The Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, has recommended a constitutional amendment barring political party members and appointees from appointments to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The TAS, a non-political group, made the recommendation at a dialogue on its ‘National Action Plan for Electoral Reform’ in Abuja on Wednesday.

The group said that such appointments should be made or considered five years after holding the political positions.

Director of TAS, Sam Amadi, presenting an overview of the document, also recommended a post-tenure restriction, barring INEC leaders from joining political parties or accepting political appointments until five years after completing their terms.

Mr Amadi said the project, supported by other stakeholders, contained proposals for the ongoing electoral reforms to ensure impartial and merit-based appointments for INEC leadership.

He said while INEC had made significant improvements, there has been a growing debate around the appointment of its members.

“What the Abuja school has done is to propose a reform to enact the Uwais Report recommendation, transferring the appointment of INEC Chairman, Commissioners, and Resident Electoral Commissioners from the President to the National Judicial Council,” he said.

Mr Amadi noted that to achieve this, the group proposed that the constitutional amendment should prohibit individuals from being appointed as INEC chairman, commissioner, or RECs if they held a party leadership position.

He said such individual should also be barred if he was a registered member of a political party, or held a federal or state government-appointed position in the last five years.

He added that INEC appointees should also be barred from holding party membership, serving in party positions, or occupying appointive political offices for five years after their tenure.

To enhance transparency and accountability through technology, the report proposed reforms to mandate the electronic transmission of polling unit results to a secure, publicly accessible INEC portal.

He said reforms must mandate electoral officers and witnesses to sign polling unit results after counting, which must be released immediately to the public and uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.

Mr Amadi said the report also proposed an expansion of ‘locus standi’ to allow voters, credible citizens, and any candidate in an election to challenge the outcome if they deemed that it violated the Electoral Act substantially.

He called for more investment in electoral reforms, stating, “Our view is that democracy structurally is a good conflict avoidance and conflict management structure. So, rather than abandon democracy, we should invest more effort in making electoral democracy work.”

The president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, urged all Nigerians to prevail on the members of the National Assembly to ensure the electoral law was reformed.

Mr Ajaero said there was still much time to achieve electoral reform.

“It was in this country they changed the National Anthem in one day. There is still enough time to do this,” he said.

The president of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo, called for a critical look into the Justice Uwais electoral reform reports to see how some of its recommendations could be adopted to further improve Nigeria’s electoral system.

Mr Osifo said that democracy remained the best form of government for Nigeria. He said Nigerians must come together to strengthen democracy to work for the country.

“We must make democracy to be sustainable in Nigeria and we must make citizens to participate. It is not acceptable we have more than 90 million registered voters and we have less than 20 million coming out to vote on election day; that is not representative enough,” he said.

Mr Osifo, stressed the need for appointment to be based on merit, called for a second look into the recommendation barring individuals with political appointments from INEC for a period of five years.

He said while people with party membership or leadership could be barred, Nigeria also needed people with experience and expertise to serve their country. He also proposed the establishment of a special court and an electoral offenses commission to curb vote buying in the country.

The National Secretary of the Coalition of United Political Parties, Peter Ameh, said that while the NJC may nominate for INEC, the nomination must be passed by two-thirds of the national assembly members.

Mr Ameh, who called for the unbundling of INEC, also recommended that all the country’s elections should be concluded in one day to reduce the rate of vote buying and voter apathy.

Donald Amamgbo, a senatorial candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the Anambra South senatorial by-election, who narated his experience with vote-buying in the state, urged participants to propose necessary reforms to curb the menace.

Public affairs analyst, Ezenwa Nwagwu, stressed the need to extend electoral reforms to measures to curb vote buying to the leadership process of political parties and their primaries.

Mr Nwagwu also stressed the need to look into the significant progress that had been recorded in the country’s electoral system and how to strengthen them.

(NAN)