Free and Fair Elections in Nigeria

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Free and fair elections in Nigeria: When? on January 16, 2011 / in Nigeria Today 12:00 am / Comments By Tonie Iredia For a number of reasons, not a few Nigerians look forward to free and fair elections come April. First, there is public faith in the umpire — the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)-a body of persons of proven integrity led by Professor Attahiru Jega, a man generally believed to be fearless and forthright. Already, INEC has shown its result-oriented posture with the successful take-off yesterday of a nation-wide registration of voters with over 80 per cent of the required ‘magical’ data capturing machines. Second, the political parties have virtually completed primaries to pick their ‘best’ flag- bearers for the elections. Third, Nigerians have waited for so long for genuine democracy and are now in a mood to embrace the new slogan-‘one man one vote’. They are also fully ready to defend their ballots. Fourth, our religious leaders have prayed ceaselessly for peace and have, in fact, anointed some candidates to face the D-Day. Thus all should be well. But, some of us remain skeptical because of the unanimous finding of social scientists over the years that in developing countries, the conduct of elections is an ordeal. A good example is Kenya where in less than three days after the December 27, 2007 polls, no fewer than 500 persons died as a result of violent demonstrations over the conduct of the process. As at today, peace is yet to return to Cote d’Ivoire as many citizens are being killed daily following unending clashes between the two rival political parties that contested the November 28, 2010 election. The situation in Nigeria has not been different. As Richard Joseph in his study of ‘Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria’ aptly puts it, our electoral process is always reduced to a “Hobbessian state of war”

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