Lagos ACN Demands Implementation Of Uwais Report

In view of the conduct of the Senegalese election where an opposition candidate defeated an incumbent president who has conceded defeat, the Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has once again demanded for the full implementation of the reports of the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel.

The party says that with the way the electoral system is structured and the way the present Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is conducting its affairs, it is afraid that Nigeria is walking several miles away from free, fair and credible elections, while other African countries have sanitized their processes and moved on to have credible election standards.

In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that it is at a loss as to why the reports of the Uwais Panel has been left in the dustbin while cases of shoddy elections and election manipulation continue to predominate the conduct of elections in Nigeria.

It says that the country stands to wobble and totter on the brinks of disaster if the issue of reforming the electoral systems is continuously ignored, while neighbouring countries make giant and recognizable strides in credible electoral conduct.

“In the light of the free and transparent manner the election in Senegal was handled, we state that this partisan composition of INEC will ensure the conduct of elections in Nigeria remain a huge parody that mocks free and credible electoral processes. We want to state that the way and manner elections are conducted in Nigeria in recent times had hardly improved from the conducts of the body in the past thirteen years of the wobbly democracy this country has been saddled with. We want to say that these have fallen far below the expectations of Nigerians who desire a free and fair electoral process, where every party will operate on a level playing ground and where issues come into play in deciding who accesses elected positions and who does not.

“We urge the critical mass, the civil society organisations, the media, intelligentsia and the opposition parties to insist on the immediate full implementation of the reports of the Uwais Electoral Reform Panel as another round of elections in 2015 approaches. We dare say that the consequences of another heavily compromised election would be too heavy for Nigeria to bear.”