JEGAS ELECTION DILEMMA:BEHIND THE SCENES

National Assembly elections which were supposed to hold on 2nd April,2011 were cancelled due to the problems of logistics and irregularities which could have undermined the credibility of the elections.Many have called Professor Jega several names such as Just Elect Goodluck, Jonathan Ebele Goodluck Azikiwe etc.It is a shame in the West-African sub-region,Africa and in the international community.

However,if you were in Jegas shoes what would you do?Jega is like the proverbial Soyinka or Tai Solarin,national heroes ho refused to sit on the fence,hence took appointments to serve their fatherland.Till dates the appointments have been used as reference points to soil their characters.Jega has a lot in common with them;they were activist,intellectuals with good reputations and most important the institutions which they controlled were sabotaged by selfish elements purposely and consciously through regular acts of corruption.Such is Jegas case.

Jega truly must be joking to think that his name would remain intact easily after this elections.There were rumours of misleadings in printing of AC and ACN with the broom logo just to mislead voters and dividing votes of ACN.Materials and personnel also were not available in some areas.Some names were also missing from the registers.Who is to blame?Jega of course,if we are to follow the management paradigm that the buck stops at his table.We must also rule out the roles of eroded values,lack of professional in federal institutions and the arduous task of managing a weak institution like INEC.Above all we must not rile out the lukewarm attitude of everyone towards a Sovereign National Conference,where we-all Nigerians, would rewrite our social contract,because as we read we don't have one.At best we all dont have a true intent of staying together as a nation.Some portion of the ruling elite have their own contract;to suck the country dry at the peril of the common man.At least they have an agreement.What is the agreement of the civil society and the masses?Nothing with cohesion,I guess.

To cut the chase only true federalism can solve this problem.If true federalism is in place there wont be so much desperation to win elections because the abundant oil money at the federal money wont be in place.there would be fiscal responsibility and the money used to fuel corrupt political machineries wont be enough.These leviathan politicians would wither and accountability at all levels would increase.Governance would reach the grassroots easily and and political consciousness would increase.What is the relevance of this to the Jega dilemma?To conduct credible elections we need strong institutions,this inevitably is made up of people with values; I dont think we have this in place.We have majority with uniformed or eroded values which translate to availability of weak institutions.

The only way out is a true sovereign national conference,a consequent adoption of true federalism,if we are to end this Jaga-Jaga republic.In the words of Pat Utomi ;''We must pull down this democracy,its not working" Truly we must pull it down and rebuild.

We must bear it in mind that the masters are at it again,they wont let Jega organize credible elections.It is now obvious that we don't only need strong men; we also need strong institutions.Fellow Nigerians,we are the ones to build these institutions.This is not Ghana,our case is more complex.We have to campaign and call for true federalism and write a social contract.If we cant do that one million jegas cant beat the masters.We would have to endure for another four years as usual and complain on facebook,twitter and other social media platforms.We would only protest in vain,because we refuse to elicit the right actions.

Th right action is a Sovereign National Conference.If not don't blame Jega, behind the scenes the masters are behind his dilemma

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