Don’t appoint INEC chairman if ... –Jonathan warned

Opposition parties yesterday rose from an emergency meeting in Abuja, demanding that President Goodluck Jonathan should not appoint the next Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) if he will contest the Presidency poll in 2011.

Briefing newsmen at the end of the meeting, National Chairman of Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Alhaji Balarabe Musa disclosed it was the decision of the opposition that President Jonathan adopts the Justice Mohammed Uwais Panel’s recommendation on the appointment of INEC Chairman, should he make up his mind to contest.
The conference also kicked against the ongoing debate on the need for the country to do-away with the multi-party system and settle for two parties. It, however, canvassed the stoppage of grants to the political parties by INEC.
Musa argued that it would be unfair for President Jonathan to appoint the referee in a game in which he is also a competitor.

According to him, if President Jonathan should go ahead and appoint the new INEC chairman while he is also contesting, then there won’t be any free and fair election in 2011.
Rather, the CNPP boss advised that government should put in place the electoral reform and adopt the Uwaiz panel recommendation which stipulates that the appointment of INEC chairman be removed from the functions of the president.
The panel recommended that the INEC chairman’s position be advertised and representatives of bodies like Nigerian Bar Association, National Judicial Council (NJC), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) among others, would screen the candidates and appoint one of them.

The CNPP chairman said; “if Jonathan is going to run, then he will likely tamper with the electoral reform to favour his return, therefore he should not appoint the INEC chairman because he might end up appointing a PDP member. The fear is that, and there won’t be any level playing-ground for contestants in 2011.”
He explained that the electoral reform is germane if the nation is to break away from the shackles of flawed elections adding “we need this electoral reform so that votes can count and it is when the votes count, that you would know the real strength of the political parties.”

Responding to reporters’ questions, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Chief Dan Iwanyanwu said it was deliberate that for the five years Chief Maurice Iwu held sway at the INEC, he couldn’t give us valid voters register. Iwu was a PDP man and there was no way he would not have helped the PDP. But if we have a neutral INEC chairman, we will be able talk about valid voters register and know which party is the biggest, when the votes count.
On the discourse over adoption of two parties system which the House of Representatives will vote on today (Tuesday), Alhaji Musa stated that the people will be denied their freedom of choice if parties are pegged to two.

“Let leave the multi party system, which is what democracy is all about, parties that are not popular will fizzle out, but then, government should stop grants to the parties. Let the parties be independent and find their levels, this is a way of reducing the number not just by pegging the number of parties to two.”
The National Chairman of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) said the idea of grants to parties encourage everyone to form a party and should be stopped forthwith.
“Government shouldn’t fund parties again, let us go back to the old days when it was difficult for parties to use public fund for political activities,” he maintained.