Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission INEC, Attahiru Jega, has said if any amendment must be effected in
the 2022 Electoral Act, it must include the proscription of cross carpeting
prevalent among candidates standing for elections.
Jega said the trend where candidates cross from one
political party to another was undermining the fundamental process of the
nation’s democracy.
Jega, a professor of political science at Bayero University,
Kano, while speaking at the Citizens’ Townhall on Electoral Reforms, jointly
organised by a monitoring group, Yiaga Africa and the European Union in Abuja,
on Tuesday, also advocated the unbundling of the electoral body, INEC, as well
as review in the appointment process of Chairman and Resident Electoral
Commissioners RECs of the Commission.
He insisted that the 2022 Electoral Act is the best we have had as a country, saying there is still room for reforms.
His words, “If we want to improve politics and deepen our
democratic system, there will be a need to proscribe cross carpeting. The
challenges they(candidates) face cross carpeting make them undermine the
fundamental process of democracy.
“We have seen this trend where even now Executive Governors
elected under one party, move without consultation to another party. We need to
ensure that in the new electoral act moving forward, we need to proscribe that
aspect because it is destroying the essence of democracy.
“The appointment of the chairman and RECs is another aspect
that should be reviewed. This should be backed by the legislature because it
will ensure there is full screening and verification to determine the integrity
of the personality in those positions.
“I also support the unbundling of INEC and we need to review
how people and political parties can present candidates for elections,
otherwise in a particular election we will continue to have elections where we
have multiple candidates who cannot score significant votes but end up wasting
resources that goes into conducting elections”.
Other stakeholders across various works of life who attended
the town hall meeting insisted that experiences from the recent off-season
elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa have made it very germane to introduce more
reforms in the 2022 Electoral Act.
Chief among concerns raised by some of the participants is
the continuous trend of vote buying, timelines for resolving pre-election and
post-election litigations, as well as antecedents being created by hate speech,
disinformation and fake news.
They argued that reforms were equally sacrosanct, especially
on issues bothering election result management, electoral offences prosecution,
violence, voter suppression and election security.
They were of the view that unbundling INEC would boost the
credibility in elections, including the mode of appointment of INEC Chairman
and Commissioners.
Samsom Itodo, Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, while
delivering an address acknowledged that the 2022 Electoral Act achieved some
milestones in the electoral process, as the problem of over-voting was greatly
reduced in the 2023 general elections.
He, however, expressed concerns that while more reforms are
being churned out, new fault lines keep emerging that need to be looked into.
According to the Yiaga boss, the injection of contemporary
technology in our electoral system was long due, especially citizens’
involvement through creating a platform for national conversation on the
reforms required to improve the system.
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