Sanitizing the Electoral Process in Nigeria (2)

One conclusion that can be drawn from the large turnouts and enthusiastic presentations at the public sittings of the Electoral Review Committee (ERC) held across the federation over the last few weeks is that Nigerians are totally fed up with elections that are manipulated and outcomes that are at variance with the wishes of the people. The prevailing anxiety for a transparent electoral process is buoyed by widespread appreciation of the multifarous problems that engender electoral malfeasance: presenter after presenter catalogued the maladies in the electoral process and, with astonishing consistency, pointed out the way forward.

The topical issues about which the most strindent and repeated calls were made by state governments, political parties, professional bodies, traditional institutions, religious groups, trade unions, security agencies, NGOs, and individuals that appeared at the various venues of the ERC sittings included the issue of the autonomy of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and the appointment of it’s helmsman. Many presenters harped, quite rightly, on the need to take the institution saddled with the responsibility for the conduct of the election away from the influence of the executive arm of government. To do this, the general opinion was that the funding of INEC should be charged direct to the consolidated revenue fund. This would release the commission from the whims and caprices of an executive arm of government that is at all material times an interested party in electoral combats. Read more

Sanitizing the Electoral Process in Nigeria (1)

How to purge our electoral process in Nigeria of the structural flaws that have prevented it from achieving even modicum credibility is a great concern in the polity today. From 1959 to 2007, general elections in Nigeria have been characterized by malpractices and controversies. For this reason, early in his administration, President Umar Yar’Adua set up the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) headed by retired Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muhammed Uwais. The ERC has been going round the country in the last few weeks in two teams collecting ideas on the way forward. While Team A has visited Maiduguri, Ibadan, Jos, Calabar, Sokoto, and Owerri, Team B has been to Lagos, Yola, Benin City, Ilorin, Enugu, and Kano. Both teams will end up at Abuja for the grand finale.

Through it’s public sittings, the ERC seeks to pool ideas and strategies aimed at breaking the vicious cycle of electoral disorder, to produce an electoral framework that will result in elections that are free of violence, bigotry, rigging, corruption and all other vices that are stultifying the growth of our nascent democracy, and possibly, to initiate a better and more profound legislation that will fast-track electoral best practices in our country. The envisioned reforms are targeted at strengthening our institutional capacity for conducting transparent elections inorder to restore intergrity to the process. Read more

Managing Democracy in Africa

June 12 memories remains evergreen in the hearts and minds of Nigerian whether democratic by pronouncement, association or in practice as well as amongst the un-democratic in our midst.

So many years after the initial flicker of light into the world of democracy, we are still struggling to consolidate on the gains supposedly accruing from its establishment. We still grope in the the darkness of corruption, mal-administration, nepotism, ethnicity and allied dark practices. Who is to blame?

It may not be the best of time to apportion blames but we should be resilient and ready to learn and accomodate each others views so that we will be united in Managing the mega fortunes that June 12 brought our way in its wake.

Managing democracy in Africa is an uphill task and will remain a mirage unless there is a genuine effort by African leaders to go beyond selfishness and dishonesty to make policies that are people oriented; until then Democracy will remain a Mirage in Many African countries not only in Nigeria. Read more

Barack Obama - this is our time - that speech

Barack Obama’s Democratic Nomination Victory Speech at St Paul’s Minessota.

We are all in this prison together like the prisoners in the legendary “Shawshank Redemption“; when Brooks could not take it anymore in the ‘Half-way House’ he etched on the word that ‘Brooks was Here’ before taking his life. Red got there he had other plans as he was not about to take his life; but, he appended his name thus ‘and so was Red’. Red did not give it up, he has hope as Andy convinced him to see hope thus; ‘Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever die’. We will all escape this prison someday.

To every believer out there, Barack is etching the words on the marble of our age with his clarion call that: ‘this is our moment’, ‘this is our time’. I will do my bit here today be reproducing part of that messages so that the generations to come will someday, somehow come across this and know that we caught the vision and ran with it.

Here is the last three mintues of that great speach. You can watch the entire 29 mins speech over and over again.

This is out time; This is our moment;

Our time to turn the pages of the policies of the past; Our time to bring bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face;

Our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love;

The journey will be difficult, the road will be long, I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but i also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people because if we are willing to fight for it and beleive in it; then i am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment we began to provide care for the sick and bring job for the jobless;

This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planets began to heal;

This was the moment we end the war and secure our image as the last best hope on earth;

This was was the moment, this was the time when we come together to remake this great nation so that it willalways reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals…

Wherever you are lucky or not to lucky to find yourselve; one thing is sure this is our time to make the necessary change that will help heal this planet.

Enjoy the entire speech below: Read more

Idris Dusts Audu

The first litmus test for INEC after the tribunals dismantled the charade of an election in April 2007 went with minimal violence, with the beneficiary of the election, winning the by-election.

Governor Ibrahim Idris of the PDP, whose election was nullified as a result of INEC’s  non inclusion of Abubakar Audu of the ANPP in the earlier contest, re-won the by-election conducted on the 29^th of March 2007.

Abubakar Audu, a two times governor of Kogi, in an interview with journalists after the result was announced, said he is heading to the election tribunal to challenge the result.

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Perceptions of Zuma to affect SA Globally

Written by: James N. Kariuki - head of the African Diaspora Unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria.

Now that Jacob Zuma is practically South Africa’s President-designate, perceptions of him have national implications.

Unfortunately, Zuma’s political circumstances for the past several years have compelled him to resort to contradictory behaviour. Will the real Zuma please stand up?

After dismissal as the country’s Deputy President in 2005, Zuma faced a do-or-die political crisis that called for unorthodoxy.

For political survival, he adopted the position of a victim of a contrived conspiracy to thwart him from becoming president.

And he effectively exploited the victim psyche strategy - injury to one is injury to all.

The most receptive groups to the victimisation approach were the trade unions, the Communist Party and the ANC Youth League.

The groups were already disenchanted with President Thabo Mbeki’s leadership that they considered pro-business.

These ‘colleagues-in-arms’ did most of the political ground work en route to Zuma’s Polokwane victory of December 2007.

Zuma’s post-Polokwane foreign trips to assert the succession battle displayed him as anti-business.

Also critical to Zuma’s political survival was the fact that he is a Zulu with little formal education.

Prior to Polokwane Zuma did not mind that image, in fact he relished it. Behold his embrace of T-shirts branding him ‘100 % Zulu boy.’

The political imperative was to distant Zuma from Mbeki’s leadership. Mbeki was seen as an aloof intellectual, while Zuma was a man of the people.

Mbeki could easily quote esoteric authors to prove that he was an African. Zuma did not need to affirm his ‘African-ness’. Observe him dancing and wielding a big stick clad in his leopard skin.

After Polokwane, Zuma’s pressing imperative was to stay out of jail. Perhaps unwittingly, in this quest, his campaign has been laced with a spectre of violence. All along, Zuma’s clarion call has been a war song, “mshimi wam, (give me my machine gun)”.

The emphasis on his ‘Zulu-ness’ has had an inference that political power is disproportionately held by the Xhosa.

In this context, Zuma supporters started questioning the eligibility of the judicial system to determine Zuma’s guilt or innocence. And the threat of violence became publicly open: “If Zuma is dragged to court, blood will be spilt.”

Fate decided by judiciary

Fortunately, Zuma has vehemently demonstrated his faith in the judicial system. After all, it was the same system that recently absolved him of a serious rape charge.

Regarding the pending criminal charges of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, Zuma has consistently insisted on an opportunity to prove his innocence.

He has retained a highly visible (read costly) legal team, a further demonstration of confidence in the legal process.

But one of the biggest of Zuma’s ironies occurred in mid-February 2008. He went to Mauritius to petition that country’s court to bar SA’s prosecutors from obtaining original documents said to incriminate him and his convicted financial adviser in a corrupt relationship. This is a battle against prosecution.

Meanwhile, Zuma’s attorneys back home question the admissibility of those documents before the Constitutional Court, if they are indeed obtained.

If this manoeuvre fails, Zuma will finally invoke the principle of justice delayed is justice denied because the state has spent more than eight years to charge him.

Yet, most of the delays have been due to what has been dubbed, ‘Zuma’s “disingenuous legal tactics.”

All in all, for the presidency, Zuma must prove his innocence before the nation and the world by refuting, not bypassing, the accusations against him.

In 2007, outspoken Archbishop Desmond Tutu publicly urged Zuma to step out of the presidential contest for the sake of the country.

To him, Zuma’s candidacy had become too divisive for the nation.

Tutu had in mind the internal political cohesion of SA. But the infection is now spilling over to other sectors.

In February 2008, Fitch, a global credit ratings agency, reported that international investors perceive Zuma’s rise to power as a political risk. If other international credit ratings agencies follow suit, perception of Zuma could reduce SA’s borrowing power, which could ultimately stymie national economic growth.

Would Zuma want that on his conscience?

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