Date Published: 11/19/09
Why Iwu must go By Joe Igbokwe
“If you want outstanding results then you need good people with great
talents and awesome attitudes” – John Maxwell
In page 120 of Bob Harrison’s Book: POWER POINTS FOR SUCCESS, I read a
story that backs the cry for Professor Maurice Iwu to be removed as INEC
Chairman in order to kick start the process of totally reforming our
electoral system for the good of the commonwealth. Here is the story:
A carpenter stumbled on scaffolding and fell onto a coworker who was using
a nail gun. As the two fell to the ground, the man’s nail gun began to
fire, hitting the other carpenter six times in the head. Over several days
of operations, doctors were able to remove all the nails.
In order to avoid a fatal infection, the nails in the man’s head had to
be removed. There is a different kind of ‘infection’ that can be set
into Churches, clubs, businesses, and families – and it may also be“fatal.” It is the negative attitude of an employee or member.
This kind of infection normally begins when someone within the
organization, group, or relationship becomes upset by some other
member’s actions or a perceived injustice. Instead of giving the
situation time to change or correct itself, the disgruntled individual
begins to manifest his or her negative feelings through criticism,
disrespect, pouting, temper tantrums, or hostility.
If not handled quickly and properly, this negative attitude can spread to
others in the group, business, or family. If left untreated, this“infection” can be harmful to harmony and unity.
Best-selling author John Maxwell teaches, “What starts as a bad attitude
in one or two people can make a mess of the situation for every one. Bad
attitudes must be addressed. They will always cause dissension,
resentment, combativeness, and division. And they will never go away on
their own. They will simply fester and ruin the team” He also says,“if you leave a bad apple in a barrel of good apples, you will always
end up with a barrel of rotten apples.”
Iwu led INEC has done an incalculable damage to our electoral process that
his continued stay in office can lead this country to war. From Enugu to
Awka, from Port Harcourt to Cross River, from Ogun State to Imo, from
Ekiti to Osun, from Kogi to Sokoto etc the story has been the same –
electoral fraud all the way. Irresponsible and primitive action of one man
can lead a nation to war. I remind Nigerians once again of the story of
how two gun shots were fired in Sarajevo by a school boy, Gevrilo Princip,
19 was killed Arch duke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Archduchess Sophie
on June 28 1914; and then the enmity between Austria-Hungary and Serbia
escalated into World War 1. Out of the sixty-five million young men who
were sent out to the battlefields, some nine million never returned. When
civilian casualties are included, a total of twenty-one million persons
were killed. Some still talk about the outbreak of that war in August 1914
as the time when “the world went mad”. The two gunshots from that schoolboy had set
the whole world on fire and ushered in a period of violence, confusion,
and disillusionment that has continued in Yugoslavia to this day.
Those who are putting up the lame duck arguments that removal of Iwu has
nothing to do with our electoral reform process cannot figure it out, they
can get it, and it is a tunnel view. They are criminal beneficiaries of
the flawed electoral process. Professor Maurice Iwu do not have the
character, the right attitude, the temperament to handle this delicate and
very important job of conducting a free and fair elections and to all
intents and purposes he should be dispensed it.
Ngwuta’s Appeal Court in Enugu said in his judgment on Andy Ubah’s
‘Governor in waiting’ fraud that the conduct of April 14 2007
governorship elections in Anambra State was an illegality because there
was no vacancy in the first place, and Iwu knew all this and yet went
ahead to conduct the so-called elections. Iwu set time table for February
6 governorship elections in Anambra State and yet went ahead to ask INEC
lawyers to put their weight behind Nnamdi Ubah’s so-called ‘Governor
in waiting’ brigandage. I can go on and on to give 20 reasons why Iwu
should be kicked on the ass out of INEC but the evidences are there for
all to see. Nigeria is confronted with the urgency of now not tomorrow,
not next week, not next month, not next year to do away with Iwu. Iwu
cannot give what he does not have.
Joe Igbokwe.
Lagos
|
