Tony Akowe and Tamar Dambo
HOUSE Speaker Dimeji Bankole and Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Attahiru Jega said in Kaduna yesterday in Kaduna urged workers to contribute to free, fair polls.
Delivering a paper entitled: "Towards INEC-Labour partnership for free and fair elections in 2011" at the 22nd Annual Education Conference of the National Union of Textiles, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, Jega described workers as active drivers of positive national policies with the capacity to mobilise people for popular policies.
He said: "I have worked with labour closely in the past for the advancement of our country and we made positive achievements for the Nigerian people.
"What we are trying to do in INEC as a commission is to ensure that we do our best to lay the foundation of good governance and the foundation of good governance is good leadership. The foundation of good leadership is free, fair and credible elections. It is not just enough to say one man one vote.
"Our experience with our elections has been dubious, characterised with violence and disputes. These things have happened because some of our politicians have a mindset of getting to power by hook or by crook.
"Many Nigerians have come to the conclusion that it is useless to go and vote because their votes don’t count. We are determined to do whatever we can do to reverse that kind of thinking. We will do our best to restore the confidence of Nigerians in the electoral process.
"We must ensure the election of credible leaders who will be accountable and answerable to the people. What we have been trying to do as a new INEC is to create an enabling environment for Nigerians to come out and vote and not to just see elections as mere events.
"Some people think that we, in the new INEC are magicians that can solve even problems that were created for 50 years. We need the support of Nigerians to address these problems.
Bankole said: "Credible elections do not start at the polls in 2011. They start from the primaries of the political parties. So where you have situation where the so called godfathers singlehandedly decide who will run in which political party, you thereby disenfranchise most members of that party, that is where the election starts.
"In the House of Representatives, in 2007, only 18 per cent returned to their seat in all the parties. Of the 13,000 electable offices in our country, over 12, 000 are legislators and they have the constituted authority to ask questions on how our money is being spent, but they also have a 98 per cent non return rate.
"But the Executives have 97 per cent return rate while those who are to question them have 98 percent none return rate. So, tell me, if you don’t ask questions, absolute power corrupt, absolutely. That is the answer to our question. There is no miracle to it. If you cannot ask questions through the authority of the Constitution, leaders will misbehave.
"I am encouraged by some of the things I am hearing from Prof Jega’s team in recent weeks about looking at the possibility of ensuring that parties are run pleasantly. The observation of INEC which necessitated some level of internal democracy is a good beginning because it is the foundation upon which every other thing will be built upon and we have neglected
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