Recall process precursor to good governance - Prof. Egwu

Making possible recall of parliamentarians who fail in their core mandate has been described as a precursor to good governance.

Prof. Samuel Egwu, who said this at a round table discussion organised by Alliance for Credible Election (ACE) on Wednesday in Abuja, stated that the state and its institutions would not be accountable to citizens unless the recall process of lawmakers was made possible.

“The problem, however, is how to ensure that recall provisions are not hijacked by genuine interests other than that of constituents. Recall can be politically instigated, or when genuinely demanded by constituents can be defeated by powerful political interests,” he said.

Egwu said there is need for public awareness and citizen education around the constitutional provisions, including the democratic value of invoking the recall provisions.

He said there should be constitutional reform to ensure a balance between a very cumbersome recall process as it is today, and a simplified process that is not open to abuse.

“It remains a mystery that massive signatures of constituents can be obtained in one week in this country,” he said.

In his paper, titled, ‘Recall as an Important Tool in Promoting Good Representation and Accountable Governance: Some Comments and Suggestions’, Prof. Egwu said among several ways of ensuring good governance was to allow tracking of budget performance and rendering public resource management more transparent.

He also said that there is need to begin to focus on issues of governance in between elections instead of the traditional attention given to the rituals of elections as a procedural dimension of democracy.