Former National Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega,
has said that the 2015 general elections were not
perfect, noting, however, that the polls represented a
remarkable departure from the country’s ignominious
history of fraudulent elections.
Speaking yesterday in Lagos at the 50th birthday
anniversary lecture of the National Legal Adviser of the
All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Muiz Banire, the
former electoral body chair, who spoke on the theme
‘Challenges and Prospects of Sustainable Credible
Elections in Nigeria’, said there is need to check the
excesses and recklessness of politicians for the
country to sustain its electoral prospects.
“No doubt, it
is necessary to institutionalize credible elections in
Nigeria, and to not allow a reversal from the gains
made in 2015.
“The 2015 elections were far from perfect, but they
represented a remarkable departure from our
ignominious history of fraudulent elections to the path
of sustainable elections with credibility and integrity.
“Badly or poorly conducted elections had in past
damped our enthusiasm for transition to democracy
and undermined our capacity to enjoy good
democratic governance, with dire negative
consequences on the livelihood and aspirations of a
majority Nigerians.”
Identifying the attitudes of politicians as one of
challenges militating against the nation’s electoral
process, Jega said: “The unwholesome mind-set of
our politicians is one of the challenges of our electoral
process. There are some decent politicians but they
are very few.
There are only few decent politicians. Nigeria has a
special breed of politicians, they are militricians
because they have imbibed the attitudes of the military
over time. “I quite often say that Nigeria has a special
breed of politicians (‘militicians’).
They generally tend to believe that political power
through elections has to be “captured”, and this has to
be done by hook or by crook; and by any means
necessary!
“For many of them, winning election is, literally, ‘a do-
or-die’ affair. That is why the Nigerian political/
electoral arena increasingly resembles a bloody
battlefield, with maiming, killing, burning,
assassinations and unimaginable destruction of lives
and property.”
Notable among dignitaries present at the gathering
include governors of Ogun and Jigawa states, Senator
Ibikunle Amosun and Badaru Abubakar respectively;
Minister of Power, Housing and Works, Mr. Babatunde
Fashola and his Solid Minerals counterpart, Dr. Kayode
Fayemi; Chief Razaq Okoya, among others.
