Banire: INEC Must End Era of Inconclusive Elections
The National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress, Dr Muiz Banire, (SAN) in an interview with Femi Ogbonikan, called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to end inconclusive elections in order to regain its credibility.
Are you still the Chairman of the APC Constitution Review Committee because it seems the committee has been silence over the constitution review since your Inauguration? I am still the chairman of the committee and we are working. As at now, we have finished the preliminary work and we have done substantial review of the constitution and other noted areas of amendment that need improvement.
The stage we are now in, is the stage where we want to start public hearing on the constitutional review across all the six geo-political zones of Nigeria.
Which areas are you likely to amend in the APC constitution? There seems to be so many areas. Particularly, we are going to amend the disciplinary process, to simplify it, so that they can engender discipline in the party. Lots of suggestions are even coming in from people outside, particularly in terms of the mode and manner with which we nominate candidates and all those stuffs.
What is your committee doing about the issue of internal democracy in the APC? As I talk to you now, the constitution of APC, is to a large extent, reflective of internal democracy, but the only thing is that we are trying to strengthen it further.
But what happens in a situation that the leadership of the party decides to disregard the constitutional provisions for the conduct of primaries, what can the people do? There are a lot of remedies internally. For example, they can petition the national body, and if my thinking and reading of the national body is anything to go by, the national body is supervising and monitoring all those primaries now, in order to ensure transparency in the process. They have a right to also go to court. They can challenge any irregular or improper primary in court.
If there are 30 people and if only one says, I am not agreeing to consensus, that they must run primary still and that is what the constitution of the party says and it is compulsory, If they fail to do so, at the end of the day, you can’t claim you have valid nomination.
What do you think is the problem with the judiciary, especially in the appointment of judges? The problem is that the appointment procedure is still flawed. It is subject largely to political manipulation. If you look at the composition of the State Judicial Service Commission, you will discover that majority of the members there are appointed by the governor It is an area we must quickly amend. We must ensure that these people are immuned from political interference.
Does your committee subscribe to the agitation that the power by state governors to appoint members of the SIEC be removed and be given to an independent body? Certainly, I agree that there must be a shake-up in that regard. I am one of the great supporters of local government autonomy. Local Governments must have full autonomy because here, we need grassroot developments. Those who are against it, certainly, are the anti-development agents.
Several electoral reforms have been done in the part and they never saw the light of the day, and how are you sure yours too will not follow the same pattern? This time around, it will not, because the approach has been wrong in the past; because there was always a system of presenting everything in a bundle. This time around, we are not using the bundle system. We are using an isolated system.
Elections nowadays have been seen as inconclusive leading to postponing elections, what is your take on this issue? My position is that, those in INEC need to wake up in this regard and the only way to wake up is that in whichever situation they find themselves, it is a matter of life and death when it touches on release of results. They should announce results and let people go to court and ventilate their grievances. We must reduce the number and if possible, totally avoid inconclusive elections. It is not a good thing at all.
INEC recently released the 2019 general elections time-table, is it not too early? It is an act of seriousness, as far as I am concerned. It is not too early. It shows proper planning. Planning is very important and there is nothing wrong in calendarising elections for now. So, everybody can plan.
My position is that, those in INEC need to wake up in this regard and the only way to wake up is that in whichever situation they find themselves, it is a matter of life and death when it touches on release of results. They should announce results and let people go to court and ventilate their grievances. We must reduce the number and if possible, totally avoid inconclusive elections. It is not a good thing at all