One More River To Cross

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, appears to have passed the litmus test posed by conducting this year’s general elections after the 2 April hiccup that necessitated a shift of all the elections by one week.

Building on the success of the 9 April National Assembly election, there was a vast improvement in the presidential on 16 April in terms of overcoming some of the logistic challenges that caused the 2 April postponement.

Last Saturday, electoral materials and the commission’s adhoc staff arrived at polling centres promptly and this made it possible for accreditation of voters and the election to take place as scheduled.

We must commend the Professor Attahiru Jega-led INEC for bringing about a measure of transparency and credibility to bear on the conduct of the polls so far. It was indeed thoughtful of Jega to involve university dons as returning officers in the elections already conducted as these highly respected academics have discharged their duties with a high degree of transparency. Though there are a few isolated cases in Edo and Anambra where the dons compromised the trust reposed in them by INEC when they pandered to whims and caprices of some candidates by tampering with the results of the elections to favour the candidates in exchange for money.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Uniben branch, has since dissociated itself from Paul Iroghuma, the Uniben lecturer facing charges for alleged electoral fraud. Iroghuma who was hired as INEC Collating/Returning Officer for Ovia West Local Government in Edo State during the 9 April National Assembly election, allegedly collected N5 million to rewrite the result in favour of the PDP candidate.

We hope INEC won’t get carried away by its recent success because it still has a very great challenge on 26 April when the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections will take place. It has more than a week to prepare for this last leg of the general elections which is by no means going to be an easy task.

So far, security personnel deployed to maintain peace during the polls have demonstrated that they could be friends of the people as their disposition throughout the elections has encouraged Nigerians to come out and exercise their franchise. We, however, condemn a few overzealous security men who open fire on innocent civilians as was the case in Jos when a woman was killed by a soldier’s stray bullet. It is also a shame that policemen on election duty batter journalists covering the election. It is only an illiterate and poorly trained policeman that would accost and beat up a journalist for driving around during election after he had properly identified himself and shown his INEC identification tag that confers on him the right to cover the election. The policemen who beat up Sola O’Neil of The Nation newspaper in Delta State and impounded his car during the presidential election must be punished. They are a disgrace to the police profession for not knowing that journalists are on essential duty on election days.

The electorate must also be commended for their steadfastness in spite of security threats. They have defied bomb blasts in Maiduguri, Kaduna, Suleja and shooting in Osun, to cast their ballots. This zeal should be sustained till Tuesday 26 April during the governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls so that those who wanted to scuttle the polls for their own parocial interest will be put to shame.

INEC should go ahead and conclude the polls on a successful note so that we can raise our heads high within the comity of nations.