June 30, 2010
Dear Sir: The International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law has painstakingly made a finding of fact on the following issues:
Election Midwifery In Nigeria Since Independence:
Election midwifery or management in Nigeria has over the years remained a major cause for concern. A cursory look at the election process in Nigeria shows that the military-supervised elections in the country since the end of colonial era appeared to be more credible than those conducted by civilian authorities (including Your Commission).
For instance, the general elections of 1959, conducted by the colonial masters were more credible than the 1964 general elections, conducted by the indigenous-civilian authorities, which led to the break down of law and order in then Western Nigeria, the after-math effects culminated in the civil-war of 1967-1970. Prior to that war, about 30,000 Easterners were slaughtered in Kano in 1966 and the civil-war itself claimed over 2 million lives.
Also, the military-conducted elections of 1979 were more credible than the elections of 1983, conducted by civilians, which resulted in the loss of lives and burning of properties in Ondo State. The crisis also led to military takeover in December 1983. Again, the military-supervised polls of 1991 (governorship and legislative) and 1993 (presidential) had been adjudged the most credible of all the elections conducted so far in Nigeria. And the military-conducted polls of 1999 was more free and fair than the civilian-conducted polls of 2003 and 2007, with the 2007 polls adjudged the most roguish.
In the course of our investigations, we discovered rigging, supervised by INEC as the main hindrance to the institutionalization of the culture of credible elections in Nigeria in recent times. By law, the Independent National Electoral Commission has powers to organize elections into about 1,625 elective offices in Nigeria while States’ Independent Electoral Commissions are empowered to organize elections into over 11,000 local governments’ elective offices. There are about 13,700 elective offices in Nigeria recognized by the Constitution of Nigeria 1999.
Further to this chilling discovery is that out of 1,625 elections conducted into 1,625 elective offices in 2007 by Your Commission, about 1,525 petitions arose. The petitions were filed before various election petitions tribunals (electoral courts) in Nigeria. The petitions were as a result of armada of fraud that greeted the conduct of the 2007 general elections in Nigeria in 2007. As at 30th day of June 2010, over 300 petitions were reportedly lying undecided at various Divisions of the Nigeria’s Court of Appeal, less than a year to the next general elections in 2011, in tenures that would end in May 2011.
Fraudulent National Register Of Voters:
The culture of roguish electoral process has continued to hold Nigeria and Nigerians to ransom. It is widely believed that 80% of those presently occupying Nigeria’s 13,700 elective offices did not win their elections. It is our further discovery that over the years, Nigeria’s electoral umpire and other partners-in-crime have maintained a fraudulent National Register of Voters, filled with dead and non-existing names. It is estimated that 70% of Nigerian eligible voters do not have their names in the said Register, yet the figure contained in the Register is deafening when mentioned. This roguish National Register of Voters has over the years sustained the armada of rigging in Nigeria’s electoral industry.
In Anambra State, for instance, out of 1,84million “registered voters” contained in the State’s version of the National Register of Voters, about 600,000 were real names or verifiable names and 301,000 of them voted in the February 6, 2010 gubernatorial poll. Even when persons are registered as voters, their Voters’ Cards are rarely issued to them by Your Commission. In Lagos State alone, according to reports emanating from Your Commission, there are about 2.1million registered voters, who have not been issued with their Voters’ Cards, out of the State’s registered voters of 4,204,000.
Your Commission is also tasked, constitutionally, to carry out continuous registration of eligible voters as well as to update the National Register of Voters so as to add and subtract with respect to fake names, names of those who have died and those that attained the voting age. The Commission observes these in breach with reckless abandon. Not even the organization of voters/civic education for the purpose of popular participation in electoral process is carried out by the Commission.
We had in the course of our investigations, laid our hands on a document containing the total number of registered voters, used in the fraudulent 2007 general elections in Nigeria. The said Voters’ Register was prepared in 2006. The numbers allocated to the 36 States and the FCT are as follows: Abia (1,365,641), Adamawa (1,315,950), Anambra (1,844,819), Akwa Ibom (1,408,197), Bauchi (2,211,463), Bayelsa (955,279), Borno (2,150,515), Benue (2,159,515), Cross River (1,139,736), Delta (1,626,630), Ebonyi (929,375), Edo (1,345,410), Ekiti (771,228), Enugu (1,201,697), Gombe (1,410,234), Imo (1,372,975), Jigawa (1,722,332), Kaduna (3,374,245).
Others are: Kano (4,072,597), Kastina (2,589,047), Kebbi (1,345,436), Kogi (1,479,834), Kwara (1,216,478), Lagos (4,204,000), Nasarawa (1,001,423), Niger (1,551,903), Ogun (1,466,308), Ondo (1,356,779), Osun (1,297,297), Oyo (1,793,476), Plateau (1,602,550), Rivers (2,583,317), Sokoto (1,109,337), Taraba (1,173,514), Yobe (994,380), Zamfara (1,330,572), Federal Capital Territory (Abuja)(765,472). In other words, the National Register of Voters for the 2007 general elections and their supplementary polls contained a total of 61million “registered” voters.
In case of Anambra State, for instance, out of 1,844million names contained in State’s version of the National Register of Voters, about 65% of them are found to be fake and dead names. About 35% (600,000) of the names of the State’s estimated 2million eligible voters are contained in the National Register of Voters. And out of the said 35% authentic names, about 18 % (301,000) voted during the February 6, 2010 gubernatorial election in the State. The remaining 17% could not vote either as a result of administrative lapses on the part of Your Commission or that they chose to stay away. The Anambra’s version of the National Register of Voters also contained even till date, tens of thousands of fictitious names and symbols such as trees, windows, doors, blank spaces, all with human names and INEC- given code numbers. Thousands of dead names abound therein. All in all, 1.25million names are fictitious and about 600,000 names are real. About 1.4million eligible voters in Anambra State still have their names outside the National Register of Voters.
In the case of Nigeria, the story is not different. About 70% of Nigeria’s eligible voters still have their names outside the National Register of Voters. In other words, out of the 61million so-called “registered voters”, the real names or numbers may not exceed 20million. The following statement, made in 2007 by the USA-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a strong basis for this position of ours: “The announcement by INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu that the Commission had registered 61million voters at the close of the voters registration exercise took many Nigerians by surprise. Observers questioned whether the leap in registration figures announced by the Commission at various stages of the process could be adequately accounted for by a mere increase in the number of Direct Data Capture Machines and greater expertise on the part of the DDC operators.
As at November 24th, 2006, the Commission had announced the total registration of 3.5 million, by December 10th, it was 10million. December 14th was the day when many had expected the registration to close in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Act (section 10(5), but the registration continued under the guise of “voter revalidation”. By mid January(2007), the Commission said it had registered 32million and announced 54million voters as having been registered on 2nd day of February 2007 after the close of the exercise” Your Commission informed Nigerians at its 2nd National Forum before the 2007 polls that a total of 61million Nigerians had been registered to vote. Till date, this criminal Register is still in use.
The foregoing statement by the highly respected National Democratic Institute is self-explained. It shows how the bogus National Register of Voters was concocted. Through this criminal National Register of Voters, gangster politicians have ascended to, and occupied about 80% of Nigeria’s 13,700 elective offices. And partly through this, over 300billion Dollars, belonging to Nigerians had been siphoned by “Nigerian generals and gangster politicians in the past thirty-years up to 2006” (World Bank Report, quoted in May 3rd 2010 Edition of Time Magazine, at Page 42). Over 80% of corrupt cases emanated from public offices/officials (in Nigeria), according to World Bank, owing to roguish electoral process, bred by criminal National Register of Voters.
Therefore, it is one thing to promise free and fair or credible elections, it is another thing to conduct same proper. Mere promises are not good enough. Action, they say, speaks louder than voice. The first and major task facing Your Commission is to clean up the roguish and tainted National Register of Voters. And to do this, all the fake names, dead names and inanimate objects or symbols flooding the Register must be identified and deleted.
On the point of law, Section 10(1) of the Electoral Act of 2006, tasks Your Commission to “compile, maintain and update on continuous basis a National Register of Voters which shall include voters and names of all persons entitled to vote in any Federal ,State, Local Government or Area Council elections.” Section 11(1) of the same Act, states that “Without prejudice to Section 10(5), there shall be continuous registration of all persons qualified to be registered voters.” And Section 10(5) of the Act says that “The registration of voters, updating and revision of the Register of Voters under this Section shall stop not later than 120 days before any election covered by this Act”.
The plain meaning of the sections foregoing is that Your Commission should continuously register those eligible to vote; continuously compile, maintain and update a National Register of Voters. And having complied with the provisions afore-mentioned (on assumption), Your Commission would stop such exercises 120 days to any election fixed by Your Commission. But these tasks are hardly carried out, yet the Commission rushes to Section 10(5) of the Act, with criminal intent to comply with same at the painful expense of Section 10(1) and 11(1) of same Act.
In the case of Anambra State, for instance, Your Commission refused to carry out the said functions until at eleventh hour, after which it ran and took cover under Section 10(5). In the Suit Number FHC/AWK/CS/225/09 (Incorporated Board of Trustees of International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law v. Independent National Electoral Commission & Anor), Your Commission relied on that section (section 10(5) to escape from being held accountable for its failures to carry out the constitutionally imposed duties.
Our contacts from most of the pre-2009 polling booths in Nigeria numbering 187,000, have informed us that neither registration of voters, nor compiling/updating exercise is ongoing. It is also necessary for Your Commission to let Nigerians know the actual number of polling booths in Nigeria, to be used in 2011 general elections. This clarification is necessitated by a statement credited to your predecessor and bosom pal, Professor Maurice Iwu to the effect that 187,000 polling booths were used in the 2007 general elections and that additional 93,500 would be created to bring the total number of same to 280,500. Nigerians would like to know whether such numbers had been created or not.
In order not to fall into the trap of Section10 (5) of the Electoral Act of 2006, which we understand, was not part of the sections being amended, Your Commission must kick-start the exercises so enumerated as a matter of extreme immediacy. If elections are to be held in January/February 2011, it means Your Commission has only three to four months to register teeming Nigerian eligible voters and prepare credible National Register of Voters and if it is to be held in April 2011, then less than six months are left for Your Commission to carry out the said tasks. Such exercise(s) must also include authentication process to enable voters’ card bearers who could not find their names in the Register to have their names inserted. We say these bearing in mind the provision of the said Section 10(5) of the Act.
Anambra case should be an eye opener to Your Commission. Because the prevailing circumstances provided that the votes of those who voted should be counted, we saw high sense of enthusiasm on the part of eligible voters to vote but for mass disenfranchisement, no thanks to INEC and its collaborators. Yet people who voted had their votes counted, thereby making Anambra gubernatorial election one of the few credibly conducted polls in Nigeria where votes of those who voted counted.
If the election riggers had had their way in the foregoing case, the “winner” of that election would have been awarded whopping one million-plus votes, from the existing roguish Voters’ Register for the State. This simply shows that if a genuine election is conducted in Nigeria on the basis of one-man-one-vote, as was done in Anambra State, with the current National Register of Voters, the winner of the presidential election may not score more than 5million votes, as opposed to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s 24million votes in 2007.
There is no better time to challenge those of us who opposed your nomination, on the grounds that even though you have requisite paper qualifications, and resounding years of experience in the academic field like your predecessor, but the will-power or qualification and your alleged closeness to your predecessor, etc may erode management artistry required to break away from seemingly traditionalized roguish electoral process in Nigeria.
The presidential promises of credible elections in 2011 and the promises made by you during your chairmanship screening at the National Assembly and at your swearing-in are appreciated, but they are not good enough. It is in order to contribute our quota towards credible general elections in 2011 that informed our noble decision to address this important letter to Your Commission. Unfortunately, our position over your nomination will remain until we are convinced that you are the rightful electoral messiah that will salvage Nigeria’s criminal electoral management.
The possibility or impossibility of credible elections in 2011 substantially depends on the status of the National Register of Voters, to be repackaged by Your Commission. If by the end of July 2010, there is no clear sign of Your Commission’s preparedness to give Nigerians credible National Register of Voters, by way of credible registration of teeming eligible voters and updating of the Register, we may consider going to Court so as to force Your Commission’s obedience to the law of the land, and not even Section 10(5) of the Electoral Act of 2006, will save Your Commission from corporate accountability pertaining to 2011 electoral midwifery. We must put an end to electoral and political gangsterism in Nigeria.
We trust in Your Commission’s prompt response to this important letter of ours.
Yours Faithfully,
For: Intersociety-Nigeria
Emeka Umeagbalasi Comrade Justus Ijeoma
Chairman Head
Board of Trustees Publicity Desk
+234(0)8033601078 +234(0)8037114869
[email protected]
TO; Professor Attahiru Jega
Chairman
Independent National Electoral Commission
INEC’s National Headquarters
Zambezi Crescent
FCT, Abuja
CC:
1. The President & Commander-in-Chief, Federal Republic of Nigeria
2. The Chief Justice of Nigeria
3. The Attorney General of the Federation & Minister of Justice
4. Senate President, Federal Republic Of Nigeria
5. The Speaker, House of Representatives
6. Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission
7. Secretary General, Transition Monitoring Group, Nigeria
8. President, Nigerian Bar Association
9. Secretary General, Alliance for Credible Elections, Nigeria
10. Convener, Save Nigeria Group
11. United Nations Secretary-General, New York, USA
12. The President of United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland
13. UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland
14. The Secretary General of The Commonwealth
15. The Chairperson, African Union High Commission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
16. Chairperson, African Human Rights Commission, Bangui, The Gambia
17. President of the United States
18. President of the European Union Federation
19. The Prime Minister of Canada
20. The British Prime Minister
21. The French President
22. The Chancellor of The Federal Republic Of Germany
23. The Prime Minister of Australia
24. Amnesty International, London, UK
25. Human Rights Watch, New York, USA
26. Article 19, London, UK
27. International Alert, London, UK
28. International Service for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland United
29. Action for Democracy, Nigeria
30. Campaign for Democracy, Nigeria
31. Civil Liberties Organization, Nigeria
32. Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, Nigeria
Election Midwifery In Nigeria Since Independence:
Election midwifery or management in Nigeria has over the years remained a major cause for concern. A cursory look at the election process in Nigeria shows that the military-supervised elections in the country since the end of colonial era appeared to be more credible than those conducted by civilian authorities (including Your Commission).
For instance, the general elections of 1959, conducted by the colonial masters were more credible than the 1964 general elections, conducted by the indigenous-civilian authorities, which led to the break down of law and order in then Western Nigeria, the after-math effects culminated in the civil-war of 1967-1970. Prior to that war, about 30,000 Easterners were slaughtered in Kano in 1966 and the civil-war itself claimed over 2 million lives.
Also, the military-conducted elections of 1979 were more credible than the elections of 1983, conducted by civilians, which resulted in the loss of lives and burning of properties in Ondo State. The crisis also led to military takeover in December 1983. Again, the military-supervised polls of 1991 (governorship and legislative) and 1993 (presidential) had been adjudged the most credible of all the elections conducted so far in Nigeria. And the military-conducted polls of 1999 was more free and fair than the civilian-conducted polls of 2003 and 2007, with the 2007 polls adjudged the most roguish.
In the course of our investigations, we discovered rigging, supervised by INEC as the main hindrance to the institutionalization of the culture of credible elections in Nigeria in recent times. By law, the Independent National Electoral Commission has powers to organize elections into about 1,625 elective offices in Nigeria while States’ Independent Electoral Commissions are empowered to organize elections into over 11,000 local governments’ elective offices. There are about 13,700 elective offices in Nigeria recognized by the Constitution of Nigeria 1999.
Further to this chilling discovery is that out of 1,625 elections conducted into 1,625 elective offices in 2007 by Your Commission, about 1,525 petitions arose. The petitions were filed before various election petitions tribunals (electoral courts) in Nigeria. The petitions were as a result of armada of fraud that greeted the conduct of the 2007 general elections in Nigeria in 2007. As at 30th day of June 2010, over 300 petitions were reportedly lying undecided at various Divisions of the Nigeria’s Court of Appeal, less than a year to the next general elections in 2011, in tenures that would end in May 2011.
Fraudulent National Register Of Voters:
The culture of roguish electoral process has continued to hold Nigeria and Nigerians to ransom. It is widely believed that 80% of those presently occupying Nigeria’s 13,700 elective offices did not win their elections. It is our further discovery that over the years, Nigeria’s electoral umpire and other partners-in-crime have maintained a fraudulent National Register of Voters, filled with dead and non-existing names. It is estimated that 70% of Nigerian eligible voters do not have their names in the said Register, yet the figure contained in the Register is deafening when mentioned. This roguish National Register of Voters has over the years sustained the armada of rigging in Nigeria’s electoral industry.
In Anambra State, for instance, out of 1,84million “registered voters” contained in the State’s version of the National Register of Voters, about 600,000 were real names or verifiable names and 301,000 of them voted in the February 6, 2010 gubernatorial poll. Even when persons are registered as voters, their Voters’ Cards are rarely issued to them by Your Commission. In Lagos State alone, according to reports emanating from Your Commission, there are about 2.1million registered voters, who have not been issued with their Voters’ Cards, out of the State’s registered voters of 4,204,000.
Your Commission is also tasked, constitutionally, to carry out continuous registration of eligible voters as well as to update the National Register of Voters so as to add and subtract with respect to fake names, names of those who have died and those that attained the voting age. The Commission observes these in breach with reckless abandon. Not even the organization of voters/civic education for the purpose of popular participation in electoral process is carried out by the Commission.
We had in the course of our investigations, laid our hands on a document containing the total number of registered voters, used in the fraudulent 2007 general elections in Nigeria. The said Voters’ Register was prepared in 2006. The numbers allocated to the 36 States and the FCT are as follows: Abia (1,365,641), Adamawa (1,315,950), Anambra (1,844,819), Akwa Ibom (1,408,197), Bauchi (2,211,463), Bayelsa (955,279), Borno (2,150,515), Benue (2,159,515), Cross River (1,139,736), Delta (1,626,630), Ebonyi (929,375), Edo (1,345,410), Ekiti (771,228), Enugu (1,201,697), Gombe (1,410,234), Imo (1,372,975), Jigawa (1,722,332), Kaduna (3,374,245).
Others are: Kano (4,072,597), Kastina (2,589,047), Kebbi (1,345,436), Kogi (1,479,834), Kwara (1,216,478), Lagos (4,204,000), Nasarawa (1,001,423), Niger (1,551,903), Ogun (1,466,308), Ondo (1,356,779), Osun (1,297,297), Oyo (1,793,476), Plateau (1,602,550), Rivers (2,583,317), Sokoto (1,109,337), Taraba (1,173,514), Yobe (994,380), Zamfara (1,330,572), Federal Capital Territory (Abuja)(765,472). In other words, the National Register of Voters for the 2007 general elections and their supplementary polls contained a total of 61million “registered” voters.
In case of Anambra State, for instance, out of 1,844million names contained in State’s version of the National Register of Voters, about 65% of them are found to be fake and dead names. About 35% (600,000) of the names of the State’s estimated 2million eligible voters are contained in the National Register of Voters. And out of the said 35% authentic names, about 18 % (301,000) voted during the February 6, 2010 gubernatorial election in the State. The remaining 17% could not vote either as a result of administrative lapses on the part of Your Commission or that they chose to stay away. The Anambra’s version of the National Register of Voters also contained even till date, tens of thousands of fictitious names and symbols such as trees, windows, doors, blank spaces, all with human names and INEC- given code numbers. Thousands of dead names abound therein. All in all, 1.25million names are fictitious and about 600,000 names are real. About 1.4million eligible voters in Anambra State still have their names outside the National Register of Voters.
In the case of Nigeria, the story is not different. About 70% of Nigeria’s eligible voters still have their names outside the National Register of Voters. In other words, out of the 61million so-called “registered voters”, the real names or numbers may not exceed 20million. The following statement, made in 2007 by the USA-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a strong basis for this position of ours: “The announcement by INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu that the Commission had registered 61million voters at the close of the voters registration exercise took many Nigerians by surprise. Observers questioned whether the leap in registration figures announced by the Commission at various stages of the process could be adequately accounted for by a mere increase in the number of Direct Data Capture Machines and greater expertise on the part of the DDC operators.
As at November 24th, 2006, the Commission had announced the total registration of 3.5 million, by December 10th, it was 10million. December 14th was the day when many had expected the registration to close in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Act (section 10(5), but the registration continued under the guise of “voter revalidation”. By mid January(2007), the Commission said it had registered 32million and announced 54million voters as having been registered on 2nd day of February 2007 after the close of the exercise” Your Commission informed Nigerians at its 2nd National Forum before the 2007 polls that a total of 61million Nigerians had been registered to vote. Till date, this criminal Register is still in use.
The foregoing statement by the highly respected National Democratic Institute is self-explained. It shows how the bogus National Register of Voters was concocted. Through this criminal National Register of Voters, gangster politicians have ascended to, and occupied about 80% of Nigeria’s 13,700 elective offices. And partly through this, over 300billion Dollars, belonging to Nigerians had been siphoned by “Nigerian generals and gangster politicians in the past thirty-years up to 2006” (World Bank Report, quoted in May 3rd 2010 Edition of Time Magazine, at Page 42). Over 80% of corrupt cases emanated from public offices/officials (in Nigeria), according to World Bank, owing to roguish electoral process, bred by criminal National Register of Voters.
Therefore, it is one thing to promise free and fair or credible elections, it is another thing to conduct same proper. Mere promises are not good enough. Action, they say, speaks louder than voice. The first and major task facing Your Commission is to clean up the roguish and tainted National Register of Voters. And to do this, all the fake names, dead names and inanimate objects or symbols flooding the Register must be identified and deleted.
On the point of law, Section 10(1) of the Electoral Act of 2006, tasks Your Commission to “compile, maintain and update on continuous basis a National Register of Voters which shall include voters and names of all persons entitled to vote in any Federal ,State, Local Government or Area Council elections.” Section 11(1) of the same Act, states that “Without prejudice to Section 10(5), there shall be continuous registration of all persons qualified to be registered voters.” And Section 10(5) of the Act says that “The registration of voters, updating and revision of the Register of Voters under this Section shall stop not later than 120 days before any election covered by this Act”.
The plain meaning of the sections foregoing is that Your Commission should continuously register those eligible to vote; continuously compile, maintain and update a National Register of Voters. And having complied with the provisions afore-mentioned (on assumption), Your Commission would stop such exercises 120 days to any election fixed by Your Commission. But these tasks are hardly carried out, yet the Commission rushes to Section 10(5) of the Act, with criminal intent to comply with same at the painful expense of Section 10(1) and 11(1) of same Act.
In the case of Anambra State, for instance, Your Commission refused to carry out the said functions until at eleventh hour, after which it ran and took cover under Section 10(5). In the Suit Number FHC/AWK/CS/225/09 (Incorporated Board of Trustees of International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law v. Independent National Electoral Commission & Anor), Your Commission relied on that section (section 10(5) to escape from being held accountable for its failures to carry out the constitutionally imposed duties.
Our contacts from most of the pre-2009 polling booths in Nigeria numbering 187,000, have informed us that neither registration of voters, nor compiling/updating exercise is ongoing. It is also necessary for Your Commission to let Nigerians know the actual number of polling booths in Nigeria, to be used in 2011 general elections. This clarification is necessitated by a statement credited to your predecessor and bosom pal, Professor Maurice Iwu to the effect that 187,000 polling booths were used in the 2007 general elections and that additional 93,500 would be created to bring the total number of same to 280,500. Nigerians would like to know whether such numbers had been created or not.
In order not to fall into the trap of Section10 (5) of the Electoral Act of 2006, which we understand, was not part of the sections being amended, Your Commission must kick-start the exercises so enumerated as a matter of extreme immediacy. If elections are to be held in January/February 2011, it means Your Commission has only three to four months to register teeming Nigerian eligible voters and prepare credible National Register of Voters and if it is to be held in April 2011, then less than six months are left for Your Commission to carry out the said tasks. Such exercise(s) must also include authentication process to enable voters’ card bearers who could not find their names in the Register to have their names inserted. We say these bearing in mind the provision of the said Section 10(5) of the Act.
Anambra case should be an eye opener to Your Commission. Because the prevailing circumstances provided that the votes of those who voted should be counted, we saw high sense of enthusiasm on the part of eligible voters to vote but for mass disenfranchisement, no thanks to INEC and its collaborators. Yet people who voted had their votes counted, thereby making Anambra gubernatorial election one of the few credibly conducted polls in Nigeria where votes of those who voted counted.
If the election riggers had had their way in the foregoing case, the “winner” of that election would have been awarded whopping one million-plus votes, from the existing roguish Voters’ Register for the State. This simply shows that if a genuine election is conducted in Nigeria on the basis of one-man-one-vote, as was done in Anambra State, with the current National Register of Voters, the winner of the presidential election may not score more than 5million votes, as opposed to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s 24million votes in 2007.
There is no better time to challenge those of us who opposed your nomination, on the grounds that even though you have requisite paper qualifications, and resounding years of experience in the academic field like your predecessor, but the will-power or qualification and your alleged closeness to your predecessor, etc may erode management artistry required to break away from seemingly traditionalized roguish electoral process in Nigeria.
The presidential promises of credible elections in 2011 and the promises made by you during your chairmanship screening at the National Assembly and at your swearing-in are appreciated, but they are not good enough. It is in order to contribute our quota towards credible general elections in 2011 that informed our noble decision to address this important letter to Your Commission. Unfortunately, our position over your nomination will remain until we are convinced that you are the rightful electoral messiah that will salvage Nigeria’s criminal electoral management.
The possibility or impossibility of credible elections in 2011 substantially depends on the status of the National Register of Voters, to be repackaged by Your Commission. If by the end of July 2010, there is no clear sign of Your Commission’s preparedness to give Nigerians credible National Register of Voters, by way of credible registration of teeming eligible voters and updating of the Register, we may consider going to Court so as to force Your Commission’s obedience to the law of the land, and not even Section 10(5) of the Electoral Act of 2006, will save Your Commission from corporate accountability pertaining to 2011 electoral midwifery. We must put an end to electoral and political gangsterism in Nigeria.
We trust in Your Commission’s prompt response to this important letter of ours.
Yours Faithfully,
For: Intersociety-Nigeria
Emeka Umeagbalasi Comrade Justus Ijeoma
Chairman Head
Board of Trustees Publicity Desk
+234(0)8033601078 +234(0)8037114869
[email protected]
TO; Professor Attahiru Jega
Chairman
Independent National Electoral Commission
INEC’s National Headquarters
Zambezi Crescent
FCT, Abuja
CC:
1. The President & Commander-in-Chief, Federal Republic of Nigeria
2. The Chief Justice of Nigeria
3. The Attorney General of the Federation & Minister of Justice
4. Senate President, Federal Republic Of Nigeria
5. The Speaker, House of Representatives
6. Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission
7. Secretary General, Transition Monitoring Group, Nigeria
8. President, Nigerian Bar Association
9. Secretary General, Alliance for Credible Elections, Nigeria
10. Convener, Save Nigeria Group
11. United Nations Secretary-General, New York, USA
12. The President of United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland
13. UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland
14. The Secretary General of The Commonwealth
15. The Chairperson, African Union High Commission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
16. Chairperson, African Human Rights Commission, Bangui, The Gambia
17. President of the United States
18. President of the European Union Federation
19. The Prime Minister of Canada
20. The British Prime Minister
21. The French President
22. The Chancellor of The Federal Republic Of Germany
23. The Prime Minister of Australia
24. Amnesty International, London, UK
25. Human Rights Watch, New York, USA
26. Article 19, London, UK
27. International Alert, London, UK
28. International Service for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland United
29. Action for Democracy, Nigeria
30. Campaign for Democracy, Nigeria
31. Civil Liberties Organization, Nigeria
32. Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, Nigeria
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