Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
National Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Mr. Breakforth Onwubuya, has said unless genuine steps were taken to address the serious lapses witnessed in the last general elections and the just concluded governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states, subsequent elections may be bloodier.
Onwubuya, who spoke in an interview with THISDAY at the weekend, lamented that massive electoral fraud, thuggery, violence and voter apathy were fast becoming the order of the day in the last four years.
He pointed to the incident in which a women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was brutally murdered and burnt during the just concluded governorship election in Kogi State, saying if nothing drastic was done to reorder things the forthcoming election in Edo State may even be bloodier.
“Both PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC) are presently involved in rigging elections. PDP started this evil plan of rigging elections in the country. APC is now trying to outsmart the PDP in rigging, having suffered many years as an opposition party. Most of the top members of APC today were former members of PDP. So they know the arts of the game. Both parties hire thugs and pay them to disrupt elections,” he alleged.
He also accused the two big parties of being behind the recent wave of vote-buying as other parties did not have the money to engage in such practice.
“As a party, we are saying that the way and manner elections are being conducted in Nigeria will not give room for credible leadership in our country. It is usually the highest bidder. The one who has more capacity for violence, thuggery using the military and police to perpetrate electoral fraud now wins elections.
“Our electoral process has degenerated to a point that there is no credibility in the process, politicians have bastardised the process. They use thugs, and money to suppress the will of the voters,” Onwubuya further alleged.
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to grant early approval for the use of electronic voting to enable the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to test-run and get it ready for use in future elections.
“We are calling for a total overhauling of the electoral system. If we have electronic voting, it will minimise ballot box snatching. Under the electronic voting system, as people are voting, it is automatically being counted and displayed on the INEC’s website and everyone will be viewing it,” he said.
Onwubuya dismissed the argument that Nigeria was not yet ripe for electronic voting, explaining that presently most Nigerians whether literate or illiterate used mobile phones and the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and carried out their transactions without much difficulty.
He advised INEC to jettison the idea of appointing serving university lecturers to help in conducting elections in the country, saying most of these lecturers have not lived up to expectations.
“We urge that INEC should stop the use of university lecturers to conduct elections. Most of them now see it as an opportunity to make money. Rather INEC should use their trained permanent staffers who have sworn to an oath of allegiance as returning officers,” he advised.
