Why Nigeria's Next Election May Be Worse -- Lagos Deputy Governor, Hamzat

 The Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, has posited that future elections might be worse as Nigerians are not addressing the real issues yet.

Hamzat also wondered why people were expecting perfect elections in an imperfect situation, but ended up blaming their unfulfilled expectations on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the judiciary.

Hamzat made this known during the opening ceremony of a two-day retreat on “Nigeria Open Political Party (NOPP) Project: Capacity Strengthening Retreat for National Youth Leaders of Political Parties in Nigeria,” organised by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) in Eko Hotel, Lagos.

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The Lagos number two man enjoined the people to change their mindset and focus on the real challenges militating against the country’s electoral processes.

In his words:

“The challenge that we all need to look at is the way we have weaponised everything in our country. I have listened to many public commentators abuse INEC, abuse judiciary, abuse everybody.

“The truth is that we are doing damage to ourselves. And I pray that your generation will change it. So, let us pity the INEC. For me, they have done a great job. But everyone has maligned them. People will be scared to take that position (INEC’s responsibility),” he said.

He said that Nigerians, who cried that INEC failed to transfer election’s results to its IREV were only blaming the country’s infrastructure deficits on the electoral commission.

“When we said INEC did not transfer results immediately to IREV, let me ask: can they do it? Have you seen the broadband chart of Nigeria? There are ballot boxes in areas that do not have network. How do they transfer these results? So, we are blaming INEC for the inefficiency of our infrastructure.

“The problem is that we want a perfect election in an imperfect situation and we will blame INEC. It is not possible. The problem is that we demean our institutions. And we cannot build a nation like that.

“The challenge is because of the way that we are commenting. We are commenting on the wrong things. Therefore, my fear is that our election will be getting worse. The next one will probably be the worst because we are not talking about the real issues,” the deputy governor said.

Dr Hamzat said there was nothing shocking about electoral violence in the country as Nigerians were accustomed to fighting in their normal day lives.