Pro-democracy advocates:
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has raised alarm of the dangers posed to the survival of constitutional democracy by the ways, manners and boastful tendencies of the National hierarchy of the ruling party in the
Federal Government of Nigeria.All Progressives Congress which appear to show that the political party in power at the center may have pocketed or swallowed the Judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Commission so much so that the leaders have been boasting that the party will win all future elections just as it boasted before the Edo state governorship poll and achieved it.
HURIWA in a media statement challenged both the nation’s judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Commission to defend those constitutionally created, protected and guaranteed institutions from being overwhelmed by the All Progressives Congress by enforcing their mandates in accordance with the provisions of the constitution which created each of these two strategic pro-democratic institutions as Independent of the executive branch of government or the political party of the president of Nigeria.
HURIWA warns that the immediate risk inherent in this boastful attitude of the All Progressives Congress is that if the party continues to manipulate the electoral process using her domination of the central government to corner election victories illicitly, then voters’ apathy will become more pronounced leading to either a one-party state which is totalitarian state or democracy may cave in and collapse to give way to anarchy which the Rights group is calling on Nigerians to speak out and mount pressure on INEC and the Judiciary not to be subservient to the political party that controls the central government.
HURIWA which reinforced its advocacy for both INEC and the Nigerian judiciary to guard jealousy her constitutional independence and autonomy and not to allow the All Progressives Congress or any political party to create the impression that it has pocketed and swallowed them just as the Rights group in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko emphasized thus:
“The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was established by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to among other things organize elections into various political offices in the country.
The functions of INEC as contained in Section 15, Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (As Amended) and Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) include the following:
- Organise, undertake and supervise all elections to the offices of the President and Vice-President, the Governor and Deputy Governor of a State, and to the membership of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the House of Assembly of each state of the federation;
- Register political parties in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and Act of the National Assembly;
- Monitor the organization and operation of the political parties, including their finances; conventions, congresses and party primaries.
- Arrange for the annual examination and auditing of the funds and accounts of political parties, and publish a report on such examination and audit for public information;
- Arrange and conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote and prepare, maintain and revise the register of voters for the purpose of any election under this constitution;
- Monitor political campaigns and provide rules and regulations which shall govern the political parties;
- Conduct voter and civic education;
- Promote knowledge of sound democratic election processes; and
- Conduct any referendum required to be conducted pursuant to the provision of the 1999 Constitution or any other law or Act of the National Assembly.
Besides, HURIWA cited the constitution in section 6.-(1) as providing that: “the judicial powers of the federation shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established for the federation”.
HURIWA affirmed that regrettably, the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, has continued to boast that the party will win all coming election when he confirmed that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will capture the Southwest geopolitical zone in the next round of elections.
Ganduje also urged all aggrieved governorship aspirants in the Ondo State governorship primary to close rank ahead of the forthcoming governorship election and noted that the state must be at the forefront of winning the zone.
Addressing a stakeholders meeting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, on Sunday, the APC national chairman said,” In this geopolitical zone, we must deliver 100 per cent in favour of APC. Therefore, Ondo State, you must be at the forefront.”
Ganduje, who led other party National Working Committee members to the critical meeting, disclosed that the party will not reveal its secret to winning the remaining two states in the next off-cycle governorship elections.
HURIWA recalled too that earlier, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje had boasted that the party is set to take over the political structures of Rivers State.
He boasted the oil-rich state belongs to the governing party.
Ganduje spoke on Wednesday night when the APC National Working Committee (NWC) received the Rivers 2023 governorship candidate of the Action Alliance (AA) Dr. Dawari Ibietela George, into the ruling party.
Receiving the former federal lawmaker to the fold, Ganduje maintained as a skilled politician, the defection of George to the ruling party would help APC to garner more votes and completely take over the state.
HURIWA has therefore warned the All Progressives Congress not to deliberately design and impose illegal mechanisms for manipulation of elections because free, transparent, peaceful elections are the determinant factors that give life to sustainable democracy and sustainable development just as the Rights group cautioned that the boastful tendencies of the All Progressives Congress portrayed a nation whose judiciary is similarly captured because the APC even boasted about winning elections that are long in coming which demonstrate the strategy of
state capture that the ruling party may have worked out which emboldens the hierarchy of the party to make such hasty, boastful, illegal but dreadful boasts to win all elections.