Simeon Mpamugoh
Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG), Adewale Balogun, has urged Nigerians to make informed choices in the forth-coming general elections, to ensure only leaders who mean well for Nigeria, and have the capacity to deliver are voted into office.
CCG is a brainchild of Nigeria’s foremost human rights crusader, the late Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti, who died on February 10, 2006.
In a statement by its Programme Officer, Juli Iregbu, Balogun said Nigerians have a wide range of options and urged them to stop behaving as if they did not have choices.
“There are a good number of candidates being fielded for various positions by the different registered political parties in the country; so, I see no reason Nigerians should limit themselves to only two political parties,” he said.
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He condemned vote buying and selling, especially as it was witnessed at the Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states’ elections and during the recent political party primaries.
“Vote buying obstructs the democratic process by interfering with the rights of citizens to freely decide who will represent them and their interests.
Ultimately, it undercuts citizens’ ability to hold their elected officials accountable after they must have bought their mandates,” he said.
While berating the evidenced lack of transparency and internal democracy in the way and manner party primaries were conducted, he called on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve in its efforts, to ensure political parties and their candidates complied with laid down regulations on the electoral process.
He appealed to Nigerians, especially the youths, to shun violence and work together to support credible candidates with vision, focus and a mentality that is disparate to the present politics of business as usual, and its attendant greed and colossal pillaging that had sucked majority of the people into avoidable poverty and degradation.