By Willy Eya
The newly constituted Electoral Reforms Committee by President Muhammadu Buhari has been dismissed as ‘unnecessary’ and a ‘waste of time.
Elder statesman and former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa and human right activist, Mike Ezekhome (SAN), while commenting on the development, in separate telephone chats with Daily Sun, said the committee would embark on an exercise in futility, citing previous committees set up for similar assignment by past administrations.
Balarabe Musa said: “It is a waste of time and scarce resources, because I am certain that the committee would not achieve anything meaningful. We have had previous electoral committees that made recommendations, but the Federal Government does not want to implement those recommendations.
“They (government) are not sincere. Most often, it is because the government does not have the will power to follow it to the end, that is why after investing so much resources, nothing comes out of it. Recommendations have been made in the past, and not adopting them makes the resources and effort put into making them a waste.
The truth is that even the Mohammed Uwais electoral panel report, underestimated the enormity of the challenges facing the nation’s electoral system and the reality on ground.”
Ozekhome described the new electoral reforms committee headed by former Senate President Dr. Ken Nnamani ‘as a major distraction and nonsensical’.
“If Nnamani had mentioned it to me, I would have advised him against it because, it is nonsensical. There is no need for any other electoral committee because the Uwais committee gave a detailed report, but till today, it is still in the archives and has not been used. All the beautiful recommendations which would have made our electoral process credible have never been looked into.
“I was in the 2005 National Reform Conference, and all the beautiful recommendations we made were put in the archives by Obasanjo. I was in the conference of 2009, and all the recommendations we made were put away by the late Yar’adua administration. I was also at the 2014 National Conference, and all the recommendations we made were put before the National Assembly, but they have not seen the light of the day. In fact, President Buhari was reported to have said that he had not had time to look at it, and that they were better in the archives,” he regretted.
The Constitutional lawyer said the problem was not the electoral recommendations because “we already have more than enough.”
“The problem lies in the political will to implement them. All the elections that we have had under this government are either inconclusive or conclusively rigged; that has nothing to do with the electoral reforms, but it has everything to do with the attitudinal disposition of the average Nigerian politician. Therefore, in my opinion, the electoral committee is a total waste of time, resources and a major distraction,” Ozekhome insisted.