“Too Difficult To Handle”: Nigerian Politicians “Do Or Die” Politics A Threat To Nigeria’s Democracy – Jega

Chairman, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega

The Chairman, Independent Electoral Commission of Nigeria, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, has said that the “do or die” attitude of today’s politicians was a threat to Nigeria’s democracy.

In his key note address at a lecture organized by the Political Science Department of the BUK, Jega further stated that the Nigerian political class considered election as an investment, adding the penchant to cut corners for perceived advantage had the potential to compromise INEC plan, based on Vanguard/The Punch reports.

Mr. Jega was speaking in Kano at a Bayero University conference themed, INEC and the 2015 General Elections: Expectations, Prospect and Challenges.

Jega said, “Unless the do-or-die affair in the polity is quickly checkmated, then the challenges facing the elections would be difficult to overcome.”

He assured that despite the challenges, “we are hell-bent on doing our best; although our best might not be enough, but we will be impartial and nonpartisan.”

He said, “We are doing our very best under the tense circumstances and Nigerians should know that a good elections is not the business of INEC alone, but all other stakeholders should join hands with the commission to ensure that the open threat facing the elections are well checkmated and overcome.”

Mr. Jega said the commission was ready to conduct elections in the three North Eastern states, Adamawa, Yobe and Borno battling the insurgency.

He said already, the commission was trying to ensure it captured all the internally displaced people.

“And (Monday) we are going to hold meeting on that in Abuja to concretize plans on that,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to come out en masse and cast their votes during the election.

“No matter what people have to come out and vote with integrity and do everything that will avoid political crises because election results are not determine by violence or burning of people’s properties; it is determined by open casting of one vote in a free and fair atmosphere,” he said.

At the same event Professor Jega disclosed that the penchant by the Nigerian politicians to cut corners at the expense of the acceptable convention posed a major impediment to free and fair election in the country. This he said made Nigerian politicians were ‘’too difficult to handle.’’ Speaking further, he said that the commission was not composed of magicians, pointing out the level of successes to be recorded by INEC in the forthcoming elections would depend on the cooperation of the people.

Jega said: “Good elections are not the business of the election managers alone. Politicians want to win by hook or by crook; they induce and entice INEC officials and if they fail, they threaten them because it is an investment that they want to win at all costs.

“INEC is not a magician, we can make mistakes. The problems with elections are enormous and most politicians don’t play by the rules, but the fact remains that we are democratizing and it would take time to clear the Aegean stable and every stakeholder has to thrown in his/her best.”

He, however, noted that the commission had improved on the mistakes of the past to ensure a free, fair and credible election this year.

He reiterated that INEC had removed four million people from the voters register because of multiple registration, adding that the authentic voters register was now error proof and would be difficult for anyone, individual or group to manipulate.

According to him, foreign names like those of Queen Elizabeth, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali among others which used to find their ways into the nation’s voters registers had now been blocked, as the Permanent Voters’ Card, PVC, had security features that would ensure the arrest of whoever cloned the card through its card reader on presentation.”