February 22, 2010
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has restated the demand for the removal of Prof. Maurice Iwu as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission if Nigeria will have any hope for a credible election in 2011. The party says that the country’s electoral system suffers innumerable blights any further day Iwu stays in power and wonders what is so difficult in removing a man and a leadership that has brought so much shame, reproach and opprobrium to not only the country’s fraud wracked electoral system but the image and integrity of the entire country.
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has restated the demand for the removal of Prof. Maurice Iwu as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission if Nigeria will have any hope for a credible election in 2011. The party says that the country’s electoral system suffers innumerable blights any further day Iwu stays in power and wonders what is so difficult in removing a man and a leadership that has brought so much shame, reproach and opprobrium to not only the country’s fraud wracked electoral system but the image and integrity of the entire country.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that the Iwu led INEC leadership has roundly demonstrated incompetence and lack of integrity and honesty in handling the country’s electoral system in the past five years and need to be freed from the system to allow Nigerians have a free and fair electoral system. It warned that the consequences of continuing tolerating Iwu’s compromised presence and embarrassing excesses will truncate the democratic process if no credible election is conducted in 2011.
“One may be tempted to believe that Iwu and the corrupt INEC leadership is changing for the better by the relative success recorded in the Anambra election and the Etsako House of Assembly re-run but the awful preparations attended the two elections which shows that the salutary outcomes of both elections were gotten in spite of Iwu and the entrenched tendency to manipulate elections to favour the PDP. Again the sloppiness and tardiness that have become traditional to Iwu-led INEC were in full display in those elections, which suggest that the present INEC leadership cannot conduct any election that is free from shoddiness. Having stayed five years and having failed Nigerians in the critical areas of a sound electoral system that will drive their quest for progress, the least we expect is that Iwu should be relieved from his duties and a fresh and competent hand be recruited to rescue our electoral system from perdition.
“We believe the huge reversals at the various tribunals, the damning verdict of nearly all local and international observers and the general opprobrium and rejection that attended the 2007 farcical elections and nearly all the re-runs conducted by the present INEC leadership has made the call for the sacking of the inept and very corrupt INEC leadership so compelling that it has become a bye word for electoral fraud and unconscionable partisan actions. It is so bad that most Nigerians mock and deride any promise for electoral reforms from the present government on the basis of Iwu’s continued stay at the helms of INEC. It is so bad that the INEC commands the greatest degree of rejection, skepticism and scorn amongst Nigerians and is not trusted to deliver on free and fair elections.
“As Nigerians have endured the federal government’s adamant posture to see to the end of Iwu’s inglorious era, we state that tasking us further by retaining Iwu will endanger the already battered confidence in the electoral body, with a very damning consequence on future elections conducted by the present INEC. With 2011 around the corner, Lagos AC believes that the present government is endangering the electoral process by its continued conspiratorial tolerance of the Iwu leadership of INEC and the putrid malfeasances that it is notorious for. We therefore call for the sack of Iwu and the entire INEC leadership and the reconstitution of INEC along the lines recommended by the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel as a sure way of injecting badly needed confidence in the electoral system. We see this as the first concrete way to start off the reform of the putrid electoral system that Nigeria is suffering from at present.”
Joe Igbokwe
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that the Iwu led INEC leadership has roundly demonstrated incompetence and lack of integrity and honesty in handling the country’s electoral system in the past five years and need to be freed from the system to allow Nigerians have a free and fair electoral system. It warned that the consequences of continuing tolerating Iwu’s compromised presence and embarrassing excesses will truncate the democratic process if no credible election is conducted in 2011.
“One may be tempted to believe that Iwu and the corrupt INEC leadership is changing for the better by the relative success recorded in the Anambra election and the Etsako House of Assembly re-run but the awful preparations attended the two elections which shows that the salutary outcomes of both elections were gotten in spite of Iwu and the entrenched tendency to manipulate elections to favour the PDP. Again the sloppiness and tardiness that have become traditional to Iwu-led INEC were in full display in those elections, which suggest that the present INEC leadership cannot conduct any election that is free from shoddiness. Having stayed five years and having failed Nigerians in the critical areas of a sound electoral system that will drive their quest for progress, the least we expect is that Iwu should be relieved from his duties and a fresh and competent hand be recruited to rescue our electoral system from perdition.
“We believe the huge reversals at the various tribunals, the damning verdict of nearly all local and international observers and the general opprobrium and rejection that attended the 2007 farcical elections and nearly all the re-runs conducted by the present INEC leadership has made the call for the sacking of the inept and very corrupt INEC leadership so compelling that it has become a bye word for electoral fraud and unconscionable partisan actions. It is so bad that most Nigerians mock and deride any promise for electoral reforms from the present government on the basis of Iwu’s continued stay at the helms of INEC. It is so bad that the INEC commands the greatest degree of rejection, skepticism and scorn amongst Nigerians and is not trusted to deliver on free and fair elections.
“As Nigerians have endured the federal government’s adamant posture to see to the end of Iwu’s inglorious era, we state that tasking us further by retaining Iwu will endanger the already battered confidence in the electoral body, with a very damning consequence on future elections conducted by the present INEC. With 2011 around the corner, Lagos AC believes that the present government is endangering the electoral process by its continued conspiratorial tolerance of the Iwu leadership of INEC and the putrid malfeasances that it is notorious for. We therefore call for the sack of Iwu and the entire INEC leadership and the reconstitution of INEC along the lines recommended by the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel as a sure way of injecting badly needed confidence in the electoral system. We see this as the first concrete way to start off the reform of the putrid electoral system that Nigeria is suffering from at present.”
Joe Igbokwe
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
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