Victor EzejaLEADERS of National Consultative Front (NCFront), has announced its readiness to convene a coalition of political stakeholders’ national summit on electoral reform on October 1st in Abuja to commemorate Nigeria’s 61st Independence Anniversary.
This is contained in a statement issued on Monday by the NCFront National Secretariat and signed by its Head, Public Affairs Bureau, Dr Tanko Yunusa.
The group said the summit will be crowned by the launching of a formidable national electoral alliance and coalition of all like-minded political stakeholders, leaders of thought, civil society and labour leaders across sectional divide to mobilize Nigerians and pressurize the Nigerian government to adopt electronic transmission of election results for the 2023 elections.
It said the goal was to mobilize like-minded Political Stakeholders to save Nigeria from the throes of incompetent political leadership, brought in place through fraudulent electoral process in the country.
The statement reads, “Universally, election is a major plank of Democracy and if any electoral process is susceptible to rigging and malpractices then such democracy loses its credibility and sanctity.
“It is for this reason that we as leaders of conscience are quite worried that elections in Nigeria have been riddled with malpractices and rigging since the inception of the present civilian rule in Nigeria, thereby making majority of Nigerian citizens to lose faith in the Nigerian democracy as well as the Nigerian State leading to apathy and sabotage.
“The unfortunate flaws and pitfalls of the Nigeria electoral system have greatly eroded the legitimacy of the Nigerian State to the extent that seemingly elected governments are presently contending with different forms of political instability, insecurity and sabotage orchestrated by the governed, having failed to provide good governance and dividends of democracy for the majority of the citizens, owing to crisis of stolen mandate and inept leadership foisted by rigged elections.
“However, our investigations and national consultations have revealed that one major factor and alibi for electoral malpractices and rigging in Nigeria is the manual/physical transfer of election results in Nigeria, which is archaic, problematic and prone to abuse and infractions.
“Consequently, Stakeholders across party divides and sectional lines, including the elections management body, INEC have come to a Consensus that the country is ripe and due for electronic transmission of election results to overcome at least 50% of the basis for electoral malpractices in Nigeria.”
Key Participants in the summit include, Former Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt Hon Ghali Umar Naa’aba, foremost Political Economist, Prof Pat Utomi, Former Presidential Candidate, Dr Sule Hamma, renowned Constitutional & Human Rights Lawyer, Barr Femi Falana, Former Minister of education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, and many other notable political stakeholders in the country.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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