CYRIL MBAH, Abuja
Concerned Nigerians, including the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), who are stakeholders in the electoral process, have called for the scrapping of State Independent Electoral Commissions and the transfer of their roles to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to enhance election credibility in states.
The stakeholders condemned the regular practice whereby ruling parties in states win all chairmanship and councillorship elections while opposition candidates are denied the privilege of participating freely in such elections.
Speaking in an interview with Champion Newspapers on how to enhance the credibility of state elections, a 2019 Presidential candidate, Chief Francis Ukachukwu Igwe remarked that state governors have made nonsense of state polls by usurping the powers of state election umpires and are writing results with impunity to favour their political parties.
Chief Igwe recalled that in the past 16 years, state elections have followed that same pattern whereby the party in charge in the states wins all seats because the results of the elections are pre-determined by governors.
“How can Kano State, for example, with 44 local government areas or Lagos with 20 constitutionally recognised local governments, hold a state election and no member of the opposition will win even one councillorship seat? It happens in all the states, no matter which party is controlling the state.
“This process has become the norm from one state to the other. Governors just sit in their offices and write the results of state elections and call the process democracy and people who are not members of their parties are denied victory no matter how popular the candidates may be,” Igwe lamented.
He said SIECs have out-lived their usefulness and should be scrapped while their functions should be taken over by INEC to enhance rural elections and local government administrations with more credible individuals rather than hand-picked persons.
“The SIECs should be scrapped because they have become tolls of imposition in the hànds of governors and are useless to the general public. The purpose of their creation has been defeated by greedy politicians,” he remarked.
Contributing to the discussion, the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Comrade James Ezema in a seperate interview said apart from requiring comprehensive reforms, the electoral process at the state and local levels need thorough restructuring to win the confidence of Nigerians.
He remarked that the major problems bedevilling elections in Nigeria, both at the states and at the federal levels are corruption, greed and dishonesty on the part of politicians and electoral officials.
Comrade Ezema recalled that every election from 1999, after that of June 12,1993 were marred by rigging and irregularities.
Ezema regretted that throughout the 27 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria, only one Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Mike Igini, who presided over a state election in 2023 had the courage to prosecute a presiding officer for rigging and other election related malpractices.
As the nation approaches another election year, the CNPP official urged the INEC to publish its blueprint for the 2027 general elections and create a level playing field that would be transparent for all the registered political parties.
“If INEC can conduct an election that is credible, free and fair, the electorate will not complain. It happened before. The June 12, 1993 general elections is an example. Everybody is praising that election, even though the ruling elite then annulled the election because they said it was flawed, but the electorate knew it was transparent, free and fair,” Ezema argued.
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