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We Need To Finetune Our Electoral Act – Thompson

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Tunde Thompson

Tunde Thompson

This is the concluding part of the interview with Mr. Babatunde Ozemoya Thompson, veteran journalist and now stalwart of the All Progressives Congress and member of the media team of President Mohammadu Buhari. He spoke with Opaka Dokubo in Asaba, Delta State. The first part of the chat was published on Monday, last week.
What Is your assessment of INEC under the new leadership, especially after the conduct of the Kogi and Bayelsa  elections?
Let me tell you,
despite all the negative comments people in different parties have been making, INEC has proved that it has come to stay to do the right thing at the right time for the people of this country in maintaining a wholesome democratic process. Kogi shows that INEC has lived up to the expectation that this is the time to build institutions, powerful institutions not powerful people.
Whatever INEC said in Kogi, it was an institution put in charge to do certain things and it did what it had to do and offered its opinion. Whoever you are, I’m afraid, go to court and challenge it. PDP shouted, APC shouted. People should know that INEC’s job is not an easy job to do. It’s like being a judge in a land where there is no rule of law. That rule of law has to be established otherwise we’re all ruined. So, INEC has lived up to expectation in both elections.
Of course, Bayelsa matter is yet to be concluded and by the time they hold election in Southern Ijaw, we will see what happens.
But let us enforce the rules in the Electoral Act that nobody shall carry guns, nobody shall carry machets, nobody shall carry cutlasses and axes and all that. And that anybody who sponsors the procurement of such materials is not fit to be a candidate in Nigerian political contest.
You see, people commit offences during electoral activities and they’re not punished. You too you know that the failure of the enforcement of the law is one of the reasons for the disrespect for the rule of law in Nigeria.
The APC candidate’s protest in Bayelsa
Well, Mr Sylva is capable of expressing his own views, I was not there, he was the man there and cannot judge for him. All I am saying is that anybody who supports violence and procures equipment of violence should not be allowed in the democratic process.
I may be in the APC but I’m not a person who will support the destruction of lives and property, just because I want the APC to win. APC members are for progress, they’re for progressive approaches to governance. They cannot be in support of retrogressive, unpopular, man eating practices, society demolishing tendencies (and) pretending to be democratic. That’s not my vision for the APC. My vision for the APC is not a party where the truth does not matter. Go tell it on the mountain, tell it in the valleys that where there’s no respect for godly ways to life, the devil shall take over. And if you don’t want the devil to win (he has already been winning for too many years) we shouldn’t give him more quarters in our parties. We cannot stop extreme behaviour, by authorising or allowing inacceptable behaviours
Did you consider that Delta is a PDP State while agreeing to deliver a lecture on the vision of the governor?
When I was invited by the NUJ of the Delta State Council to prepare to speak on something the governor has declared as his own philosophy of governance called SMART, since I’m not a politician, it was not my business to consider PDP or no PDP. It was to be looking at ways SMART could be rendered or knocked off all together if people were to be partisan in their thinking. And the way to stay straight is to stay ethical and professional. I find that most governments do not work because people do not face the rule of law, people did not remain ethically conscious and focused. So, I said that the major problem it will have is if reporters, editors, correspondents, even cartoonists choose to see the SMART programme introduced by the governor as something they could destroy on partisan lines, using partisan arguments.
I think the SMART programme is a creative and thoughtful way of serving the people. How to serve people is what politics is out to do and politicians have found ways of achieving that purpose – that goal of serving the people. So, Dr Ifeanyi Athur Okowa has come up with an idea and you don’t because you’re in APC, APGA or something else, begin to throw sand on that SMART Programme.
Even as a member  of the APC, how do you see the state of opposition politics in Nigeria?
It is not right for opposition parties just to keep criticising everything, running down people in authority just because they want to be noticed as being in opposition.  There are times you have to be sincere to yourself.  Imagine the election that has been concluded in Kogi State now, eeh they’re going to rig, eeh everybody is trying to rig…
They accused the party in authority at the centre of wanting to do one evil or the other.  That’s too much.  Some of the accusations are untested, they are unsubstantiated.  We’ve finished Kogi and we have had Bayelsa and you can see that the rivalry in Bayelsa has always been there.  I can say, undemocratically so because some of them decided to put their trust in weapons of mass destruction instead of social intercourse, democratic interrelationship, persuasion, convincing people that you’re a better candidate, debates and so on.
They’re not thinking of positive democratic ways of winning votes; there must be weapons, there must be weapons, there must be axes, there must be guns.
We need to fine tune our Electoral Act. Anybody whose supporter is found carrying a gun, a cutlass, an axe, must be removed from the democratic process because if those people who are carrying those weapons of mass destruction had not been funded, where could they have got the money? All those who put their trust on destroying their opponents must be destroyed out of the system.
You might say it’s not democratic to exclude them but what’s the law there for? Are we to encourage violence, negative fanaticism, wrong accusations, manipulative dispositions by people who want power at all cost? No way let us think of ways of discouraging negative tendencies like that in our politics.
So, I agree with you that we must stop the draconian people from polluting our democratic process. Draconian is not only related to the military.
There are people who are democratically disposed to being violent. They think they’re democrats but their ways are anything but democratic. In fact, there are people who don’t even go to the party headquarters; they are too big to report for meetings. Tell them that I said so. Democracy calls for humility. You should not feel too big to go into your party headquarters and discuss with A to Z. among the populace, you’re to be able to show them what you mean, you can do well and you care about them. Most of our political parties have a problem of internal democracy. The big shots don’t want to tell the small people anything to convince them; they want to order them around. But the world is changing. Those that were ordering them around should check themselves otherwise they’d be given the red card.

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Reps Seeks To Retain Immunity For President Only

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On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed, through a second reading, a bill seeking to retain immunity for the Office of the President and remove immunity from the Vice President, the Governors and the Deputy Governors.
The bill was one of the 42 considered and passed through the second reading stage during plenary presided over by the Deputy Speaker, Mr Benjamin Kalu, in Abuja.
Sponsored by Hon. Solomon Bob (Rivers PDP), the bill is seeking the amendment of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution to guard against abuse of office and to ensure transparency in governance.
The long title of the proposed legislation read: “A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, to qualify the immunity conferred on the President, remove the immunity conferred on the Vice President, the Governors and their deputies, in order to curb corruption, eradicate impunity and enhance accountability in public office and for related matters.”
Key amendments include changes to Section 308 of the Constitution, which currently grants immunity to the president, vice president, governors, and deputy governors while in office.
The proposed bill will amend subsection 3 to ensure that immunity only applies to the President and the vice president when acting as President under Section 145 of the Constitution.
Additionally, a new subsection 4 will be introduced to make the immunity clause inapplicable if the office holder is acting in an unofficial capacity, engaging in actions beyond the powers of the office, or involved in criminal conduct.
“The bill seeks to foster transparency and strengthen the fight against corruption by making public officials more accountable for their actions, both in and out of office.”
“Section 308 of the principal Act is amended by:(a) substituting a new subsection (3) as follows: “(3) This section applies to a person holding the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Vice President only when acting as President, in line with Section 145 of this Constitution.
Creating sub section (4) thereto as follows:”(4) The foregoing provisions of this section shall be inapplicable where the person to whom this section applies is acting in an unofficial capacity or where the conduct of the person is beyond the powers of his office or the conduct is criminal in nature.
“This Bill may be cited as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Alteration) Act 2024.
The bill is currently awaiting further debate and consideration by the National Assembly.

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Recall From NASS: INEC Confirms Petitioners’ Contact Details Receipt, Notifies Natasha

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has written to notify Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the senator representing Kogi Central, about the petition by constituents seeking her recall from the national assembly.
INEC said it has also received the contact details of the petitioners.
“Pursuant to section 69 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, I write to notify you of the receipt of a petition from representatives of registered voters in your constituency seeking your recall from the senate.
“The notification is in line with the provisions of clause 2 (a) of the Commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for Recall 2024.
“This letter is also copied to the presiding officer of the senate and simultaneously published on the commission’s website. Thank you”, the letter read.
The letter was signed by Ruth Oriaran Anthony, secretary to the commission.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Wednesday, INEC said it has now received the updated contact details from representatives of petitioners seeking to recall the senator.
In the statement, Sam Olumekun, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education, said a letter notifying the senator of the petition has been delivered to her official address, copied to the senate presiding officer, and published on the commission’s website.
“The next step is to scrutinise the list of signatories submitted by the petitioners to ascertain that the petition is signed by more than one half (over 50%) of the registered voters in the constituency. This will be done in the coming days.
“The outcome, which will be made public, shall determine the next step to be taken by the Commission. We once again reassure Nigerians that the process will be open and transparent”, Mr Olumekun said.
Sen. Akpoti-Uduaghan had recently accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexually harassing her.
The allegation came in the wake of seating arrangement related altercation between Senator. Akpabio and the Kogi Central senator at the red chamber
She was subsequently suspended from the senate for six months for “gross misconduct” over the incident.
The constituents behind the recall move also accused her of “gross misconduct, abuse of office, and deceitful behaviour”.
The senator has denied wrongdoing and called the recall effort a “coordinated suppression” of her voice.

 

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Bill To Upgrade Lagos LCDAs To LGAs Pass Second Reading

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The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the second reading of a bill to upgrade the Lagos State 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to full-fledged Local Government Areas (LGAs ).
The bill, was sponsored by James Faleke, Babajimi Benson, Enitan Badru, and 19 other lawmakers.
The bill is titled “A Bill for an Act to Alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to Accommodate the Thirty-Seven (37) Development Area Councils of Lagos State as Full-Fledged Local Government Areas, Increasing the Total Number of Local Government Areas in the Federation to Eight Hundred and Eleven (811), and for Related Matters (HB. 1498),”
Once fully enacted, Nigeria’s total number of LGAs will rise from 774 to 811, with Lagos overtaking Kano and Katsina, which currently have 44 and 34 LGAs, respectively.
Proponents of the bill argue that granting full LGA status to the LCDAs would bring governance closer to the people. The 37 LCDAs were created by President Bola Tinubu in 2003 when he was governor of Lagos State.
However, it’s worth noting that the Lagos State House of Assembly has been working on a bill to replace the 37 LCDAs with newly designated administrative areas.

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