*Salient issues to guarantee electoral integrity before the next election
By Nzeh Frankwhite
“It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.”
-Zig Ziglar
The above quote by late American author and motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, suscintly captures the state of affairs in the leadership deficit bedevilling our country, to which our election management institution (INEC) is our case study in assuring electoral integrity of our future elections
In the entire battle for a people oriented, responsible leadership and anticorruption struggles among people in authority, if we fail to ensure that the people’s votes count through free, fair and credible elections, we will remain jokers and continue paying lip service to issues that affects us as a nation (individually and collectively).
The impunity among our leaders is as a result of the fact that they know that our votes don’t count and they will NEVER have cause to rely on our informed choices through elections to either return or attain their various leadership positions, and this unfortunate situation will continue if we Nigerians refuse to take our destinies in our hands and demand immediate restructuring of INEC as presently constituted under the leadership of Prof. Mahmood
After the charade of the 2023 elections, no responsible system will tolerate a Mahmood up till this moment and expect a future from its leadership recruitment process as supervised by Mahmood and Co. Never!
The docility of Nigerians towards issues that affect their livelihoods remain reasons for the continued impunity of our leaders. We must begin to demand accountability, justice and equity from our leaders who hold these positions in trust for us, the people.
Labour’s leaders must demand this, the serious and responsible civil society groups (not the cash and carry brief case civil society groups) should insist, the media must continue to highlight this, opposition political parties must commit on this. The integrity of the present leadership of INEC cannot guarantee us any credible elections in future, the earlier the necessary changes are effected and the relevant electoral reforms introduced, the better for us.
No doubt, the 2023 elections are behind us with the consequences of our choices presently living with all of us, but if we fail to reform our electoral laws under a leadership devoid of integrity issues, our tomorrow may eventually meet us worst than today will leave us.
The process of ascension into power of this present government of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and Nigerians experience under his one year in office speak huge volume to this issue.
On a final note, elections remain the foundation of the leadership problems the country has suffered over the years (and is still suffering). If a leader knows that our votes will count because of a water tight electoral process, supervised by a man of intergrity, they will sit up and work for us, but unfortunately, at the moment, they are mostly working for themselves ( By insisting we tighten our belts due to economic crunch, while they loosen their belt for bumper harvest), because they know our votes will NOT and NEVER count because of their ability to manipulate and armtwist the system in their favor irrespective of what we think about their abilities (imagine the see finish)
This must stop and it takes the collective will power of a responsible followership to put a stop to this, and that process must begin today.
May God bless Nigeria
Nzeh Frankwhite
Journalist and filmmaker
