implement our game plan for the benefits of Liberians.”
For the opposition, the leaders of the major political parties, who spent a great deal of time weighing in on the Nwabudike saga, have already begun scratching their heads over how, in Gray’s words, they got played. Allowing Floyd through, along with the rest signaled what could be a long and winded opposition quest to make gains in the 2020 Senatorial Mid-Term elections and take on the incumbent Weah in 2023.
If there’s any consolation, the end of the Nwabudike saga has opened the door for another shot for President Weah to name a replacement. If the upcoming process plays out anything like what transpired over Sayor, the ruling CDC appear to be on the verge of riding a tidal wave of confidence and feeling good about their chances, in spite of the dwindling economy, governance lapses and a recurring window of opportunity, the opposition keeps letting slip away.