Date Published: 01/28/10

27 th January 2010.

Press Release.

Lagos AC canvasses for Staggered Elections .

The Lagos State chapter of the AC has said that the best way to avoid the kind of electoral fraud the country has been experiencing in recent times is to ensure that elections are staggered among the six geo political zones in the country. The party says that staggering elections along zones will ensure the deployment of the full compliments of men and resources available in the entire country to a particular zone at a time to ensure the process is close marked for better results.

In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the AC, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that a situation where elections are held nationwide the same day leaves so much space for electoral manipulators to pervert the system, as supervision is always sparse in most of the states. It states that elections can return more credible results if they are well monitored by both the police, INEC, the political parties and the independent observers than the present where some states are left free for manipulation by whoever has the power to intimidate others.

“The history of some recent re-run elections has shown that if well monitored, elections in Nigeria could be rescued from the claws of the desperadoes that have sworn to ensure they win every election in Nigeria by very crooked means. We have known that where supervision is tight, it had been difficult for election riggers to perfect their art and elections have been fairly transparent. Even as we note the desperate politicians and electoral officials and security agencies will do everything to ensure they gain corrupt advantage over others, we have no doubt that such incidences will greatly reduce when elections are staggered along zones and all resources moved to each zone massively to ensure the process is free and fair.

“We see no reason for holding elections across the nation in one day when it would have tasked the limited staff of INEC and the security agencies to the point that they deliver poorly. We see great reason for moving the entire nation to one zone of say six states for elections and ensuring that every bit of it is monitored than having a national election with lax supervision. We believe that staggered elections will help Nigeria tackle the problem of election rigging, which is today one of the greatest obstacles to the growth of the country. We believe that it will strengthen accountability and due process in the electoral process.

“In making this demand however, Lagos AC is calling for the full adoption of the Mohammed Uwais electoral reform panel and the immediate start of the process of reforming the putrid electoral process that had endangered the democratic process in Nigeria and midwife the worst electoral tragedy in human history in April 2007 as well as the replacement of the hugely compromised leadership of INEC.”

Joe Igbokwe.

Publicity Secretary,

Lagos AC