The Anglican Bishop of Kaduna Diocese, Bishop Timothy Yahaya has stated that the only way to ensure a free, fair and credible election in Nigeria is to allow civil society organisations to appoint the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Speaking with newsmen during the Third session of the 22nd synod of the diocese which took place on Sunday at St Stephen Anglican church Sabo Tasha, Kaduna, he suggested that the Federal Government should not be involved in the appointment of INEC chairman.
He made some suggestions which includes;
“I am not comfortable with the speed of the Election Petition Tribunal and that is why in Synod if you get our Bishops’ presidential address, we have suggestions on the issue of elections; no INEC chairman should be appointed by the government anymore.
“We did an election in February and we are still in the preliminary stage of the matters of the elections. The same thing for the National Assembly since February the election was held. As if there is something wrong somewhere.
“We want to ensure that electronic voting is the in thing because it will reduce the corruption in INEC. The amount of money we used in conducting the elections is huge. India for example has a population of one billion, go and check how much they use for elections.
“How many are we Nigeria, 200 million people and we are spending money that is triple that of India? Something somewhere is wrong.
“Another suggestion we have is that all the Justices and Judges that are serving must never be taken to head election petition tribunal. We have retired Justices and Judges, they should be used together.
“For 180 days, all civil litigations, crimes and civil litigations are always holidays until the tribunal is finished with its assignment. What kind of a country are we in? When you delay someone’s justice for 180 days, it is justice delayed, justice denied. This is our suggestion to the government.
“They should make sure that there is a total overhaul of the electoral process so that the people can have confidence in this country. When an election takes place and it is over, everybody will be satisfied. And even if you are not satisfied we will know that it is because of your greed that you are not satisfied.
