Politics

The way Nigeria is going, 2019 elections will be bloody, ex- NHRC chair says

Published

8 years ago

September 1, 2016

Former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chidi Odinkalu, says that based on the present realities in Nigeria, elections in 2019 may turn out bloody with many deaths recorded.

He stated that going by the level of rot presently in Nigeria, that there may not be elections in 2019, but if it holds without proper preparations, it will be bloody.

Odinkalu stated this when he spoke in Abuja at a town hall meeting and presentation of findings of a post- 2015 elections research, conducted by ActionAid Nigeria.

He lamented, that “Today, the executive has gone into lax mode; judiciary has become lawless; National Assembly is lacking in credibility; INEC is troubled; politicians have gone unruly. Government says it has no money to run the economy. Every element that made 2015 is currently missing.

“There is absolutely no reason why the executive should allow the number of vacancies we have in INEC to be. By next month, INEC will have 28 vacancies among RECs (Resident Electoral Commissioners) and seven commissioners. The Executive is carrying on as if this normal. It isn’t.

“Citizens are carrying on like: ‘We will tweet it on social media’. We should do more than that, because our country is at stake. The way we are carrying on, 2015 is history; 2019 may not happen, if we don’t reset. We‘ve got to take our country very seriously. There will be no elections in 2019,”he said.

Odinkalu, who excused himself for sounding alarmist, maintained that should things continue the way they are in the country, “we will not be able to have elections in 2019. If it happens, there would be too many broken heads and dead people.”

He added, “The judiciary has gone rogue and destroyed everything that was supposed to guarantee fairness in the 2015 elections.

“Judges are speaking from too many sides of their mouth. There are no underlying principles. Judges come out with decisions they know are manifestly bought, and the profession is saying nothing. Citizens are behaving like it is normal for 20 judges to come out with 20 different orders on the same subject matter from different parts of the country.

“The jurisprudence on the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) is irresponsible. When a country appropriates for a measure, and has it backed by law and voted for by the citizens, the judiciary cannot outlaw it the way the judiciary dealt with the PVC. The judiciary reacted to the PVC in a way that effectively licensed electoral violence.”

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