How to sanitise Nigeria’s electoral process — Jega

Prof. Attahiru Jega, former Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Friday said that Nigeria’s political space needed cleansing, and urged every Nigerian to contribute own quota to ensure that.

He stated this at the inauguration of the 34-member Policy Advisory Committee of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), on Friday in Abuja.

Jega, who is a member of the advisory committee of the PRP, said that all hands must be on deck to sanitise Nigerians on the electoral process.

“I believe that all Nigerians can no longer sit on the fence as everybody needs to contribute to the cleansing of politics in Nigeria.

“There should be no fence sitters; our future is at stake. We cannot allow bad people to continue to govern us or misgovern us and continue to wreck our country and its future,” he said.

The former INEC boss said that he would help members of the committee to prepare position papers, policy criticisms and policy frameworks that would make PRP a strong political party that could win elections.

Earlier, Chairman of the party, Mr Falalu Bello, while inaugurating the members, had said that the members were thoroughbred intellectuals drawn from a wide field of specialisation and experience in Nigeria’s intellectual vineyard.

He said that the committee would operate in 10 working sub-groups including foreign policy and Pan-African Solidarity and Unity, internal security, civic liberties and values orientation, among others.

Bello said that the primary assignment of the group would involve carrying out a critique of the existing government policies and programmes in the working sub-groups area of interest.

He advised the members to take full cognisance of the many progressive provisions of Chapter two of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution in carrying out their assignment.

“Our party, the PRP, shall court the involvement and participation of intellectual workers in the struggles for material and social advancement of the working masses of this country,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that members of the committee, which is coordinated by Mr Richard Umoru, include Prof. Ifeanyi Anigbogu, Dr Aminu Aliyu, Mr Abdulkadir Isa, Prof. Ahmadu Sanda, Hajiya Aishatu Dankani, among others.