11th October, 2010
There is no doubt that from proclamation so far made to the public by INEC and EFCC on preparation for the conduct of the forthcoming 2001 election within the ambit of the new electoral laws, room will no longer be opened for imposition of candidates on the populace and for corrupt elements in our society to hold any public office in the three tiers of government in Nigeria. However, to the consternation of the people, it was reported in a sickening headline of Saturday Tribune of 25th September, 2010, that “Govs Plot To Sidetrack Election Act: To Get Party Ticketsâ€.
There are countless instances in the past when governorsâ€
Nigerians will also not forget in a hurry the dilatory posture of governors and the hide-and-seek game they played coupled with the confusion and untold embarrassment that the country witnessed during the prolonged absence of the late President Yarâ€
Back to the headline story on moves being made by governors to subvert the new nationâ€
Rigging of election which no doubt portray politics as a dirty game in our country, usually begins with stage-managed wards and state congresses by incumbent governors who usually employ all the state machinery and apparatus at their disposal to ensure that the peopleâ€
The non recognition and outright cancellation by INEC of suspicious and inconclusive party congresses held in eight states in the country, for the time first time in the history of politics in Nigeria, is laudable. It is hoped that this development would not only act as deterrent but would send a strong message to all political parties that the days when kangaroo congresses are organised at any level for handpicking candidates for election in Nigeria is over. There have been instances when party congresses ended up producing in-laws of incumbent governors as governorship candidates for the ruling party to which the incument governors belong. The outcome of any election held under such an arrangement with imposed candidate can be better imagined, given the attendant rigging devices that are usually employed during elections in our country
Without gainsaying, there is an absolute need for us to break from the past and start on a clean slate as far as conduct of elections in our country is concerned. It is therefore in the light of this that the concerted moves by the EFCC and INEC at ensuring the emergence of a credible and acceptable election to Nigerians and the outside world, as highlighted in the Nigerian Tribune of Friday, 27 August, 2010 should be supported and jealously guarded by all patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians both at home and in diaspora. In the headline of the newspaper, the EFCC Chairman, Chief (Mrs.) Farida Waziri made a declaration that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was set to ensure that the efforts of corrupt politicians who are ready to deploy looted public funds and illicit funds to gain access to public offices in the country through the forthcoming 2011 election are thwarted despite the fact that such corrupt politicians were already making and pasting campaign posters all over the place. The INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega has already given assurance that INEC was fully prepared to give Nigerians a credible voter registration, which in his postulation, is the foundation for free, fair and credible polls that Nigerians both at home and abroad are yearning for. In the same vein, the Niger State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Emmanuel Onucheyo, while representing INEC during a stakeholdersâ€
When ward congresses to pick candidates for the local council chairmanship position lack transparency, the performance of emerging public office holders under the situation can be better imagined – poor service delivery and absolute loyalty to godfathers – and that is why the business of local councils in the country, as once decried by the incument EFCC Chairman, Chief (Mrs.) Farida Waziri, starts and ends with sharing of the accruing monthly allocations to the councils from the federation account without nothing to show in terms of infrastructure and social amenities for the people who got them elected into office in the first place. This age long situation since the inception of full-blown democracy in 1999 in Nigeria should be blamed on governors some of whom are helpless in checking the misappropriation of council funds by local council chairmen as governors and their political mentors also benefit in the sharing of the councilsâ€
The Kogi State governor once openly lambasted local council chairmen in the state over the habit of abandoning their various councils only for them to waste their council funds on bills in expensive hotels in Lokoja, the state capital. A report has it that Nigeria slipped in ‘Good Governanceâ€
To say that the suffering masses are fed up with the manner by which mismanagement of the council funds takes place in the country as a whole is to say the obvious. In an public opinion poll on local council administration in Lagos State published by Next newspaper in September 2010, it was glaring that almost all the respondents decried the abysmal performance of the councils where they reside. If such a public opinion is carried out in the remaining 35 states of the federation including my Kogi State, it will surely be the same story of non performance and sharing of monthly allocations to councils. It is sad to note that public office holders rather than being accountable to the people give account only to their politcal godfathers and it is for this reason that embezzlement of public funds no longer means much in our country. It is unfortunate that our country is where propaganda and sycophancy have become effective tools for the sustenance of bad governance and non performance at all levels of governance in our country. If development in Nigeria since inception of full blown democracy in 1999 is taken into consideration, it can safely be said that a neglible percentage of the present public office holders in the three tiers of government in Nigeria will not eligible for reelection into office for another term or qualified for holding any higher office in the land owing to the soiling of their hands in the looting of public funds. The bitter truth is that corruption has become so pervasive that we may have to collectively, as a nation, ask ourselves if we are not all guilty of the glaring underdevelopment and abject poverty that is staring the masses in the face despite the abundance of natural resources.
•Odunayo Joseph writes from Mopa in Kogi State.