The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has urged the federal government to begin the processes of electoral reforms and amendments to existing electoral laws to ensure success of the 2019 general elections.
Chairman of TMG Comrade Ibrahim Zikirullahi gave the advice Friday in Abuja at the public presentation of the 60-page 2015 Presidential and National Assembly elections report, saying the gains of the 2015 elections must not allowed to be stalled or reversed with the loopholes in the Electoral Act and other elections laws.
“Although several realities, such as the governance challenges, may have combined to dull the euphoria around the 2015 elections, it is critical to reflect on one of our finest national moments. We must ask ourselves important questions about how the Nigerians managed to defy the multiplicity of doomsday scenarios to use the ballot box in reclaiming their country from the brink.
“We must seek to listen and learn more about the challenges that made the electoral process so steeped in tension and disruptive brinkmanship. Nigerians must collectively address the fundamental issues, which cause the equation of the elections to moments of national crisis, capable of sending the nation as a corporate entity going into extinction,” Zikirullahi said.
He said the group was mindful of the dangers in the electoral space, given the antics of the politicians, and which informed their decision to observe the election, not with the usual anecdotal methods, but with the data-driven and scientific observation methodology known as the Quick Count.
He said the fact that Nigeria survived those tensed moments generated by the elections testify to the supreme determination of Nigerians to make democracy their preferred path to nation building.
Chairman of the occasion Professor Jibril Ibrahim wonder elections in Nigeria will continue to be cumbersome and that the antics of unscrupulous is subsisting hence the need for Nigerians to ensure the progressiveness of the electoral processes.
Professors Sam Egwu a political scientist who spoke on “Electoral Democracy and the Role of Observer Groups” said local and international election observers deserved much credit for the nation’s electoral successes, saying their observational reports and recommendations has always been the yardstick to improve elections since 1993 and the 1999 elections.
Country Director of National Democratic Institute (NDI) Jasper Veen, Blair King from United States International Development Agency (USAID) and Clara Barnet of the UK Department of International Development (DFID) unanimously commend the TMG for the efforts and urged CSOs to sustain improvement of electoral activates with Nigeria being a standard for African and other countries.
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