Femi Falana
Human Rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ensure that there are credible elections in 2027.
Speaking on Friday during an appearance on Channels TV, Falana told Tinubu that the shame of bad elections in Nigeria must stop and the buck for the responsibility lies on the President’s table.
The human rights lawyer lamented the situation where card-carrying members of a political party or a loyalist of a party are appointed to be Resident Electoral Commissioners or National Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to him, there is no way INEC can conduct free and fair elections with such appointments.
He further charged Tinubu to help INEC in conducting credible elections by ensuring the recommendations of electoral reform committees are considered and implemented.
“As a matter of fact, since 2007, successive regimes in Nigeria, Yar’Adua regime, Jonathan regime and Buhari regime have all set up electoral reform committees or panels to make recommendations that will assist the government to have credible elections.
“In the case of President Tinubu, as a leader of ACN, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu set up a committee to campaign for the implementation of the recommendations of the Uwais Panel and one of them is that we must have independent umpires.
“You can’t have a card-carrying member of a political party or a loyalist of a party to be a Resident Electoral Commissioner or a National Commissioner, you complicate for INEC to have credible elections,” Falana submitted.