From Chidi Nnadi, Enugu

 

The Presidential Committee on Constitution and Electoral Reform has said reforms in the electoral system would ensure that winners of elections don’t assume office until petitions against them are determined.

This is coming at a time South East residents have canvassed drastic changes in the constitution and electoral system, saying it would help the country to achieve credible, free and fair elections in future.

Speaking in Enugu, during a public hearing, chairman of the presidential committee, Senator Ken Nnamani, said the ongoing reforms will discourage inauguration of candidates whose cases are before election tribunals.

He said the measure would discourage attempts by politicians to win at all costs, adding that politicians were in the habit of deploying unwholesome means to be declared winners, following which they would dare their opponents to go to the tribunal.

Said he: “We want to come up with a new system whereby no one can be sworn into office if there are election petitions hanging on his neck.

“Politicians are fond of fighting to win and saying, ‘let us go to court.’”

The former Senate President said it was sad that prosecution of election cases had become costlier than campaigns.

“Experience has shown that majority of the cases in our courts are either pre-election or post-election matters and we want to find a way out of this,” he said.

Nnamani explained that the committee would make sure future elections were credible, such that no court would upturn any of such elections, adding that this would discourage unnecessary litigation.

He said  the prevailing circumstances, where elections were won in courtrooms was discouraging.

 “We want to ensure that, after a candidate has spent time to campaign and is given the mandate by the electorate, such mandates will not be dropped at the court, by way of losing in the case,” he said.   

In his welcome address, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State commended the Federal Government for creating an opportunity for the Nigerians to vent their views and thoughts on the most effective ways to entrench a credible, acceptable and violence/rancour-free electoral process in the country.

Said he: “There is, indeed, no gainsaying the debilitating effects that our inability to conduct free and fair elections devoid of avoidable obstacles has had on the growth of democracy and our development as a nation over the years.

“These effects are to be found in the huge financial losses the country incurs in conducting elections that would turn out to be inconclusive; in the avoidable losses of life and property arising from the violence that often trail elections and more importantly, in the general feeling of discontent, disenchantment and bitter litigations that follow each exercise.”

Ugwuanyi noted that though it is difficult to conduct perfect elections anywhere in the world, “yet the sheer volume of petitions and controversies that trail each exercise we have so far conducted underscores the need for incisive alterations and amendments to be made in our electoral process in order to eliminate the undesirable outcomes that we have continued to experience.

“Among other things, the situation we find ourselves, clearly, suggests defects and drawbacks in existing electoral laws and in institutional frameworks that prevent us from addressing these recurrent issues adequately and conclusively,” he said.

The governor, therefore, called for the overhaul or necessary amendments to the existing laws and processes to ensure greater credibility and fairness in elections at all levels, saying that the proposed reforms must also help to entrench the culture of respect for the will of the people as freely expressed through the ballot box.

Also speaking, the Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice N. P. Emehelu, who stormed the venue of the public hearing with some judges, who had been involved in election petitions, said Nigeria’s democracy was in a flux just as the law that powers its legal process.

She noted that the electoral law of the country has continued to be criticised due to the perceived and proved lapses in its provisions.

“To concretise legislative sensitivity to these flaws, the 1999 Constitution underwent an alteration. See Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (First, Second and Third Alteration) Act, 2010,” she said.

Justice Emehelu said notwithstanding, all was still not well with the Act, adding that it was the acknowledged imperfection inherent in the electoral process that made the Buhari administration to set up the committee on constitution and electoral reform.

The chief judge, who made several proposals on how to enhance the constitution and electoral system, suggested that serving judges be used in election panels, pointing out that they would be more painstaking in carrying out their duties, as they are still in service and have something at stake.

The representative of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Prof Edmund Egbo and his counterpart from the Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT), Prof Jude Udenta, said already the two universities had set up committees for the reforms, promising that the institutions would send across their separate memorandum to the committee.

No fewer than 23 memoranda were received by the committee at the public hearing