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

Bombed Out Of House!

By Ashimole Felix/Abuja.

Bombastic earthquake grammar spitting member of Nigerian House of Representatives Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon was on Tuesday April 22 silenced by the Edo Election Tribunal. The Tribunal held that INEC erred in announcing Obahiagbon of the PDP winner of the Oredo Federal Constituency that the duly elected winner is the petitioner, Mr. Bello Osagie of Action Congress who polled legitimately 3,940 votes against Obahiagbon’s 2,282 votes contrary to the 64,032 votes awarded him by INEC.

As is the stock in trade of winners of INEC bazzar, the Counsel to Obahiagbon said shortly after the ruling that his client will proceed with immediate alacrity to the court of appeal to challenge this obnoxious anti populace inconsequential ruling.

The House will miss his comic interlude and Nigerians can now understand in simple language what the members are contributing to.

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APGA Loses Appeal To PPA

By Ashimole Felix with Agency Report.

The appeal of All Peoples Grand Alliance (APGA)’s gubernatorial candidate in Imo State, Martin Agbaso, was yesterday dismissed by the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt and the court affirmed Governor Ohakim’s victory against APGA.

Agbaso had appealed, praying the court to compel INEC to release the result of the cancelled April 14^th Election in Imo State, which Agbaso claims he won. The court of appeal held that INEC was right in cancelling an inconclusive election for non compliance of a Supreme Court judgment in favour of Senator Ifeanyichukwu Ararume as the authentic PDP flag bearer for the election.

 INEC had excluded Senator Ararume and substituted his name with Charles Ugwu as the PDP candidate for the said election. In a bid to cure this defect, INEC cancelled the April 14^th Election and ordered and conducted a fresh election on the 28^th of April, which APGA and Senator Ararume contested.   

Meanwhile it is not yet uhuru for the PPA in Imo State, as the court of Appeal is yet to rule on the appeal of Hon. Uche Onyeagocha of Action Congress (AC) and Senator Ararume challenging the Imo State Election Tribunal that entered judgment in favour of Governor Ikedi Ohakim.

 

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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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Nigeria: Man Of The Year!

Written By: Ashimole Felix

The GOLD MEDAL GOES TO Professor Maurice Iwu

The year 2007 started in Nigeria with a lot of anxiety. This uncertainty exhumed from the failed attempt at constitutional adulteration to midwife tenure extension for the Obasanjo administration.
People were skeptical if the Obasanjo administration will hand over come May 2007. On the shoulders of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rested the fate of the Nation.

Ever since the infamous April 2007, INEC and the loquacious Frankenstein Maurice Iwu have dominated the news in Nigeria. The election tribunals/courts are reversing the results from Sokoto to Kogi, through Adamawa to Rivers State. In Imo State, the Prof’s state, the fate of his kinsman (Both are from Mbano) Governor Ohakim, is on an unequal balance. President Yar’Adu’s presidency is still uncertain and may snowball into a record in Nigerian political history, if the tribunal has the balls.
Without losing steam, Maurice Iwu is still the dominant news person of the year 2007. When Nigerians thought that the upper-cut given to Iwu both by the international and local observers have floored him, he bounced back and insisted that the fraud of April 2007 was better organized than the landmark June 12, 1993.

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