An eminent cleric, retired Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu, has said for the electorate to take charge of setting the tone for the political climate in 2019 general elections and beyond, there is need for more consciousness and positive political involvement.
He said rather than being potential tools for fomenting political violence and abuses of the electoral process by desperate partisans, the electorate should stand up to demand compliance with civilised ethics of political participation from the partisans.
Ladigbolu gave the admonition in Oyo town while fielding questions from journalists during a sensitisation programme.
According to him,’’ a dispassionate and informed citizenry could hold all role players, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to account on what is required to make the Nigerian electoral process more efficient and in conformity with global best practices. After all, credible elections are not a function of what INEC alone does or fails to do; but more a function of the commitment of all stakeholders to make positive and scrupulous contributions to the system.’’
He lamented that the biggest problem confronting the country is absence of correct and genuine data.
“We cannot give accurate and correct population figure, we don’t have correct number of female and male population, we don’t know the numbers of the unemployed, people above 60 years of age and most importantly we don’t know the correct number of people of voting age. How then can we have free and fair election when we don’t have correct number of potential voters? We must have correct voters’ register to eliminate electoral malpractices.’’
The Minister of God asserted that the dire economic condition of majority of Nigerians makes social vices like corruption to thrive and make the electorate susceptible to money-bag politicians.
“The lack of economic stability in the country is a strong motivator for corrupt individuals who are willing to subvert the electoral process by making elections a ‘do or die’ affair to ensure they get into public office with unfettered access to public funds and also in good position to influence thence, those who are economically impoverished to trade their votes for as little as a ‘kongo’ of rice or the sum of N200 only.
“ Poverty has, therefore, become a strong factor against chosen credible leaders as well as having a free and fair election.’’
He called on the appropriate authorities to ensure the integrity of the voter register, saying that “until we get correct number of voters, politicians will continue to inflate election figures through fictitious names they inject into voters register.
“We should, therefore, support the card reader system. This technology embodied several devices which enables the electoral commission to eliminate multiple registrations and improve the method of collecting voters’ biometric data. The Automated Finger Identification System eliminated all persons who registered more than once and legally excluded them from the voters’ register.”
Vote, he argued, must be the determining factor to elect leaders and representatives, adding that it is the means of establishing social contract between leaders and voters.
“A leader, who manipulated his way into office, has already dribbled his way out of social contract with the electorate and, therefore, not duty bound to be responsible to them when he sit in his stolen position. This is the foundation of our political instability and the economic quagmire we perennially find ourselves’’.
