Our Electoral System Won’t Prosper Until There Are Men Of Integrity In INEC – GEJ

Former President, Goodluck Jonathan has come out to say that the nation did not get accurate vote counts during the recent elections.

He recently had his say at the YIAGA Africa Reflection Conference on Democratic Elections in West Africa held in Abuja.

According to him, the involvement of ghost voters made it very hard to track the correct vote counts across the country, and that is the handiwork of corrupt electoral officers who will rather bow to rigging pressures than fight for their nation.

He added that the nation’s electoral system will continue to grapple with a credibility crisis until there are men of integrity in INEC.

His words, “In Nigeria, you can’t get an accurate count of votes because I believe that we have too many ghost voters.

We must have credible people. From what (ex-INEC Chairman, Attahiru) Jega said, political leaders who are so domineering will pressurise you to do what is wrong; you should be able to resign and leave. You should be able to resign and walk away, please.

If we don’t have this kind of people, then we are in trouble. And I don’t want any INEC official to say I was pressurised. If you are accepting to be Chairman of INEC or to be a commissioner of INEC, then you should be ready to say, ‘If I’m pressurised to do what is wrong, I will take care of the democratic people and walk away’.

And if we don’t have such people managing our electoral management bodies, if what we have are people who will continue to go in a circle, we will not get what we want.

When both parties are strong, and the system cannot be manipulated, only real human beings will cast and their votes will count.

Sometimes, if I listen to the prediction by religious men and women and so on, their predictions tend to go towards the regional interest. So, when the electoral process is so regionalised, we are going to have issues. And that will be controlled by de-emphasising sort of key areas.

If our systems of electing our leaders are not fine-tuned to the level that the voter card will work, then what will be so great about democracy?” Jonathan queried.

If our systems for electing leaders are not fine-tuned, then what is the point of democracy?”

WOW.