A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said last year’s Electoral Act is the best “we have had as a country”.
He said there was room for improvement.
Jega, a professor of political science at Bayero University in Kano (BUK), spoke at a citizens’ town hall on electoral reforms organised by the election monitoring group, Yiaga Africa, in collaboration with the European Union (EU) yesterday in Abuja.
The former INEC chairman called for the unbundling of INEC as well as a review in the appointment process of the Chairman and Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) of the commission.
He said: “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 in 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’s destroying the essence of democracy.
“The appointment of INEC 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 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 at the town hall meeting insisted that experiences from the recent off-season elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa states have made it germane to introduce more reforms in the 2022 Electoral Act.
The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, noted that the 2022 Electoral Act achieved some milestones in Nigeria’s electoral process as the problem of over-voting was greatly reduced in this year’s general election.
