Have you heard?
If you haven't, then read this. For those of you who won't bother following the link, here's the News-in-Brief.
The Constitutional Court in Thailand court dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud on Tuesday and temporarily banned the prime minister from politics.
"Former PM Somchai's People's Power Party, the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party were found guilty of committing fraud in the December 2007 elections that brought the coalition to power with a thumping majority.
The case stems from an earlier Supreme Court conviction of a PPP executive committee member, Yongyuth Tiyapairat, who was found guilty of buying votes. Under Thai law, an entire party can be disbanded if one executive member is found guilty of electoral fraud. Similar individual cases brought down the other parties."
Can you imagine that? Why can't we have such a law in our statute books?
Of course, a Nigerian court has declared a sitting government as a nullity before. (Remember Shonekan's Interim National Government?) but that was almost immediately supplanted by Abacha's military junta. In Thailand, the military has been neutral in this matter.
I have always proposed that any political party that is found to rig an election in Nigeria should not only be dissolved and banned but its leaders jailed for a minimum of ten years without an option of a fine. This effectively removes them from circulation and possible further interference in the electoral porcess. In addition, the Electoral Officers in charge of the election should go to jail and automatically lose their pensions to pay for the election re-runs ordered by the courts.
In Nigeria today, you steal an election, you enjoy it for as long as you can, stalling in the courts, with adjournments and postponements, SMS and threats. After about two years of appeals and counter-appeals, the courts finally declare you a thief. You go on TV and talk about 'nurturing our nascent democracy' and 'respecting the rule of law' and then you declare it as 'the will of God'. Then you go home to enjoy your loot and nothing happens.
That is, if you the court does not ask for a re-run of the elections which you will steal again; as a matter of course.
Of course, the INEC Chairman has told us that it is the Nigerian politicians that rig elections not INEC but we all know that it takes two to tango. According to Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo alias 4.30, 'If the theifer are not thievry, the buyer will not be boughtery'. A receiver of stolen goods is as guilty as the thief who stole the goods.
I think we should begin a process of including such provisions in our laws. What does it really take to ammend our electoral laws to reflect such? Rather than sitting down lamenting that the country is going to the dogs, we should be agitating to have those laws introduced.
For as long as there are no laws to check the politicians, there may be very little anyone can do to check the brigands.
In other news, can anybody please explain what religion has got to do with local government elections in Jos? Maybe Majek Fashek was right after all: Religion Is Politics. Or vice versa.
Less than 48 hours after 387 people were confirmed dead under his watch, the Plateau Governor Jonah Jang wants to go ahead and swear-in the 'elected' politicians into office.
How callous can you be?
Showing posts with label INEC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label INEC. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Another One Bites The Dust....
Its beginning to read like a story being serialized in newspapers. Every week there must be a PDP Governor's election being revoked or another so called election victory being reversed. Like a house of cards, its all falling apart.
Last week it was Aliyu Wammakko of Sokoto State, this week Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa. And there are still a few more states to go, one year after the elections were held.
All these would have been bearable but for Professor Iwu's INEC's posturing. Now they have gone ahead to take up ample airtime on TV justifying their conduct of the April 2007 (s)elections by saying that "It is politicians who rig elections not us".
WTF! How can politicians rig elections without the active connivance of the Umpire INEC? Sebi I said it that if all the INEC officials have been arrested, tried and locked up since the past one year for 'electoral malpractice' (just like any other professional misconduct/malpractice), this story would have been different. After all, even students get 21 years jail for exam malpractice.
As it is, the more elections are reversed, the more money for Iwu and his cohorts as they simply present a fresh invoice.
The case in Bayelsa is even more interesting as some House members came up that they had impeached the Speaker who was to be sworn in as Acting Governor until the rerun elections are held. They nominated and presented their own Speaker for swearing in as Acting Governor!
Many people have always held that elections do not take place in the Niger Delta states particularly Rivers and Bayelsa. The sheer logistics of navigating the creeks alone is daunting. INEC just collects its allocation for those areas and simply allocates figures for them according to the powers that be.
In the 2003 elections, the then Rivers state Governor, Dr. Peter Odili scored a whopping 98.8% of total votes cast in the state gubernatorial elections leaving the remaining 1.2% for the other 13 (yes, THIRTEEN) political parties to share in a field that included veteran politicians like Chief Sargent Awuse of the ANPP.
That election was also remarkable in the fact that voter turnout was 100%. Everybody who was registered for the election came out and voted! No one was ill, no one had died, no one traveled or relocated between the period of registration and elections proper which were more than eighteen months apart! It was a feat only the PDP and INEC could have produced.
And Iwu says it is politicians who rig elections.
I was in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state last year for a burial and it fell in the period when a rerun of the Assembly elections were being held. The burial was on Friday and I wanted to leave town by Friday night in order not to be caught up in the movement restrictions that usually go with elections on Saturday.
My friend Okon told me not to worry myself. He told me that the elections would actually hold on Friday night. Saturday was just a day of rest.
'You think this is Lagos where you people kill yourself because of elections?', he had asked.
On Friday, the anointed candidate would go round the wards distributing food items ranging from a mudu of rice, a bottle of oil and a cup of salt to a bag of rice per household depending on the position.
The people are then told to stay at home and cook their rice on Saturday. The politicians allocate figures to themselves and INEC declares a winner based on figures submitted to it.
I actually stayed to witness elections, AK-style. I was around the Ewett Housing Estate and there was a polling booth right across the road from the house. I sat in front of the house reading a book from morning till evening. Apart from a few people who obviously came around to confirm that there was nobody at the polling station, nobody came around. Not even INEC officials! And yet they announced results.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record ... E no make sense.
Last week it was Aliyu Wammakko of Sokoto State, this week Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa. And there are still a few more states to go, one year after the elections were held.
All these would have been bearable but for Professor Iwu's INEC's posturing. Now they have gone ahead to take up ample airtime on TV justifying their conduct of the April 2007 (s)elections by saying that "It is politicians who rig elections not us".
WTF! How can politicians rig elections without the active connivance of the Umpire INEC? Sebi I said it that if all the INEC officials have been arrested, tried and locked up since the past one year for 'electoral malpractice' (just like any other professional misconduct/malpractice), this story would have been different. After all, even students get 21 years jail for exam malpractice.
As it is, the more elections are reversed, the more money for Iwu and his cohorts as they simply present a fresh invoice.
The case in Bayelsa is even more interesting as some House members came up that they had impeached the Speaker who was to be sworn in as Acting Governor until the rerun elections are held. They nominated and presented their own Speaker for swearing in as Acting Governor!
Many people have always held that elections do not take place in the Niger Delta states particularly Rivers and Bayelsa. The sheer logistics of navigating the creeks alone is daunting. INEC just collects its allocation for those areas and simply allocates figures for them according to the powers that be.
In the 2003 elections, the then Rivers state Governor, Dr. Peter Odili scored a whopping 98.8% of total votes cast in the state gubernatorial elections leaving the remaining 1.2% for the other 13 (yes, THIRTEEN) political parties to share in a field that included veteran politicians like Chief Sargent Awuse of the ANPP.
That election was also remarkable in the fact that voter turnout was 100%. Everybody who was registered for the election came out and voted! No one was ill, no one had died, no one traveled or relocated between the period of registration and elections proper which were more than eighteen months apart! It was a feat only the PDP and INEC could have produced.
And Iwu says it is politicians who rig elections.
I was in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state last year for a burial and it fell in the period when a rerun of the Assembly elections were being held. The burial was on Friday and I wanted to leave town by Friday night in order not to be caught up in the movement restrictions that usually go with elections on Saturday.
My friend Okon told me not to worry myself. He told me that the elections would actually hold on Friday night. Saturday was just a day of rest.
'You think this is Lagos where you people kill yourself because of elections?', he had asked.
On Friday, the anointed candidate would go round the wards distributing food items ranging from a mudu of rice, a bottle of oil and a cup of salt to a bag of rice per household depending on the position.
The people are then told to stay at home and cook their rice on Saturday. The politicians allocate figures to themselves and INEC declares a winner based on figures submitted to it.
I actually stayed to witness elections, AK-style. I was around the Ewett Housing Estate and there was a polling booth right across the road from the house. I sat in front of the house reading a book from morning till evening. Apart from a few people who obviously came around to confirm that there was nobody at the polling station, nobody came around. Not even INEC officials! And yet they announced results.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record ... E no make sense.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
E No Make Sense
Someone please help me to make sense of this.
When a patient dies, the Doctor could be liable for the death if she was found to be negligent in performance of her duties. The Doctor could go to jail and lose her license/practice.
A Teacher can lose his job when his students fail in their exams and he is found to be negligent. Even for an offence like groping a student or even selling handouts.
A Lawyer can be disbarred and lose his practice for conducts adjudged to be unprofessional.
Managers get fired everyday for performing below par or failing to meet agreed objectives.
Even sports people lose their places in the team or their positions and rankings due to a drop in performance. Clubs get relegated. Champions have their belts withdrawn.
But what happens when INEC messes up the elections in a whole state?
Simple.
Give Iwu another 3 Billion Naira to organize 'fresh' elections!
Who is responsible for elections in Nigeria?
You mean you can decide to waste billions of Naira in organizing an election, run the elections like no man business and if anybody complains, tell them to go to court. If the courts nullify the elections and order a rerun, you simply present a fresh bill of quantities to the Treasury. Just like that.
I think there should be a law that if the results of an election is canceled even in an LG Ward, whoever was in charge should be summarily dismissed from whatever service without benefits. (Most INEC officials are career public servants on secondment.)And should be tried for sabotage.
Maybe the position of INEC Chairman should be rotated among the states, with each state guaranteeing its candidate to do a good job. In event of failure, the state will pay back to the nation the total amount expended on the election or the part considered flawed. Since the money is from deductions, each state has the option to sue the INEC Chairman.
From the Polling Station Officer to the INEC Chairman, each of them is liable for what happens in his area of jurisdiction/authority. Enough jail terms, without options of fines should be prescribed.
Maybe they will take elections more seriously. Maybe they will take the lives of Nigerians more seriously.
Maybe we should even privatize elections organization in Nigeria. Let companies bid for it and hold them according to agreed objectives and with specific milestones/performance indices. Failing which they dont get paid.
What happened in Kogi state this past weekend and will repeat itself in Adamawa and most likely Edo state too is a travesty of justice. The people just went to the polls again and elected Idris again. But who removed Audu's name from the ballot in the first place? Why? The buck must stop at someone's table. He must at least tell the nation why he did what he did.
Who is responsible? Why was nobody punished?
Well, somebody was punished, the people of Kogi state. Nigerians all.
When a patient dies, the Doctor could be liable for the death if she was found to be negligent in performance of her duties. The Doctor could go to jail and lose her license/practice.
A Teacher can lose his job when his students fail in their exams and he is found to be negligent. Even for an offence like groping a student or even selling handouts.
A Lawyer can be disbarred and lose his practice for conducts adjudged to be unprofessional.
Managers get fired everyday for performing below par or failing to meet agreed objectives.
Even sports people lose their places in the team or their positions and rankings due to a drop in performance. Clubs get relegated. Champions have their belts withdrawn.
But what happens when INEC messes up the elections in a whole state?
Simple.
Give Iwu another 3 Billion Naira to organize 'fresh' elections!
Who is responsible for elections in Nigeria?
You mean you can decide to waste billions of Naira in organizing an election, run the elections like no man business and if anybody complains, tell them to go to court. If the courts nullify the elections and order a rerun, you simply present a fresh bill of quantities to the Treasury. Just like that.
I think there should be a law that if the results of an election is canceled even in an LG Ward, whoever was in charge should be summarily dismissed from whatever service without benefits. (Most INEC officials are career public servants on secondment.)And should be tried for sabotage.
Maybe the position of INEC Chairman should be rotated among the states, with each state guaranteeing its candidate to do a good job. In event of failure, the state will pay back to the nation the total amount expended on the election or the part considered flawed. Since the money is from deductions, each state has the option to sue the INEC Chairman.
From the Polling Station Officer to the INEC Chairman, each of them is liable for what happens in his area of jurisdiction/authority. Enough jail terms, without options of fines should be prescribed.
Maybe they will take elections more seriously. Maybe they will take the lives of Nigerians more seriously.
Maybe we should even privatize elections organization in Nigeria. Let companies bid for it and hold them according to agreed objectives and with specific milestones/performance indices. Failing which they dont get paid.
What happened in Kogi state this past weekend and will repeat itself in Adamawa and most likely Edo state too is a travesty of justice. The people just went to the polls again and elected Idris again. But who removed Audu's name from the ballot in the first place? Why? The buck must stop at someone's table. He must at least tell the nation why he did what he did.
Who is responsible? Why was nobody punished?
Well, somebody was punished, the people of Kogi state. Nigerians all.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The House That Iwu Built.....
.... is crumbling like a pack of cards.
On Saturday, it was (Senate President) David Mark, then (Governor) Theodore Orji. There had been several before them.
Is (President) UMYA next?
Today is 'Super Tuesday' in Nigeria, when the Tribunal will speak on the Presidential Elections.
I know Solomonsydelle will have something to say about this. Let me go read.
On Saturday, it was (Senate President) David Mark, then (Governor) Theodore Orji. There had been several before them.
Is (President) UMYA next?
Today is 'Super Tuesday' in Nigeria, when the Tribunal will speak on the Presidential Elections.
I know Solomonsydelle will have something to say about this. Let me go read.
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