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Iwu: Group blasts AC
By Our reporter
Thursay, November 19, 2009
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Professor
Maurice Iwu
Photo: THE SUN Publishing
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The orchestrated campaign to force the Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, out
of office before the expiration of his tenure, a pro-democracy organisation,
Forum for New Media and Democracy, has risen in defence of Iwu,
saying the Professor of pharmacognosy was not the problem of the
nation’s electoral woes.
Specifically, the Action Congress and Professor Wole Soyinka among
others, had asked President Yar’Adua to sack Iwu as the first
step in the on-going calls for electoral reforms. However, the Group,
in a statement signed its National Coordinator, Dr Salome Durugbo,
said such argument amounts to hypocrisy and devious mischief because
the nation’s electoral woes predated the appointment of Iwu
in 2005.
The statement said the plausible electoral reform germane for the
country at the moment was to reform the mindset of politicians,
adding that the Action Congress, just like any other political party,
was populated by persons of questionable past who, in any sane society,
ought to have been consigned to the dust bin of history. “These
are the people who snatch ballot boxes, who hire thugs and arm them,
who beat up electoral officers and deploy stolen money to compromise
both the electorate and the electoral officers. It is such people
that should be reformed, not Iwu”, the statement said.
The statement reads inter alia: “The tragedy of the Nigerian
situation is that those who had been convicted in other sane nations
of drug and other criminal offences and those who rigged their way
to office in previous elections are the ones who have taken the
centre stage, chanting ‘away with Iwu.’
“These are crooks ought to have buried their heads in shame.
It is only in Nigeria that such persons would continue to thrive
and integrate themselves into the assembly of honourable Nigerians.
“But no matter how big their megaphone may be, it is not difficult
to see them for what they really are: political sycophants and power
bigots”, the statement said.
The democracy Group said rather than throw Iwu out, the Presidency
should commend him for his bravery in the face of the landmines
thrown in the path of the nation by some power-hungry politicians
who plotted to frustrate the 2007 election from holding. “To
throw Iwu out is defeatist and amounts to throwing away the baby
with the bath water. Our study has shown that politicians who rush
to the media to rubbish others are usually worse than the people
they criticise and this attitude has kept our democratic march stunted
over the years”, the Group added.
Rather than hold Iwu responsible for our electoral woes, it urged
President Yar’Adua to “come hard on those politicians
who bribed their way through the primaries, imported guns rather
than canvass for votes and hired thugs and policemen to rig election.
This is the best way to reform the electoral process and not the
sack-Iwu orchestra.”
Making reference to the clean bill given to Iwu by the Chairman
of the Ghana Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, when he
visited Nigeria recently, the Group blamed the nation’s electoral
woes on Nigeria’s collective value system, stressing that
none of these politicians who mount podiums across the country had
been able to organise a free and fair local government election
in their various states now and in the past.
Afari-Gyan, while on a visit to Nigeria recently, had said, “the
electoral system doesn’t belong to Iwu. Yes, he might be the
head of the system in Nigeria, but not only Mr. Iwu has the responsibility
for free and fair election; all of us do. It is a question of behaviour.
If you don’t behave properly, if political parties and candidates
don’t behave properly, if the electorate doesn’t behave
properly, if the police don’t behave properly, you don’t
blame Iwu for that. You can’t.”
The Group said the fact that no political party had been able to
organise a rancour-free primary suggests that the nation’s
electoral problem is deeper than the head of INEC or how he or she
was appointed.
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