John Abayomi
8 January 2009
LESS than two weeks to the inauguration of Senator Barrack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, Nigerians have passed a vote of no confidence on the nation's electoral system, saying an Obama cannot emerge in the country.
The poll conducted by Vanguard newspaper on its website-www.vanguardngr.com asked online readers to respond to the question, Can Nigeria's political system produce an Obama?
A total of 2,792 readers from all over the world responded to the poll that is increasingly gaining popularity amongst online readers.
According to the results, 2,122 respondents (representing 76 per cent) admitted that the country's electoral system cannot produced a new breed change agent like the American president-elect, in an open and transparent election. However, 670 respondents (representing 24 per cent) disagreed, saying an Obama can emerge in Nigeria in spite of the imperfections in the nation's electoral system.
The poll results is coming on the heels of the recent submission of the Uwais-led Electoral Reforms Committee report to President Musa Yar'Adua, that recommended a wide range of reforms.
It will be recalled that President Yar'Adua after his swearing-in in 2007 noted that the electoral process that led to his election was flawed and later set up the 22-man Electoral Reforms Committee whose report recommended amongst others: Independent candidacy, retention of Open Secret Ballot system; reduction of political parties, cancellation of State
Independent Electoral Commissions, electronic voting system, advertisement of INEC positions, establishment of Electoral Offences Commission, Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission.
These, according to the committee, will reform and strengthen the nation's democracy for the emergence of its best personalities in the mould of America's President-elect.
America's electoral process has held the world spell bound with its display of the ethos of democracy particularly in the run-off to the November 4, 2007 elections between the Illinois first time Democratic Senator, Barrack Obama and the maverick Republican John McCain, a political veteran and Vietnam hero.
Obama became the first elected Africa-American president of the most powerful nation in the world. He won in the electoral college by popular votes.
Prior to this, Obama had taken the Democratic party in a nerve-wrecking long distance onslaught for the party's ticket defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton in a seventeen-month long primaries.
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Who is an Obama?