A political pressure group, One Nigeria Forum, has recommended the abolishment of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs), urging the federal government to ensure that all elections in the country were conducted only by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The group also urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to implement ideals of “true federalism, devolution of power, judicial autonomy, local government autonomy, finding a constitutional role for traditional rulers”, among others.
National Chairman of the forum High Chief Sunnie Chukumele who stated this in Abuja at the first physical meeting, unveiling and delegates conference, noted that these were the ideals President Tinubu stood for before ascending office.
“Therefore, we anticipate that he (President Tinubu) should do all those things he stood for and agitated for long before assuming presidential leadership in Nigeria.
“These are in areas such as true federalism, devolution of power, judicial autonomy, local government autonomy, abrogation of state electoral commissions, finding a constitutional role for traditional rulers, etc.
“Going forward, we want to see and be in a country where INEC is conducting every election into political offices in Nigeria”, he said.
Chukumele who commended President Tinubu for ending the subsidy scam in the petroleum sector, said the President inherited a country with “negative impacts of corruption in our petroleum and other extractive industry”.
He noted that these ills had “caused successive political leaderships in our dear nation not to do what they should have done right when they were saddled with leadership responsibilities.
“Our petroleum refineries were deliberately strangulated to enthrone what today have been known to be petroleum subsidy.
“The so called petroleum subsidy has fleeced and hemorrhaged the Nigerian economy and people to the extent that continuing to allow it would kill Nigeria.
“There are myriads of problems which succeeding governments have been inheriting in Nigeria without solving them. Those that made attempts to do, their efforts were jettisoned once they
left power/office.
“Our dear country has suffered the deliberating consequences of policy summersaults, leading to what the legendary Bob Marley in his song described as “One Step Forward, Nine Step Backward”.
“No nation has advanced with our kind of poor governance and leadership attitude. Nigeria today is so terribly divided. This division among tribal, ethnics and religious lines cannot help our transmutation into a nation. This is the kind of country inherited by President
Tinubu,” Chukumele said.
