IPAC urges lawmakers to unbundle INEC ahead 2019 elections

TMG backs N’Assembly on electoral reforms

The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has urged the National Assembly to unbundle the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the 2019 general elections to make it more efficient.

Chairman of IPAC, Mohammad Nalado stated this at the National Assembly yesterday shortly after submitting the council’s memoranda on the amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act being conducted by the Committee on Electoral Reform and Political Affairs.

He said the need to unbundle INEC had become expedient given that it has been under pressure to deliver credible elections that would satisfy all parties.

While pointing out that the work pressure on INEC has become enormous, Nalado, who is also the Chairman of Accord Party (AP), pointed out that the Electoral Act should be amended to provide stiffer penalties on those who contravene the electoral rules.

He noted that this would encourage the sanity and peaceful conduct of elections among politicians and their supporters, even as he stressed that those offend the electoral laws should be promptly and adequately punished.

The IPAC chairman said electronic voting was essential to the growth of the country’s democracy, arguing that it had to a large extent, secured the confidence of Nigerians that their votes count.

Meanwhile, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has supported the review of the electoral reform by the National Assembly. The group made this known in a memorandum presented by its Vice Chairman, Okeke Anya who represented the Chairman of TMG, Mrs. Abiola Afolabi to the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral and Political Party Reforms at a public hearing in Abuja.

Afolabi added that the memorandum recognised the tortuous journey of transition that the Nigerian political process has undergone, adding that the country has experimented with different constitutional models in an attempt to come up with a workable political system.

“As a country peopled by a medley of ethnic nationalities, forging a political consensus among the various groups has been a challenge that even the founding fathers were unable to tackle.

“Hence, the present government has been inundated with series of demands from the various interest groups, ethnic nationalities, social movements and religious affiliations for a new constitutional framework for the country,” it read.