Former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, has called for the scrapping of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
George said INEC as currently constituted was not capable of conducting elections that would reflect the true decisions of the Nigerian electorate.
He argued that the current INEC must be disbanded to move the Nigerian nation forward.
George, who said he was not speaking as a partisan person, but as a concerned Nigerian, said it was sad that less than 25million people voted in the 2019 general elections.
According to the former PDP deputy national chairman, who spoke in Lagos, “No matter the arrangement we are making, if we don’t scrap INEC as presently constituted , sack everybody there and start all over again so that there will be minimal inputs by human beings, we are wasting our time. It will not work.”
The INEC should be scrapped as part of the overhaul of our electoral system and building of an electronic voting system which will enthrone a credible process and replace the current flawed process of manual transmission of election results from polling booths to wards, local government and state party offices before they are collated at the centre.
He expressed regret that instead of allowing the electorate to use their votes to determine those who should be elected into offices, the courts and tribunals now take the decision on who governs at all levels.
George accused INEC of failing woefully in the discharge of its constitutional duties and responsibilities to the Nigerian electorate.
He said, “All the elections are in the tribunals. And the judges are now the decider of who represents us as legislators, governors and even as the president. Then why are you bothering us to go and line up on election days? India just conducted an election and 800 Million people voted. Results were out in two days and there was no dispute in the election. Are they more enlightened than us?
“Imagine INEC saying we don’t use a server; you are saying that in the 20th Century? Anybody who has a bank account in any part of the country, if they put money there, you get an alert. If they remove money, you get an alert. Then you go and vote and they can’t capture it. What a joke! Why are we lying to ourselves? So, if we continue like this and those in government know that they won election not because people voted for them, they won’t be bothered about the people.”
George also described the Nigerian constitution as flawed, adding that this was responsible for the country’s inability to progress in the past 59 years, inspite of its huge human and material resources.
He said, “Our constitution is flawed. Why should all the resources be sent to Abuja? We are still practising military system of government under a civilian administration. We still have a powerful President who dictates how much money goes to the states and local governments, who takes this or that appointment. Look at it in any format, it is still the same military system.
“We copied American presidential system but we copied it half way. In America today, they don’t have one Inspector General of Police sitting in one office and picking who is going to be commissioner in this state or the other. We have FBI that handles anything national and the state and county police. Anything that happens in the county, nothing concerns FBI because policing is local.
“For effective management of peace in our community, we need the local police because they are familiar with the environment. Let the Federal Government hands off internal policing. It may have something like FBI, but not for one IG to know who a Divisional Police Officer must be.”