If there is any Nigerian politician that is qualified to publicly proclaim that “there’s no free and fair election in Nigeria” it should be the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. This is because he has played the game on both sides of the divide.. He has ‘wealth of experience’ on what elections look like in the country both on the ruling side and the opposition experience. So he can rightly be said to have been part of it all.
The former vice president has repeatedly alleged that there is near absence of governance in the country and that the PDP lacked the capacity to drive the electoral reform process. How true these assertions are. It is an obvious fact that enabling the people to engage in the politics of their country and deciding those to actually represent them is pivotal to battling corruption and financial recklessness by politicians at the helm of affairs in this country.
In the same vein, The British All Parliamentary Group on Nigeria in a recent report established that “The country (Nigeria) and any hope of reform or moving forward are undermined if the government lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
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“Nigeria hopes to be among the top twenty world economies by 2020 but this will not happen unless its leadership – at all levels, including federal, state and local government and civil society leaders – becomes organised and takes direct responsibility for the people....”
A word of advice to The Information Minister, Prof Dora Akunyili: Don’t bother to defend the above assertions or criticise the group because the assertions in the report are obvious truths that only a fool would tend to controvert.
It has become the practice in this country for people in government to use the Independent or rather dependent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and even the election tribunals and the courts to justify their legitimacy.
And interestingly, such legitimacy would only be and remain on paper. In the minds and psyche of Nigerians who witnessed the unprecedented April 2007 fraud called elections that brought almost everybody parading as elected representative of the people at the federal (including the President and National Assembly members), states and local councils administrations, it is well settled that these people are frauds and so illegitimately occupying positions that were supposed to be based on trust.
The ‘real’ Nigerian people may not say it publicly but they act it by deliberately disregarding or rather undermining the authourities at all levels.
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Thank God that the determination and resourcefulness of the ‘real’ Nigerians in attempting to overcome the considerable challenges the country faces particularly that of leadership, are glaring and appreciated by right-minded people within and outside the country as highlighted by the British Parliamentary Study Group. So the problem is not with the ‘real’ Nigerians but this band of conscienceless politicians branding themselves as our leaders at all levels.
How true was Atiku in his assertion that the problem of free and fair elections in the country is not just INEC or Prof Iwu but the leadership of the country must believe in free and fair elections. “If the leadership calls Iwu and says deliver so so and so by hook or crook, as long as Iwu remains an appointee of the political leadership, he will deliver.”
The former Vice President was bold to say that what looked like electoral reform initiated by the present administration, unfortunately has lost steam. How true this assertion is.
President Umaru Yar’adua after reviewing the report of the committee he set up for the purpose of proffering a way forward has turned around to insist that he must appoint the chairman of INEC, and the chairman of the other proposed electoral regulatory commission, so we are back to where we started and everything remains the same.
Atiku’s view is that a very sound electoral system would be achieved in this country if the government would agree as the first step to implement the Uwais Reform Committee report as it is or with “minimal tinkering with the recommendations of the report. We should implement them as recommended by the Uwais committee”
It is however baffling that though the present crop of rulers had acknowledged the glaring flaws in the nation’s electoral system it still finds it difficult to carry out sweeping reforms to right the inherent wrongs simply for selfish reasons.
The people in government seem to be more interested in their personal interests and inundate ambitions of perpetrating themselves in power rather than being genuinely concerned about the overall corporate interests of the country. How sad! This is pure witch crafting.
How else can anybody describe a situation where the generality of the people are literally demobilised and glaringly frustrated by leadership that leads only themselves and their family members if not to say that the people who say they are leading the country derive special joy in seeing the people suffer?
Whether anybody likes it or nor, repackaging the nation’s electoral system is a necessity that must be carried out if not now in the near future. But it would be in the interest and credit of the Yar’adua-led administration to do it now and take the glory.
SENIOR FYNEFACE, ELELEWON STREET GRA II, PORT HARCOURT ([email protected])
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