Poll Rigging: Party Registration to the Rescue

Apart from INEC, every other participants/actors, from the president down to the voters and even thugs involved in the 2007 general elections all agreed that the elections were over rigged, and to demonstrate leadership, the president during his inauguration promised to pursue a review of the country’s electoral processes.

This, he kicked started through the empanelling of a committee made of eminent Nigerians under the headship of the former chief judge of the federation, Mohammed Uwais, to, in summary, collate views across board, on every elections related issue in Nigeria. The committee did it job, submitted a report and thankfully, a white paper, considered spotted in some quarters, was issued in record time and forwarded to the National Assembly, for further white papering before presidential assent or veto whichever becomes necessary, is applied.

Until today, 9th October, ones interest in the electoral reform proceedings had been very casual. And this arises from ones disenchantment with the conduct of reigning politicians and their allies during the periods of the 2007 elections. Woke up around 5am to observe that the mind was un-distractedly, occupied with the thought of how to arrest election rigging in the country before or after the Anambra 2010 and 2011 general elections. And this thought was focused on how to use the political parties to effectively eliminate rigging. Below are what ones mind considers to be the solution:

Firstly, it believes the numbers of political parties in the country is too many for the good of the country, and therefore, that this must be reduced to a maximum of five, and a minimum of two. This is to be done, not through the numbers of seat won, either to the national or state assemblies, or even through LG chairmanship or governor’s seat as has been advocated in some quarters, as this would only serve the ends of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party nor by decrees but through, membership registration.

Every political party in Nigeria must have a registered membership of a minimum of one million and a maximum of the entire voting population of the country. The distribution of this membership across the states and local government would be that of the party to determine. however, each registered member must in the registration form, to be made available both online and offline by the respective party’s, make entries for, NAMES, ADDRESS, OCCUPATION, NAME OF PLACE OF WORK, PHONE NUMBER, EMAIL ADDRESS, IF HE/SHE OWNS ONE, NEXT OF KIN, PASSPORT, WARD, NAME OF WARD CHAIRMAN AND SECRETARY OF THE POLITICAL PARTY AND THEIR SIGNATURES, ATTESTING TO A KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER OF THE MEMBER.

Secondly, all the forms filled by the members whether online or otherwise, would be submitted to INEC within a stipulated time frame.
Thirdly, INEC would proceed to produce a profile of all the parties, showing their membership strength distribution ONLY at the ward levels incorporating all the data provided by the respective members. The idea at this level is to fish out double or cross party registration, only.

Fourthly, INEC is then to proceed to cross distribute copies of these profiles. That is, that of PDP in a particular ward, for example, would go to all the other political party in that ward and PDP in return, would be a recipient of theirs. The parties are to be a period of three months within which to verify the claims of the other parties about their members with their eyes trained on fishing out fictitious names, names of dead but registered members, those not living within the ward coverage area, under age and all such vices. These are to be compiled and sent to the proposed Electoral Offence Tribunal for advertised prosecution. Those to be prosecuted would include the chairman and secretary of the party, involve in the ward. And when found guilty and convicted, should serve a jail term of ten years without an option of fine.

Finally, with the above, the strength distribution of each of the parties would have been determined. So during elections, if a political party with say, 5000 membership, already authenticated by the other parties in that ward gets roundly defeated with say, a 100 vote allocated/attributed to it, then, we would investigate to find out if it lost the remainder of its members to an epidemic or that they defected on the day of election or actually decided to vote for the other party based on what they are meaning to represent/do in their lives when they assume power. Should the investigation lead to conviction of the accused, the INEC official and security officer attached to that contentious ward then go for prosecution for breach of trust and economic sabotage and if found guilty, condemned to do twenty years without options of fine nor pardon. In the event that the INEC official was kidnapped and forced to sign the results, he would then be at liberty to turn state witness.

The traditional rulers have earned salaries in this country for too long without doing anything to justify it. So, on the Election Day, they are to send their accredited palace chiefs to all the wards in their domain. At the end of voting and counting, in each ward, they are to sign an attestation to the effect that the elections in the ward they had observed had been conducted according to laid down procedures. If it turned out to be otherwise, they are to be thrown into detention and the traditional ruler, dethroned for poor judgement of persons to whom chieftaincy titles are conferred on.

In conclusion, the above removes any future Prof. Iwu and party agents from the election equation. There would be no point in deploying troops to prevent anybody from working for a jail term for self and his/her pay master, the beneficiary of his/her thuggery. The security officer is to endorse results and not police the polls. He won’t even be armed. If they snatch the ballot box, all the, better, as it would have helped us in removing non-entities from circulation for a long time.

Besides, this method no doubt, reduces the cost of electioneering, both to the government, the political parties and their flag bearers.

Please forward to oga kpatata Yaradua or President Mark or speaker Bankole if you have their email address and God bless you as you do this.

Ilobi Austin ilobidominic@gmail.com is available: www.twitter.com www.facebook.com www.nigeriavillagesquare.com and www.vibratingaustin.blogspot.com