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President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba,has given recipe on how to sanitize the nation’s challenged electioneering system
The labour leader in a statement,emphasised the need to tackle the menace of godfatherism, ‘godmotherism’ and money politics which were the major concerns that necessitated the new law on direct primaries for all political parties.
He said due diligence and oversight must be applied to ensure that unscrupulous politicians who have been accultured to vote buying, monetization of Nigeria’s electoral process are not allowed to extend their habitual criminal subversion of the nation’s democracy to political party members during political party primary elections.
“In order to further safeguard the right of Nigerians to freely choose their leaders at both political party level and during general elections without being subjected to the obscene pressure of financial lure, we recommend that the National Assembly should expeditiously consider developing a bill for the establishment of Electoral Offences Commission to expedite the prosecution of politicians and their agents who indulge in vote for cash, election rigging and violence,”he noted.
He described the passage of the Electoral Act, which empowers the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to conduct elections electronically as the most progressive enactment by the National Assembly in a long while.
“While majority of Nigerians have described the 2021 amendments of the Electoral Act as one of the most progressive enactments that Nigeria has had in a long time. This is also the view of the Nigeria Labour Congress,”Wabba said
He commended the House of Representatives and the Senate particularly the leadership of the National Assembly who stood rock solid behind the proposal for direct primaries for all political parties and rallied their colleagues in the House and the Senate to pass the bill into law.
According to NLC, this is the proof of committed leadership and true statesmanship.
“The Congress must, however, caution that the passage of the 2021 amendment to the Electoral Act is only a journey and not a destination. A lot more certainly needs to be done in order to fully sanitize Nigeria’s challenged electioneering system especially building on the 2007-2011 electoral reforms which the NLC actively participated in”
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