Professor Atahiru Jega, INEC chairman, announced new dates for the General Elections in Nigeria. The National Assembly Elections cancelled last Saturday 2nd April and slated for Monday 4th April will now hold on Saturday 9th April. This decision seems to fall in line with my suggestion in my note yesterday and I observed there were several comments in support of my position.
I must congratulate Prof Jega for his courage and obvious transparent determination to be above board. Once bitten, they say twice shy and I hope he would now move on to plug the loop holes that abound in the system on which he presides noting obviously that the buck stops at his door. Those so critical of Jega should just ponder a while and recall 2007 when results were blatantly announced in Abuja of elections that never took place and of destinations that never saw a bollot paper. Prof Jega’s prompt intervention is indeed refreshing. He is certainly in charge!!
Without a doubt, a very reasonable decision has been made although it may be costly to the process and particularly hotfull to the opposition parties who do not have the reckless unlimited finance that the pdp has and flaunts. The opposition parties must now find huge resources to finance the Saturday 9th elections.No price they say is too much to pay for democracy! Of great concern now, is the task at hand to reinvigorate the enthusiasm of the electorate who trooped out in unprecedented numbers last Saturday, for them to repeat same attitude in the coming week end. I believe that is achievable.
INEC has an awesome task to accomplish in the next few days in order to restore credibility to the process. Among other things they have to retrieve and account for all ballots issued and used in the botched election; they must address the complaints by some parties whose logos were not included on the ballot paper and the concerns of our Party the ACN, having both AC our discarded name and ACN, our new name appearing on same ballot paper in some locations. Labour Party has discovered that their name did not appear on ballots in some locations where they had candidates. We hope that the result sheets are now available with the possibility of fake result sheets infiltrating the system firmly blocked. My worry is that I hope that the remedy to all these would not entail a reprint of ballot papers and other faulty documents by State House and National Assembly Contractors who quote in dollars and sublet to vendors in Japan, Korea or China. Not enough days are now available for such expensive jokes!! It is my hope that the current cry of “One Man One Vote” and that all votes must count will be realized. In this regard Voters Registers nationwide must bear the names of all the more than seventy million Nigerians who registered.
The operation department of INEC requires a thorough overhaul to ensure timely delivery of materials to all locations Nationwide.
