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NaijaGist Nigeria

This blog is about my views on Nigeria, the world, and technology.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

ELECTION:INEC,HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Before the Gubernatorial and states houses of assembly election held in Nigeria on the 14th of April 2007, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC)Prof. Maurice Iwu had assured Nigerian electorates that the 2007 elections unlike previous elections held in Nigeria will be free and fair.

He assured Nigerian electorates that INEC has put all neccessary logistics in place to ensure successful elections.The INEC chairman assured Nigerians that adequate security were in place for the election. He convinced some Nigerians that the decision by INEC to use an electronic register for the election was to prevent massive rigging during the election as was experienced in the in the 2003 elections.

Now we know better. It was all empty talk. The INEC chairman knows nothing of what he was talking about.

Contrary to the promises of the INEC chairman, the 2007 elections just like the 2003 general elections were anything but free and fair. The election held last Saturday was characterized by violence,late arrival of INEC officials and adhoc staffs with election materials at the polling station, insufficient electoral materials in some places, snatching of ballot boxes at gun point, stuffing of ballot boxes with ballot papers and poor organisation and co-ordination by INEC.

These were similar to the characteristics of the 2003 general elections. The massive rigging in last Saturday's election was made possible by the lack of counter measures by INEC. One wonders the role that INEC had expected the electronic voter's register to play.

Like the 2003 elections I didnot vote. This is because of the late arrival of INEC officials in my area and as we were queueing up to vote two gunmen in mobile police uniform came and took the ballot boxes away.

In four years we as Nigrians have learnt little or nothing from the mistakes of the past. I hope that INEC will look at the lapses in these elections in order to prevent a re-occurance in the next round of elections coming up in 2011.

2007 ELECTION:NIGERIANS SHOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED

I use this medium to plead with Nigerians that they should not be detered by the disappointments of last Saturday's election.

I will still try to vote in the presidential election even though I could not vote in last week's elections.

I urge all Nigerians to participate fully in this week's election.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

PDP:DARKNESS TO THE POEPLE

A few weeks ago I was busy listening to the news when I heard a jingle from the People Democratic Party's (PDP) presidential candidate Umar Musa Yar'dua. Although I have heard the jingle several times before I never realized its true meaning until two weeks ago.

The comment in the jingle that caught my attention the most was what the jingle called the "Yar'dua plan". One of the plans according to the jingle is "to keep our light bulbs on". This particular plan struck a cord in my ear.The question I asked is, what light are they promising to keep on?

At the present rate of power supply (3 hours of power supply in 2 days) one would expect the 'Yar'dua plan' to be the boasting of power supply rather than simply keeping it on.

I was still thinking over this issues in my mind when I heard the PDP slogan "PDP: power to the people".

The big question is how is it that a political party that has 'Power to the people' as its slogan ruled the people for eight years and yet gave the people nothing but darkness?

I urge all Nigerians to use their votes wisely.