The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Conference for Progressive Change have faulted the new timetable for the 2011 elections released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday .
The CNPP and the parties, said in separate interviews with our correspondents on Wednesday, that staggered elections as contained in the timetable, would give undue advantage to some candidates.
Their argument was supported by a former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who said he might challenge the timetable in court.
The Peoples Democratic Party National Working Committee, however, met for several hours in Abuja on Wednesday over the timetable.
According to the new INEC timetable/guidelines, the National Assembly elections will hold first on April, 2, 2011. They will be followed by the presidential election on April 9, 2011.
The process is expected to end on April 16 with the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections. Other details of the election schedule show that campaigns by political parties will begin on December 1, 2010.
The party primaries will start on January 1, 2011 while the last day for the submission of forms CF001 and CF 002 (affidavit and personal particulars of candidates for all elections) is January 31, 2011.
INEC, however, defended the timetable, saying it was based on the provisions of the 2010 Electoral Act.
Reacting, the CPC, through its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Dennis Aghanya, said “the fresh timetable for the 2011 elections would yield a better result if the elections are to be held in one day.”
He added that “with the new timetable, there may be an undue advantage to some people because the outcome of the first election will naturally have influence over subsequent elections.”
His ANPP counterpart, Mr. Emmanuel Enugwu, said “Our party has said that the 2011 elections should be held on the same day.”
He argued that holding the elections on the same day would “reduce the bandwagon effect of those whose elections are done from influencing other elections.”
Pointing out that “all general elections held in Nigeria on the same day did not fail us,” Enugwu said that “staggered elections are always fraught with problems.”
Also, the National Publicity Secretary of the CNPP, Mr. Osaita Okechukwu, believes that with modern equipment, all the elections should have been scheduled for the same day.
According to him, doing so “will save cost, and prevent distortions and manipulations of the electoral process through a bandwagon effect.”
Okechukwu added that even if the elections were staggered, the House of Assembly poll should be the first to be held.
He said, “We had expected the lowest legislative unit poll to come first in accordance with the known sequence of elections in the country.
“It is unfortunate that Prof. Attahiru Jega (INEC chairman) played into the hands of the National Assembly members. We don’t know a sequence that comes from top to bottom instead of bottom to top. There is no pass mark for INEC for the sequence of the 2010 elections.”
In Lagos, Tinubu, who is also a chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria, said the staggering of the elections did not embrace what he called the spirit of federalism.
Tinubu spoke with journalists after a thanksgiving service to mark the presentation of Most Revd. Adebola Ademowo as the Dean of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion.
He said that INEC merely adopted a guideline contained in the Electoral Act passed by the National Assembly.
He said, “I disagree with the order of the election, as stated in the Electoral Act. By federalism principle, power is derived from bottom up. It should begin with the election of the state Houses of Assembly and governorship , then followed by the National Assembly.
“That of the President should be the last election. That is how power is derived; from bottom up. To now make the gubernatorial election last and the presidential in the middle according to the Electoral Act is not the way it should be.
“If I have my way, I will challenge it. I will have to challenge any Electoral Act that interferes or is perceived to have interfered with the independence of INEC. It is a constitutional issue for this country.”
But the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, told one of our correspondents in Abuja, that INEC had no choice than to rely on the provisions of the Electoral Act in picking the dates for the elections.
He said, “We know of complaints and argument from some quarters but it is not our fault, everything we do is as provided for in the Act and the 1999 Constitution.
“You will see that each activity in the timetable as scheduled is backed by law and the chairman was quoting the relevant sections that guided our action.
“We can’t go out of our way to do anything that is illegal. Everything we do is as contained in the extant electoral law.”
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