Release Nnamdi Kalu This Month- Ken Nnamuani To FG

 

Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Electoral Reforms and a former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, speaks on the ongoing electoral reforms, economic recession, the detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, and other national issues in this interview with MUDIAGA AFFE
What necessitated the ongoing electoral reforms process?


You will recall that in the inaugural speech of President Muhammadu Buhari, he mentioned that he would take a close look at our electoral system. He had been through the presidential electoral process more than three times and he won in the fourth one.
So, he had probably noticed a number of things that went wrong. Each time, cases ended at the Supreme Court. Of course, during the process, a lot of money would have been spent. People had voted using the ballot box but in the end, only about three or four persons would sit at the tribunal to give a ruling that would declare an individual as the winner, thereby making the popular votes cast to be of little or no use.
People have realised that instead of spending so much money campaigning, they would do whatever is humanly possible to win an election and then they wait for the court process where they spend the greater part of the resources to achieve victory. It is easier to do that through the court than going around selling your programmes to the electorate.
Some critics have held the view that your committee on electoral reform might not come out with anything different from the Mohammed Uwais report. What do you think about that?
I have listened to the remarks made by some professional commentators on television and I cannot get tired of saying that no matter how excellent anything is, you can still improve on it. The Uwais report was good and part of it has helped our electoral process. Those who claimed that the Uwais report was never implemented should hear this: It was Uwais that recommended that the Independent National Electoral Commission should be on first line charge – meaning they should get their money directly from the Federation Account, and that is the standard now. We saw the improvement on elections in 2007, 2011 and 2015, there has been steady progress. Part of the Uwais report is being implemented. Again, do not forget that the Uwais report is more than eight years old and I am sure that report did not anticipate what happened in Kogi State. A number of challenges have been thrown open since the Uwais report was incorporated into the Electoral Act. For a country like Nigeria that is transiting