Former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, VON, Osita Okechukwu, on Sunday decried the failure of successive governments to implement the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee recommendations on electoral reform in the past 17 years.
Okechukwu urged President Bola Tinubu, as a “matter of urgent national importance,” to muster the political will and clear the Uwais debt burden by amending the constitution.
He charged Tinubu to make public appointments of chairmen and members of both national and state electoral commissions mandatory.
In a statement he signed, Okechukwu said the Uwais Report was meant to enhance a higher percentage of voter participation, reduce electoral malpractices, and engender a transparent election.
Justice Uwais, who died at the age of 88, served as Chief Justice of Nigeria from 1995 to 2006 and was widely regarded as one of the most influential judicial officers in the country’s history.
Reacting to Uwais’s death, the founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said the best tribute to Justice Uwais is to posthumously adopt and implement the fine tenets of his report, as the only politically correct solution for the restoration of democracy and global recognition.
He said: “Seventeen years down the line, successive governments have failed to implement the vital sections of the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee recommendations, with attendant collateral damages—multidimensional poverty, gross unemployment, huge debt burden, crass inequality, and general insecurity.”
Okechukwu insisted that the “Uwais Report was meant to enhance a higher percentage of voter participation, reduce electoral malpractices, and engender free, fair, credible, and transparent elections, and most importantly, the public nomination of chairmen and members of electoral commissions at the national and state level.”
He appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as a matter of urgent national importance, to “muster the political will and clear the Uwais debt burden by amending the constitution, albeit to make public appointments of chairmen and members of both national and state electoral commissions mandatory.”
Okechukwu opined that not only will the amendment consolidate local government financial autonomy, but that Almighty God has graciously obliged Mr. President all the necessary arsenal—viz., cordial relationship with the National Assembly and the same synergy with about 30 state governors, as well as the overwhelming endorsement of Nigerians in this regard.