Ikechukwu Obiorah, a former senator who represented Anambra South between 2007 and 2011, has called for sweeping constitutional amendments to strip the president and state governors of the power to appoint officials of electoral commissions.
In a statement on Sunday, September 28, Obiorah said he had submitted the proposal to both the Senate and the House of Representatives for consideration. The plan must be sponsored by a sitting lawmaker before it can move forward.
He argued that Nigeria’s elections have long been compromised, pointing out that the majority of polls conducted since 1999 have been marred by irregularities.
“Since independence, 90 percent of all elections – parliamentary, presidential, national assembly, governorship, house of assembly, and local government council elections – have been brazenly stolen or rigged or perverted or altogether thwarted or nullified,” the statement reads.
“In other words, Nigerians have never really and voluntarily chosen their leaders, nor have Nigerians ever been governed with their proper consent and participation. The absence of honest elections makes ours a fake democracy.”
According to him, the main problem lies in the fact that those who control the appointment of electoral bodies are often participants or beneficiaries of the same elections, a situation he likened to “making a person a judge in his own case.”
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He criticised the 1999 Constitution for giving governors the authority to appoint state electoral officials, saying this has resulted in what he described as “Soviet Union-style results” where ruling parties frequently claim sweeping victories in local government polls.
To fix the system, Obiorah proposed a new framework where professional and labour organisations, alongside international institutions, would be responsible for appointing officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“I do also propose that the new INEC be composed and constituted by thirteen commissioners, six of whom would be elected by the underlisted six Nigerian labour and professional organisations, and six commissioners nominated by the United Nations and one commissioner nominated by Transparency International, totalling thirteen commissioners,” he said.
Under his plan, INEC would be empowered to choose and remove its chairman as well as manage all its staff, including the chief executive officer.
Each of the six commissioners from Nigeria would be nominated by different professional bodies across the six geopolitical zones, ranging from the Academic Staff Union of Universities to the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigerian Union of Journalists.