YIAGA Africa kicks against scrapping state electoral commissions

BY EZEKIEL DONTINNA 

   YIAGA Africa, a global Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has categorically opposed to all calls making the rounds for the scrapping of State Electoral Commissions (SEC) in Nigeria, describing it as unripe and cumbersome on one structure when centralised.
    The Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, Samson Itodo, stated this Monday while addressing Journalists at the press briefing organised by Plateau State Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) in respect of his visit to the newly constituted Management Committee of PLASIEC in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

    He said, “as an institution, we are hoping that we will help and support institutional development of the Electoral Commission. And we are doing so with our partner, International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES) whom we are actually working to support State Independent Electoral Commissions.
     “We want to lean our voice as an institution as we did issued a statement that, we are opposed to a call for scrapping of State Electoral Commissions (SEC) and we are saying that for some reasons.

        “The constitutional safeguards that are supposed to be in place that guarantee the operational and financial independence of SEC has not been put in place. So, why not use the instrumentality of law to safeguard of both operational and financial independence of the SEC?”, Itodo asked.
         According to him, “when people advocate that INEC should conduct the local government elections, they forgot that the same INEC told Nigerians that it is overburdened with alot of responsibilities. 

       “So, why should INEC be saddled with the responsibility of conducting local government council elections, when the same Electoral Commission has said that, it is suffocating as a result of the responsibilities that it has?
         “We want to tell those who are promoting the course of scrapping the SEC that, they should make INEC great because INEC responsibility of elections offences execution of undertaking, organising and coordinating elections is too cumbersome”, the global citizen observed.
             He expressed concern that, it was ironical for Nigerians to be advocating for Local Government Autonomy at one hand and calling for centralisation of electoral structure describing it as confusing in every sense, hence the need for the strengthening of the State Electoral System.