Sen Obiorah wants President, Govs stripped of power to appoint INEC, SIEC members

By Jude Opara

A lawyer and former member of the National Assembly, Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah, has disclosed that over 90 percent of all elections so far held in Nigeria, since independence till date, have been brazenly rigged or perverted, thus causing the mass poverty and underdevelopment being experienced in the country.
Obiorah, who represented Anambra South Senatorial district between 2007 to 2011 in the National Assembly, blamed the non-existence of honest, transparent, free and fair elections in Nigeria for the mass poverty and gross underdevelopment in the nation presently.
The lawyer stated this in a statement titled ‘The Philosophy of Elections and Nigeria’s Fake Democracy’, made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday.
Worried by this development, the erstwhile federal lawmaker has proposed a constitutional amendment that will ensure that the power to appoint members of electoral bodies – Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), and State Independent National Electoral Commission, (SIECs) – is taken away from the President and governors and vested in a neutral body.
He said the move would help to lift Nigerians out poverty.
Obiorah has already sent the proposed bill to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The former senator reasoned that had the people been allowed to be exercising the power to freely elect their leaders since 1960, Nigeria would, by now, be a fully developed nation by first world standards and ramifications.
He said, “Since Independence, 90 percent of all elections, Parliamentary, Presidential, National Assembly, Governorship, House of Assembly, Local Government Council elections, have been brazenly stolen or rigged or perverted or altogether thwarted or nullified.
“In other words, Nigerians have never really and voluntarily chosen their leaders, nor have Nigerians ever been governed with their proper consent and participation.
“The absence of honest elections makes ours, a fake democracy, period. In Nigeria, the simple but painful cause of stealing and rigging of elections is that those vested with power to appoint the electoral bodies and personnel were themselves or their political parties or their preferred candidates, contestants in the same elections. It is just like making a person a judge in his own case.
“Right from Independence, the then Prime Minister, and later, the President, was always cloaked with the power to appoint the commissioners and senior officers of the electoral bodies responsible for the conduct of all elections in Nigeria.
“However, by virtue of the 1999 Constitution, the power of appointing the State electoral bodies responsible for conducting local government elections was transferred to the State Governors.
“Consequently, the world has been witnessing the Soviet Union style results declared from Nigeria’s local government elections, where the Governor’s political party, in most cases, scores 100% victory. The world has also been hearing loud cries and protestations against rigging and seeing the avalanche of court cases that attend all other elections in Nigeria for which the President appoints the electoral bodies and officers.”
Stressing the importance of making Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BIVAS), and electronic transmission of results via INEC Results Viewing Portal, (IReV), legally mandatory in the conduct of Nigerian elections, Obiorah pointed out that these systems cannot solve the problem of election rigging without the electoral bodies’ neutrality and integrity because BVAS and IReV are vulnerable to manipulation.
As a way out of this problem, Obiorah is proposing that the power for the appointment of electoral bodies be taken away from both the governors and the President and vested in a neutral body which would trigger processes in motion for lifting Nigeria out poverty.
Obiorah clarified that nominations from the United Nations and Transparency International would definitely not violate Nigeria’s sovereignty, because those nominations would not be imposed by any sort of force, rather it is Nigeria as a sovereign nation that would voluntarily request these nominations.
He stated further that the UN and Transparency International would be positively disposed to acceding to Nigeria’s request because like other development institutions, they rightly regard stealing or rigging of elections as the worst and most destructive kind of all corrupt practices.