By Anayo Ezugwu

NIGERIANS have been urged to persuade President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the amended Electoral Act into law. Segun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State, said the Act provides for the transmission of election results electronically from the various polling units directly to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, central system.

Speaking at the Ray Ekpu’s 70th birthday colloquium in Lagos, Osoba said the Act will bring sanity to the conduct of elections as it will checkmate falsification of results and ultimately allow the will of the people to prevail. “With the amended Electoral Act, the 2019 elections will not be like the previous elections in the country.

“In that amendment, they have put it there that electronic voting would be used for the elections. Anybody who conducts auditing of those who wants to vote and did not transmit it immediately would get five (5) years imprisonment.  Any person who conducts result counting and did not transmit the results immediately will go to jail for five years.

“The provision in the act has put to an end to inflated figures during elections. Let us forget about the reordering of the election sequence and sign the amended act into law. If President Buhari can sign the act, 2019 election will not be the same. If Nigerians can do point of sales without any challenge, I do not see the reason why INEC would not buy satellites and transmit election results electronically. So the issue of 2.9 million votes in Kano and 1.9 million votes in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States will not happen again,” he said.

Osoba also blamed former President Olusegun Obasanjo for contributing immensely to Nigeria’s current leadership crisis. “Leadership, I’m sorry to say this; people will say I keep talking about Obasanjo. The day Obasanjo rigged the AD out of government was the beginning of the downward trend of the leadership in this country.

“The governors at the time were able to checkmate him. (Victor) Attah was also on our side at the Council of States’ meeting even thouh he was of the PDP. But for us Obasanjo would have caused more havoc before 2003.”

Apart from Osoba, others who spoke also urged the electorate to be mindful of whom they cast their vote for ahead of next year’s elections, saying the country has remained underdeveloped simply because of the failure of leadership. They said that the faulty recruitment process within the political class especially is largely responsible for Nigeria’s woes over the years.

Chidi Amuta, guest speaker at the event, said the prevalent political culture in Nigeria can never produce a good leadership that would fulfil the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians. Insisting that leadership could kill or save a nation, Amuta whose written paper was delivered by Dan Agbese, one of the founders of Newswatch Magazine, suggested that as a way forward, the idea of aspiring leaders swearing to an affidavit to claim existence of a certificate they may not have acquired be abolished from the country’s law books.

“The use of affidavits and other sworn instruments to prove the age and educational qualifications of seekers of high political office should be banned by law. Those who cannot remember when they were born or what schools they attended and certificates obtained have no business leading anybody.

“The concept of zoning or rotation on geopolitical basis of the presidency and other key political offices by political parties should be outlawed. It is in conflict with the spirit of the constitution which rejects all forms of discrimination among Nigerians. If anything, the political parties should zone the leadership to merit which can now be found all over the country. We need to enthrone a political meritocracy now if we are to become competitive in the world,” he said.

On his part, Ekpu urged Nigerians to stop blaming the nation’s woes on the colonialists, saying they handed over the leadership of the country to Nigerians 57 years ago.

– Aug. 7, 2018 @ 11:55 GMT |