Date Published: 09/29/09
29 th September 2009. Press Release.
NIGERIA AT 49: NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE AND URGENT ELECTORAL REFORM.
As Nigeria clocks 49, the Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has concluded that if something urgent is not done to fix the many problems of this country, Nigeria may end up a failed state in the near distant future. The party particularly identified the shoddy and fraud-ridden electoral process is a sure way to perdition, which the country must urgently fix to prevent an impending doom.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the AC, Joe Igbokwe, Lagos AC insisted that the way Nigeria is going at 49 portends grave danger for this generation and the generations yet unborn. It says that a country that does not have a credible process of leadership selection if irredeemably doomed except some very quick intervention is made to arrest the drift.
“We view the man-made atrophy that has been imposed on the country’s electoral process as the greatest impediment to the peace and growth of Nigeria. Since the chain of horrible electoral manipulations were visited on the country, Nigerians have been one in demanding a comprehensive electoral reform so as to enable them decide who governs them at every level of governance. We note that this general demand has been met with scorn by the PDP led federal government, which treated the well-received Uwais Election Reform Panel reports with deliberate manipulatiuon so as to preserve the unmerited advantage the PDP has been recording through electoral fraud since 1999.
“We however note that the country has come to a pass where it will never move forward with badly mangled and very fraudulent electoral process that returns bad leaders who do not owe the people any allegiance. We state that this country, must as of urgent importance, embrace a comprehensive reform of the putrid electoral process that has brought so much scorn and reproach to Nigeria and has propelled our country’s baffling backward march in the comity of nations. We want to warn that the danger of continuing to recruit our leaders through corrupt and fraudulent process is that we may not have a country to call our own in the nearest future. We have sounded it loud and clear that the basic way to start the process of electoral reform is the removal of Maurice Iwu who has become an unrepentant stickler to fraudulent electoral process in Nigeria.
“Lagos AC wants to state with all emphasis at our disposal that at this turn in our country, when Nigeria is facing imminent collapse from bad rulership and mismanagement, we need real and genuine leaders and not fake rulers imposed through dubious elections and farcical selection processes. The task of fishing out these well-convinced leaders rests with a credible, free and fair electoral process, which is why we must not continue building on a rotten foundation and hoping to reap good fruits from the same soiled process.
“We are sad that at 49, Nigeria is practically lying prostrate as nations make giant strides in governance and development. We locate the terrible factors working against Nigeria’s progress in the sorry state of our electoral process, which had not allowed Nigerians to choose a leadership that will drive its aspirations at both the local and international levels. We therefore strongly demand that this bad leadership process be immediately addressed through a holistic electoral reform process using the fast approaching 2011 general elections as a test of our readiness to conduct a free and fair election in Nigeria. We deem it a big shame that at 49, Nigeria cannot still conduct any election that could be seen as meeting regional standards in West Africa. We all know the reasons for these and we must tackle them or else, we are fast becoming a failed state. Nigeria must, as a matter of urgency put right its electoral process, remove the present ultra-corrupt electoral body and adopt wholesome the reports of the Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel to ensure that democracy is saved from a certain doom in 2011”.
Joe Igbokwe.
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
