We need to change the mode of elections —Adeiza

WHAT is your view on the 2019 governorship election?

We appreciate God almighty for all he had done for us during the election. The exercise has come and gone and a winner has emerged. Whatever might have been the short coming of the election should serve as a source of correction for future elections. I sincerely sympathise with those individuals that sustained one form of injury or the other during the election and commensurate with those who lost their loved ones. I believe that what we are passing through is part of the teething problems in a democracy. There is still room for a lot of changes.

I we need to utilise the advantages of technology to modify the electoral process so that the electorate can cast their votes electronically; we need to do away with the culture of people queuing up to vote. It is no longer fashionable in this day of advanced technology. The deployment of technology will invariably end the menace of violence as people can vote from their homes, offices, market places and so on. This is achievable through the commitment of the government and gradually, the country will perfect the electoral process. The problem of ballot snatching will be permanently solved.

What should be done by the authorities to guarantee a hitch-free general election in 2023?

I have always felt that the way the democracy of this country was conceived leaves mush to be desired. In 1999 when the country was moving from a military regime to a civilian government, guidelines for the formation of political parties were too stringent, cumbersome and capital intensive.  So, those who did not have money even though they had good and lofty ideas, were schemed out of the political circle. In other countries, things are not done like that because there are institutions that assist the people to circumvent the capital intensive nature in participating in electoral process. In Nigeria, you will be charged to open offices in virtually all the 774 local government areas of the country and if you are not rich, you cannot achieve that even if you have good ideas that can move the country forward. But in other climes, parties enter informal agreement with institutions to say, ‘if you win, we will produce three ministers’ and as such, the organisations or individuals render financial assistance to the party.

But in Nigeria, many people that are intelligent are excluded from attaining the position of governance because of the cumbersome nature of party formation. So, at the level we are today, the major problem we have as a nation is the electoral process and as a result of that, the country is developing a certain level of democratic characters in such a way that we are learning to tolerate protests which is different from military regime.

We need to change our mode of election by revisiting the Electoral Act; nothing stop us from using technology to conduct our elections because what we are doing right now cannot be said to be perfect. The use of technology will also show the actual population of some ethnic groups that claim that they are larger in number and it time the government should not use population alone for the sharing of the monthly federal allocation. This will help in discouraging the padding of population during census.

I will want you to expatiate on the issue of population census as it affects the senatorial zones in Kogi State.

One nauseating thing being bandied around as truth is the allocated census figures of the past which was designed to reduce my people to a minority status. Much as this lie has been peddled around for too long and now made to look like truth, I want to say with clear equivocation that the past population figure allocated to my people was at best fictitious, fraudulent and manipulated. I call it allocation because the then powers that be in the state connived to contrive those figures allocated to the west and central senatorial districts to ensure the perpetual political domination of the east of the state over others. At this juncture I will like to commend the Federal Government for their desire to conduct a more credible and digital census. I am not in doubt that after that exercise, the truth shall be unveiled to the world and we shall be able to seek reparation for the accumulated hurt and harm done to our district. The era of manipulative dominance should be seen over, considering the voter turnout vis a vis the registered voters declared for each district by the INEC. The votes counted in each area of dominance of the respective candidates against the backdrop of the voters registered in such areas is a probable demonstration of the population strength of area.