Nigeria

Bad elections stagnating Nigeria's development - Secondus warns INEC

Monday, December 02, 2019 at 5:55 PM by Nnenna Ibeh

- Uche Secondus has described some of the elections across Nigeria as 'bad elections'

- Secondus said that such bad elections are stagnating Nigeria's development and democracy

- According to Secondus, the PDP since its existence in 1999 has nurtured Nigeria's democracy for 16 years

The national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, on Monday, December 2, described some of the elections across Nigeria as 'bad elections'.

Secodus while speaking in Abuja during a visit by a delegation from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), at the national headquarters of the opposition party said the PDP since its existence in 1999 has nurtured Nigeria's democracy for 16 years.

The opposition chairman said the party carried out an extensive electoral reform that culminated in PDP's loss of power and the entry of the opposition since 2015.

He further alleged that both INEC and the government in power have been unable to replicate or grow on that fine foundation.

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Stating that Nigeria recorded the finest of elections in 2015, Secondus said in 2019, the height of electoral impunity that set the nation's electoral development progressively backwards took place.

Secondus said: "Despite a standing lawful court ruling that military should be kept at a distance during elections as secondary security, we have all watched how they not only took over the primary security role from the Police but in some instances dictated and even connived with some INEC officials."

He added that Nigerians have watched how the electoral body unable to control the military relinquished their responsibility to them and still curiously went ahead to authenticate such fraud.

"I am not going to bore you with issues that are well known to your commission in your reviews of elections but I would like to urge your commission to move quickly and initiate Electoral Act amendment that will legalize electronic voting and remove the influence of the military as primary security on the election day," he said.