Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has said that only a reformed electoral system can guarantee genuine democracy in Africa.
According to him, African countries must work together to promote peace and stability on the continent and ensure that the vote of the people truly count.
“Elections do not have to create conflicts, and our countries need not be so conflict-prone because of elections. Democracy should promote good governance, and elections, which are essential to democracy, should help to unify our people,” he said.
Professor Jega spoke in Ghana during a five-day visit to the country at the instance of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Ghana, which invited him to come and share Nigeria’s experience of the 2015 general election with Ghanaian stakeholders as the country prepares for its presidential and parliamentary elections in 2016. The visit ends on Friday, 18th December 2015.
The former INEC Chairman, in his public lectures, shared the experiences, successes and challenges of Nigeria’s electoral system leading to the 2015 general election. He drew lessons for Africa, saying: “There is no doubt that Africa is making tremendous progress with elections. Clearly, the number of Africans living in countries that routinely conduct elections has grown tremendously since the 1990s.
“We are glad that Nigeria is now being counted among such countries…The 2015 Nigerian general election may have set a new standard for democracy across the African continent. All countries with elections slated for next year, like Ghana, are now challenged to make theirs at least as free, fair and peaceful as Nigeria’s.
“Specifically for Ghana and Ghanaians, we now pose you a big challenge: make your next elections better than ours! Learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them. See if you can adapt some of our innovative reform measures and do them better. I must say that we ourselves learnt a lot and adapted good things from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) of Ghana. We can, and should learn from one another as we consolidate and deepen our democracy.”
Professor Jega canvassed close collaboration between Ghana and Nigeria to advance the cause of democracy in the sub-region. “We share quite a lot in common, and there is no area that we need to keep on partnering and working together more than in the area of democratic development and deepening democracy in our countries.
“The conduct of elections is central to all that. How can we get our elections right? How can we ensure that elections are conducted with integrity, so that the vote of the people will truly count in the choice of elected representatives? Nigeria had a long history of poorly conducted elections until 2011 when things began to turn around. And we were fortunate that in 2015, we were able to conduct general elections that were better than the 2011 elections, and which are now generally recognised as a turning point in terms of the conduct of elections in our country. So, I was delighted that the IEA invited me to come and share these experiences, and also to learn more from the Ghanaian experience. As I said in my lecture, there was a time in Nigeria that we were frustrated by elections in our country, and we were looking for examples of how to conduct elections. We looked towards Ghana to see what we could learn, and we did learn quite a lot. Of course, as we learnt, we tried to refine or improve upon them, and that is how we got to where we are. There is no doubt that we have a lot to share by way of knowledge and experiences to consolidate and deepen our democracies,” he enthused.
-New Horizon Newspapers
