By Nelson Ekujumi
November 4, 2014 – A very critical element of democracy is the participation of people in the democratic process thus re-emphasizing the definition of democracy as government of the people, by the people and for the people.
A grave danger to the sustenance of our nascent democracy is the low participation of the electorates which we owe it as a duty to educate and sensitize the people to realize that it is a key determinant of their economic wellbeing, because it is said that, the way you make your bed, is the way, you will lie on it. However, in researching into this societal shortcoming, one came to the conclusion that quite a few are Doubting Thomases who don’t see it as requiring their involvement, while others are just ignorant about it and some just lackadaisical.
Therefore, a major factor that can engender this confidence building mechanism among several others is the creation of polling units to make voting centres accessible and less time consuming to the electorates.
In the course of one’s election monitoring duties, we have observed, that a major impediment to voters participation is the lack of accessibility to polling centres as voters have to travel long distances from their locations to exercise their franchise and this is very discouraging and could be a major reason why voters turnout in our elections is usually between 30-45 percent of the registered voters. Also in some polling units, the number of registered voters is large and thus time consuming in exercising one’s franchise.
In view of the enumerated above facts, no amount of human and material effort will be too much to be explored in engendering the participation of the people in the democratic process if we want to take our rightful place in the comity of democratic nations. Therefore, it is key for all stakeholders in the polity to be up and doing about their societal obligations and also very imperative for the electoral umpire to be alive to its constitutional responsibility of putting in place measures that will engender public confidence of the electorate to be active participants and give credibility to the electoral process.
However, one is at a loss to rationalize the well orchestrated bashing and ethnic colouration attack of INEC for creating additional 30,000 polling units in the country ahead of the 2015 general elections. The way the attack on INEC has been coordinated by some state sponsored groups and individuals shows that if we the people are not alert and eternally vigilant, our vision of a free, fair and credible election will be nothing but a mirage.
In the well orchestrated attack against INEC by these individuals and groups, they have not been able to advance any cogent reason(s) to fault INEC’s logical analysis for the creation of additional polling units, rather, they have been whipping up ethnic and primordial sentiments just to blackmail and derail the electoral body from fulfilling its constitutional mandate.
A very important question which one would like to pose to these critics of INEC is that, in what ways would the creation of additional polling units translate to an increase in the number of registered voters for a particular polling unit bearing that the whole idea of INEC is aimed at decongesting polling units, which in the present scenario, have as much as 3000 registered voters for a unit which is against international standards of about 500?
One would also like to ask, in whose interest are these critics championing this agenda of engendering voters’ apathy that is a bane of our electoral system? Definitely, this agenda is rather self serving and parochial and is not in tune with global best practices as well as the entrenchment of the tenets of participatory democracy which we are all yearning for in order to move our country forward.
If we must be sincere, one thing we can’t take away from the present leadership of INEC despite their shortcomings is its determination to reposition our electoral system, in the face of all the internal and external obstacles put in its way by the state with the active connivance of agents of darkness who are still on the prowl and are hell bent on ensuring that we don’t get it right with regards to our elections so that the votes of the people don’t count.
It is in this regard that one can only admonish INEC to remain focused despite the anti democratic advocacy of some persons and groups and continue with its sensitization of the electorate on the well thought out policy of the creation of additional polling units which will only serve to engender tenets of participatory democracy in which the people must be active participants.
It is our collective responsibility as a people to ensure that the 2015 general elections marks a turning point in the political history of the country from our sordid past through the conduct of a free, fair and credible election by INEC reminiscent of the June 12 1993 Presidential elections won by late Chief MKO Abiola of blessed memory and we can only achieve this by being eternally vigilant which is the price for liberty.
Thanks,
Yours Sincerely,
Nelson Ekujumi
