Yakubu Busari
The New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) Plateau State Chairman, Comrade Tokji Mandin, has called for the scrapping of state independent electoral Commissions by pointing accusing fingers at the state governors who are agents for the manipulation of election results for themselves and their political party, denying the opposition a win.
Comrade Mandin stated this during the 13th delegates conference of all State independent Electoral Commissions of the 36 states stakeholder engagement on reform held in Jos.
He lamented that the majority of the State Independent Electoral Commissions have not been fair in their conduct of elections in the past few years.
According to him, the present Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission, PLASIEC, had demonstrated a little bit of fairness where some opposition won councilorship seats, but whenever you come to talk about local government elections in some states, they won’t allow that chairmanship seat to be won by the opposition party.
He frowned that the state independent electoral Commissions charge a higher amount of money for nomination forms, which scared the opposition from obtaining the form.
Tokji Mandin reflected that since 1999, when INEC conducted elections into local governments in Nigeria, some of the LGAs were won by the opposition parties, but after the 2007 general election, the situation became worse till now, nothing like that which already paints a big picture of the challenge system.
He disclosed further that we are in a system of democracy where the conduct of an election in the country where Governors won’t allow the opposition party to win elections.
In another reaction, NRM state Chairman debunked that the exercise was a good gathering where some stakeholders would sit to deliberate at the end of the day, is not implemented.
However, it is good that they’re looking into local governments’ electoral Commissions in comparison between the INEC and SIEC in a state is not acceptable.
He stressed that the major challenges faced by the SIEC and INEC are similar to those faced when those in authority manipulated them, making it not non-transparent.
Many election results are subject to change as winners are denied their right, so they’re not different, adding that during the immediate past leadership APC hijacked all the positions
