What Iwu said
The Editor,Nigerian Tribune Newspaper,
Ibadan.
WHAT PROFESSOR IWU SAID
The attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been
drawn to the Nigerian Tribune editorial of Thursday, July 9, 2009 in which the INEC
Chairman was portrayed as an umpire whose national stature was on the decline.
According to the newspaper, the INEC Chairman while addressing the
quadrennial delegates conference of the Nigerian Civil Service Union in Enugu a
fortnight ago, claimed he had saved Vice President Goodluck Jonathan from being
killed by plotters who were put to flight by his (Iwu’s) bravery.The story, to say
the least, is brazenly preposterous.
The Commission would not have been bothered by what is manifestly fictitious
but for the fact that it is an editorial material being served the readers by a
newspaper which in the estimation of most Nigerians ranks among the national
newspapers that have been classified as serious tabloids. What Professor Iwu
said pointedly is that, the successful conduct of 2007 General Elections saved
Nigeria from sliding into anarchy which was what many anti-democratic forces
wanted.
The INEC Chairman had at various fora decried the debilitating phenomena of
violence during elections. This is sustained by a negative mindset with which our
political actors enter into electoral contests. Lamenting the limiting impacts of
violence on our electoral process, Professor Iwu took members of the Nigerian Civil
Service Union back to the general insecurity that pervaded the political
environment in the run up to the 2007 general elections, the spate of politically
motivated killings and youth restiveness in the Niger Delta which snowballed into
the bombing of Vice President Goodluck’s residence in his home state Bayelsa.
The problems of electoral violence, excessive deployment of financial resources by
political actors, gender inequality which limits the level of effective feminine
gender participation in politics and a mindset that conceptualizes electoral contest
as a do or die affair have been the bane of our efforts at enthroning democratic
culture in this country. These problems are still with us.
Our political terrain is replete with a few elements who threaten fire and brimstone
when they fail to achieve their ambition. Such people unleash recriminations on
perceived enemies and assault the entire system in an attempt to capture political
power.
This do or die spirit that has become the character of electoral contests in Nigeria
goes against the very foundation of our electoral system. It was this negative
mindset about elections that propelled political opponents to bomb Goodluck
Jonathan’s residence and this was the context in which his name was mentioned
during Iwu’s lecture to delegates at the quadrennial conference of Nigerian civil
Service Union which held in Enugu recently.
With regards to the outcomes of the 2007 general elections which the editorial
says are hotly being contested in election tribunals, it is the contention of the
Commission that the phenomenon is not aberrant to our electoral system. If
anything, it enriches the system and instills the confidence of the aggrieved
contestants in our electoral process.
To attempt to portray pronouncements by the tribunals as indictment only betrays
the psychology of the rich and most powerful few in our midst who continue to
trample on the defenseless in society. Moreover, INEC does not expect to be
hugged when we ask such people to obey laws governing the conduct of elections.
Emmanuel I. Umenger,
Acting Director, Public affairs
By Rose Oriaran
