Nigeria poll chief should go says senior U.S. official

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By Andrew Quinn
Reuters
Monday, April 5, 2010; 1:27 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes Nigeria's elections chief should be replaced if the country, a major U.S. oil supplier, is to hold credible national polls next year, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, the Obama administration's top official for Africa, said Independent National Election Commission (INEC) chairman Maurice Iwu had proven himself inadequate in overseeing Nigeria's "deeply flawed" polls in 2007.

"If Nigeria is to move forward improving its election process it probably needs to consider improving the level of management at the top," Carson told a news briefing.

"Nigeria is a democracy that is moving forward. It deserves leadership appropriate to the task in the election commission."

Hundreds of Nigerians protested last week outside INEC headquarters in the capital Abuja demanding the removal of Iwu, whom they deemed responsible for the 2007 polls that brought President Umaru Yar'Adua to power.

Those polls were so marred by ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation that local and international observers said they were not credible, and legal challenges to Yar'Adua's victory lasted for months after he took office.

With new elections due by April 2011, acting President Goodluck Jonathan, who assumed executive powers almost two months ago with Yar'Adua too sick to govern, has made overhauling the electoral system a top priority.

PAST RECORD

Carson, announcing the formal launch on Tuesday of the U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission, signaled that Washington hoped to see change at INEC at least by the time Iwu's current term ends in mid-2011.

"We hope that when it comes time to look at reappointment or the decision to appoint someone else, that his past record be taken into account," Carson said.

The new commission, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will formally launch with the Nigeria's government secretary Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, aims to bolster U.S. ties to the country in areas including energy, governance and food security.

Carson said Nigeria -- now the third largest oil supplier to the U.S. market ahead of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- was of huge strategic importance and thus merited the first of three planned joint commissions between the United States and key African countries.

The other two due to be signed this year are with South Africa, the continent's industrial giant, and Angola, which increasingly rivals Nigeria in oil production.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040502501.html?

These Americans should stop interfering in our affairs and focus on solving the many problems including wars they created based on lies.

I hope Iwu stays as long as the promise to announce election results at the polling booths becomes reality because election rigging takes place between the polling booths and collation of results/announcement of results.

The focus now should be to make sure the register is up to date so that no eligible voter will be prevented from voting.

he should have announced a new electoral chief so that we will know that the usurpation of Jonathan's role as President has gone full circle.

Isn't it time someone told this Americans that we need them to butt out of our affairs. They go to many countries to create terror and instigate or fight wars for their own benefit.

We will deal with Iwu in our own way and do not need Americans with no moral authority as regards to honesty and human rights to tell us what to do!

He should and must go.

He is a discredited national figure and has overseen corrupt and rigged elections hence the Yaradua ongoing saga. !

What If Iwu Goes And Things Still Go Awry?
Ahmed Malafa
1 April 2010

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Lagos — One of the profound political manifestations of Nigeria 's dalliance with Ghana was the interest the last election in Ghana triggered in Nigeria . That election was so keenly contested that it had to go to the level of a run off to determine the actual winner in the presidential race. The world hailed the Ghana election as free and fair, though reports from Ghana press suggested otherwise. Some newspapers painted the picture that it was one election in which the Ghana electorate were made to vote with their blood.

Others put it down to raw violence, coercion and downright brigandage. But in all, the world saw a free and fair election. And I'll elect to go with the world view. I agree that Ghana election was by African standard free and fair.

Ever since that election was concluded, the man at the centre of that pulsating drama has been a darling of most Nigerians and a global electoral icon, more or less. Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chair of Ghana Electoral Commission had since made several sorties to Nigeria , speaking on electoral matters and meeting with stakeholders in the Nigerian political arena.

Last week, I stumbled on an old newspaper report in which Afari-Gyan was quoted as saying that "the electoral system doesn't belong to Iwu. Yes, he might be the head of the system in Nigeria, but not only Mr. Iwu has the responsibility for free and fair election; all of us do. It is a question of behaviour. If you don't behave properly, if political parties and candidates don't behave properly, if the electorate don't behave properly, if the police don't behave properly, you don't blame Iwu for that. You can't."

As a student of political engineering, I have always maintained that the frailties and foibles of the Nigerian electoral process cannot be down to one man no matter how powerful the person may be. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 election justifies this thesis. In spite of the effort of Professor Humphrey Nwosu and his electoral commission at that time, the same virus that had consistently afflicted the nation's election stuck its nib into the spine of the June 12 election. That was how an election considered free and fair, comparatively, was unjustifiably annulled. Many people traced the annulment to one man, the then military President Ibrahim Babangida. But from the mouth of Professor Nwosu a good 15 years after that election, has come a rather bizarre testimony that sought futilely to exonerate the man we call IBB. Nwosu named a couple of Generals who acted in concert with some civilian power zealots to abort a beautiful process.

Unfortunately, the same cabal that chooses which election to allow to stand and which to cancel is still out in the streets, this time with more menacing fury. And over time with different electoral umpires at different times, elections in Nigeria have produced the same result. We cannot call the 1999 election free and fair. It was a hush-hush job hurried over by the military which showed a passion to get off the stage than an eagerness to exhibit thoroughness in the conduct of an election.

Bring on the 2003 election. This was in itself a grand failure. In the case of Peter Obi of Anambra, he had to earn his victory through the court. In Rivers State and Ogun State as in some other states, the number of votes allegedly cast far outstripped the total number of registered voters. There were many other discrepancies. In 1983, we were treated to yet another electoral theatrics which elicited both hoopla and hysteria. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN), an equivalent of today's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) working in tandem with the electoral commission at that time awarded itself a mind-blowing victory variously described as 'landslide', 'sea slide' and 'moon slide'. The precipitate violence and disquiet that ensued there from was one of the main attractions of the military which had to strike to 'restore order'.

Put succinctly, no election in Nigeria had been free and fair. The 1993 election generally perceived as so was inconclusive, something akin to arrested development. I have also in a thesis which will form the core of a well researched yet-to-be-published book authored by good self outlined the ingredients that conspire to undermine the nation's elections. They are violence of the brutal order sometimes resulting in the manhandling, even death, of electoral officers; ballot-stuffing, proxy vote casting in which all manner of persons are deployed by desperate politicians to cast votes for them; logistics challenges with late arrival or non-arrival of electoral matters at polling stations; intimidation of the electoral officers and the electorate with full backing of the incumbent and security personnel. Lately, we have seen the introduction of yet another deadly dimension to the orgy of polls shifting, to wit, the infiltration of voters' register with the introduction of exotic names and phoney names.

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In all of these, you cannot sincerely put it down to the chairman of the electoral commission, past and present. It has been our collective action and inaction that have impeded our march to electoral freedom. This is why I strongly disagree with the call on Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to sack Iwu. If we sack Iwu ten times and do nothing about the attitude of politicians including Dr Goodluck Jonathan himself, we would end up at the same junction of our grubby electoral road. Professor Maurice Iwu is not the problem of our electoral impurity. Afari-Gyan, the man who should know has given all of us wise counsel. We should stop chasing shadow. Those who have been hired to demonstrate against INEC and it leadership including the so-called Save Nigeria Group should first remove the log in their own eyes before attempting to pull the speck out of another man's eyes.

With or without Iwu at the helm of affairs, the script for the 2011 elections had already been written by the same cabal some of whom ought to be in jail by now if ever we are serious with our anti-corruption drive. By this time next year after we have bungled the 2011 elections, we would still be bearing the same placard with the message, 'Sack the INEC chairman', whoever that person may be. Do not say I did not tell you.

Malafa writes from Kano.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201004010251.html

The americans shld mind their own biz, Iwu is not d problem wit our elections, rather it is d sittin president dat determines d level of rigging dat is allowable.