Posted by By YINKA FABOWALE on
Renowned nationalist and elder statesman, Pa Anthony Enahoro, at the weekend appraised the just concluded general elections, describing them as a disaster.
Renowned nationalist and elder statesman, Pa Anthony Enahoro, at the weekend appraised the just concluded general elections, describing them as a disaster.
Enahoro, also described as misplaced, the persuasion that the election petition tribunals will redress the injustices and inequities emanating from the controversial polls.
Rather, the octogenarian wants the federation restructured and a new constitution that will guarantee free and fair elections among other things adopted.
Already, the National Reformation Party (NRP) of which he is leader, is convening a summit of political leaders of thought and eminent Nigerians to consider this option and resolve the current political impasse.
This was part of the resolutions of a stakeholders' meeting held in the old politician's house in Benin last Saturday.
Expected at the all-important parley due to hold in a fortnight in Benin or Lagos, according to Soni Chukwuma of the NRP Secretariat, are concerned candidates in the April elections, party leaders, civil societies leaders, observer groups, labour and professional groups.
Addressing the Benin meeting, which urged for an urgent popular resolution of the lingering political crisis in the country, Pa Enahoro dismissed appeals to losers at the polls to go to election tribunals, saying there was little or nothing the judiciary could do to right the wrongs, in view of the magnitude of the flagrant and deliberate abuse of the electoral process, especially by people in power.
His words: "Like gullible infants, the losers of the elections have been called upon by pacifists to go to the election tribunals. One may ask whether the judiciary should be over-burdened by electoral crimes deliberately committed by members of the executive and legislative arms of government, egged on by their patrons and godfathers."
He submitted: "The judiciaries are not miracle workers. To ask the judiciary to resolve the kind of awesome and obscene violation of electoral processes blatantly displayed by political agents in the last general elections is like asking a physician to raise the dead from the grave."
He maintained that the elections were flawed from inception to execution, stressing that the preparations "lacked the corollaries that can produce genuine results that could be respected by observers and all the contending parties.
The astute nationalist said this stemmed from the nation's persistent ignoring of the need to do "the first things first," which he explained to be the restructuring of the country into a true federal system akin to that at its independence.
According to him, the country has been run as a unitary system, split into military cantonments, battalions and platoons, with an ultra-powerful centre; pointing out that "we have unviable states that cannot survive without handouts from the central government."
Pa Enahoro further remarked: "At this point in our history, we must all do away with emotions on the current grave issues confronting the country. For over 35 years, our country was run like a vehicle with a drunken driver loaded with reckless passengers urging the driver on. The end, needless to say, has been the disastrous elections in which we find ourselves today."
He warned that the country was about losing another opportunity of resolving these critical issues by trying to sweep them under the carpet, with the resort to the election tribunals.
He observed that a peoples national conference organised by PRONACO had identified 55 reasons why Nigeria could not work successfully under the present constitution foisted on the country by the military, proffering a draft constitution produced from 29 points of the resolutions of the confab as an alternative.
"In the draft constitution, there are provisions which can ensure free and fair elections and the kind of revenue distribution and accountability that will make bribe taking and corruption unattractive. Provisions have also been made for regional autonomy for the federating regions, and to tackle unemployment, old age and other social security allowances have also been provided in the draft," the renowned nationalist said.