Jonathan: Electoral Reforms’ll Enthrone Legitimate Govt

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday gave fresh insights into his administration’s drive to reform the electoral process which he said would be the basis for the emergence of a credible and legitimate government after 2011 elections.
This is coming on a day the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, said the Federal Government must ensure that the next chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the commissioners must be people of acknowledged integrity.

Speaking at a three-day African Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) jointly organised by CAPAM and the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, President Jonathan said the reform process was designed to ensure that winners in 2011 elections could exercise legitimate authority.
“This administration is convinced that the best way to start is to accord priority attention to electoral reform. This is to ensure that winners in the forthcoming 2011 elections, at all levels of government, can exercise legitimate authority, having been freely elected by the people through an honest and transparent process of free and fair elections in which every valid vote of the electorate counts.

“The entire world is looking forward to seeing how we are going to manage the process in the months ahead. Let me assure you that we shall neither fail our nation nor our admirers all over the world who are counting on us to make a significant difference”, President Jonathan, who was represented by the Minister of Interior, Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, said.
Another challenge the administration was facing, according to him, was the issue of critical infrastructure, the most compelling being epileptic power supply.
“This is important to stimulate economic growth, ensure poverty reduction and employment generation as well as enhance economic competitiveness”, he said

The third priority concern of the administration, he said, was the issue of the anti-graft campaign which was based on his government’s
zero tolerance for corruption. He noted that his government was
determined to ensure that “all offenders are appropriately sanctioned
within the ambit of the rule of law and observance of due process”.
On the appointment of the next INEC chairman, Chief Anyaoku noted that
the nation was watching President Jonathan’s government to see that he
appoints an electoral chairman with acknowledged integrity.

“We are now looking to the President to see that the leading personnel
of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), especially
the chairman and the commissioners, are people of acknowledged
integrity and non political partisanship who can ensure that the
entire electoral process including in particular, the compilation and
timely display of the electoral register, and the logistics
arrangement for voting are transparently and correctly effected”, he
said.

Anyaoku also appealed to the legislature to, in their review of the
electoral act, recognise among other desirable changes that if the
electoral changes must endure, “all elected representatives and office
holders should not after election be allowed to change their political
parties without first resigning and going back to seek a fresh mandate
on the basis of their new political parties”.
He also kicked against money politics maintaining that elections
should not only be for the super rich.

Building Agricultural Institutions: Transferring the Land Grant Model to India and Nigeria (Westview Special Studies in Social, Political, and Economic Development)