Hassan A. Karofi and Isa Sa'idu
15 October 2008
Kano — Nigeria's permanent representative to the United Nations Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule has advocated for the formation of an interim government prior to every national election in the country.
Sule, who spoke at a book launch in Kano, said the former envoy said no incumbent government could give out powers to an opposition in Nigeria without attempt to ridicule the electoral process in favor of either the government in power or its party.
The book, Dialogue on Citizenship in Nigeria, is a publication sponsored by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria.
"If we want to have free and fair elections in Nigeria, there is the need to make a provision in our laws for an incumbent government to be put in place before national elections. The incumbent government should be made to resign before national elections for the interim government to take charge of elections. This will serve as a solution to the problem of election rigging in Nigeria. Incumbents in Nigeria will always attempt to succeed themselves because they have the machinery of government at their disposals," Sule said.
Sule, who holds the traditional title of Danmasanin Kano, also called for the reorganization of the coun-try's political parties from what he called glorified tribal and ethnic organizations to institutions that are formed based on ideology and manifestation.
He said the country's constitution should be amended to give room for the formation of an interim government before national elections, as according to him, there were five fundamental issues in rigging elections in Nigeria.
These, according to him, include incumbency, security personnel, government resources, election regulatory body like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and lack of political awareness of Nigerians.
Earlier in his speech, the acting Switzerland Am-bassador to Nigeria, whose Embassy assisted IP-CR in the book publication, said they assisted the book's publication because peace and conflict re-solutions were part of the cardinal principles of their country's foreign policy.
The highlight of the occasion was the presen-tation of the book to the public by the chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Maitama Sule and the IPCR Chairman, Dr Joseph Burwa.
The former envoy also fingered bad leadership as one big factor responsible for the country's predicaments. He said if the country can have honest and God-fearing leaders, it has the potentials of being one of the biggest economies even before the year 2020.
He said Nigeria would continue to remain underdeveloped unless the country was able to do away with the problem of bad leadership that befell it.
In his remarks, Chairman of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) Dr Joseph Burwa said the institute decided to embark on the book's publication in conjunction with Switzerland Embassy. This, he said, was because of the communal crises in Nigeria that were caused by indigene and non indigene related issues.
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