Nigeria Electoral Reform Committee Fine-tunes Strategies
Nigeria’s
Electoral Committee members have met, for the first time, to
fine-tune strategies for actualizing their mandate.
The meeting, in Abuja on Thursday, was attended by virtually all
the 22 members of the committee and was presided over by its
Chairman, Justice Mohammed Uwais, the former Chief Justice of
the Federation.
Mandate
The committee, set up in fulfillment of a pledge by President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to reform Nigeria's electoral process, was
mandated to fashion out a pragmatic roadmap for the promotion,
sustenance and consolidation of the country's democracy.
At its inauguration, it was charged to recommend ways to ensure
that disputes arising from elections are concluded before the
swearing-in of newly elected officials.
President Yar'Adua had directed the committee to make general
and specific recommendations "including, but not limited to
constitutional and legislative provisions and or amendments."
He also asked the panel to recommend ways of ensuring that
post-election tension was eliminated.
President Yar'Adua who said that the electoral process could
indeed be reformed "by looking dispassionately at our
peculiarities, specificities, historical experience, and those
enduring dynamics which define us as a nation," added that "if
we achieve this feat, we would then have anchored our democratic
culture firmly with everlasting peace, security and political
stability.”
The 22- member body has twelve months to submit its report
NAN/QA/MIA
