Former President Jonathan gives Solutions to Election Rigging

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has called for the use of electronic voting in Nigeria if the country must experience a credible and near flawless electoral process.

The former president said if democracy must endure, the democratic process must be developed in a way that people would have confidence in the electoral process.

This was as Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, remarked that the problems of Nigeria were self-inflicted, explaining that they flowed from the politicisation of everything and the promotion of pervasive injustice.

Jonathan spoke at a lecture/book presentation to mark the second term inauguration of Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, in Port Harcourt on Monday. The book is titled ‘Excellence in Governance and Creativity: Legal Essays in Honour of His Excellency, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike’.

Jonathan stated that despite the challenges, the country must embrace electronic voting as it was, in his opinion, the ultimate way forward.

He said the African continent must come up with a minimum standard for the establishment of the election management body, noting that for the purpose of confidence building for credible elections, no one single person should have the power to constitute the election management body.

He said: “We must come up with new standards for constituting our election management body in a way that people will have confidence.

“I believe in some quarters what they do is that a body of people constitute the election management body. It is not in the hands of one person.

“When you leave such responsibility in the hands of a politician, no matter how good the person is, there will be the tendency for people to suspect that the right thing is not done.

“When people don’t have confidence in the system, whatever they do, it is difficult for the people to accept.”

According to him, “The continental body, African Union, should come up with a minimum standard across Africa for constituting electoral management body.”

He added that no single official should have the power to appoint all the members of the election petition tribunals as this would erode confidence in the system.

“Also, the judicial process where one person constitutes all the election tribunals to hear petitions is not right. It is difficult in a democracy for somebody to be extremely neutral.

“In one way or the other, somebody close to you will be in one party or the other. The only way to be above is to make sure that one person does not have all the powers to constitute tribunals to listen to all cases,” he said.

The former president called for the establishment of independent security agencies that would provide security during elections.

He decried the situation as captured in an online video in Rivers State where women were dragging soldiers attempting to compromise Rivers elections.

“The African Union must come up with a code of conduct for security operatives that participate in elections.”

In his address, Governor Wike decried the level of politicisation of the governance process of the country.

“Although I lack the intellectual impetus to join issues with the learned professor, but for me, Nigeria’s problems, which are largely self-inflicted, can be reduced to two: the politicisation of everything and pervasive injustice.

“Over the years, we have allowed the entire governing system to be corrupted by banal politics and the courage to do what is right and fair to all parts of the country had since departed.

“As a result, we are increasingly becoming insensitive or rather impervious to the injustices and the horrific happenings in our country that have reduced our humanity.”

Governor Wike said insecurity continued to thrive in the country because the nation had refused to listen to the cries for justice.

“In our case, everyone is crying out for justice and because we have, as a nation, blocked our ears and hearts to the deafening cries for justice, peace has become a rare commodity in our country. A rare commodity.

“My take is that we are going nowhere as a country; we will continue to run round in circles and possibly crash-land in a very hard way unless we change our narratives about justice, because peace or peaceful co-existence cannot be decreed in a multi-cultural society such as ours, or in any society at all.”

Guest lecturer, Professor Anya O. Anya, in a paper titled, ‘Re-Imagining Nigeria: The Imperative of Democracy, Values, Peace and National Development in the New Nigeria,’ said Nigeria was a country under siege and its people and leaders in denial.

“We are at a stage where most nations are in dynamic state; where change is the order of the day. The rules of linear progression in social and economic evolution have given way to a situation where interactive forces act as interconnected matrices,” he said.

Anya said ultimately the forces of peace would prevail despite the insecurity in different parts of the country.

He said God would manifest in the end on behalf of Nigerians and stop the high level of insecurity.

He urged Governor Wike to continue to work for the peace of Rivers State and Nigeria.

source:Independent