Nigeria@66: Nigeria is hopeless in spite of abundant natural, human resources – SAN

By Cyprian Ebele, Onitsha

An Onitsha, Anambra state based Senior Advocate of Nigeria, (SAN), and human rights activist, Ben Uzuegbu, has lamented that  Nigeria at 66, is still crawling despite being bestowed with abundant natural and human resources.

He likened Nigeria to a 66-year-old man who should be a grandfather but is still sucking the milk of his mother like a baby.

According to him  developmentally Nigeria is nowhere to be found despite the huge natural resources God in His infinite mercy deposited in the country.

The SAN cited countries that are not as endowed as Nigeria but have developed to include, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Ghana,Indonesia, among others and described Nigeria at 66 as a dashed hope.

“People are thrown into poverty daily and Nigeria’s growth is nothing to write home about. 

Nigeria has stunted growth and the worst of it is that all these challenges have no hope because our leaders operate in such a way that they do not care about the situation of Nigeria. 

So, Nigeria is in a hopeless state,” Uzuegbu maintained.

In the 2027 general election the SAN reiterated that lack of independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) remains the bane of Nigeria’s electoral system.

Fielding questions from newsmen in his office, Uzuegbu, aligned himself with the position of well-meaning Nigerians that INEC is undermining credible elections in the country.

According to him, INEC’s independence exists only in name not in practice and from what Nigerians have observed, the commission is not truly independent in the conduct of elections.

He contended that the Chairman of INEC should not be appointed by someone who is a participant in an election, arguing that no matter how decent the participant may be, his interest will always be considered.

“Saying that INEC is independent is a contradiction because it is not truly independent. I do not think all the money INEC uses comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The executive, in some cases, has to augment funds to ensure INEC functions. And it is obvious that he who pays the piper dictates the tune. For that reason, INEC is not independent,” he said.

The legal practitioner also accused INEC of not using its core staff to conduct elections, noting that it relies on youth corps members and ad-hoc staff who are prone to dance to the tune of those who appointed them.

“The appointed ad-hoc staff will ensure they dance to the tune of those who appointed them. If you do not do what they ask you to do, in the next election, they will not appoint you again.

“From INEC’s records since 1979 till date, I can say INEC is not independent. When you look at the electoral officers in charge of states, you will discover that most of them are card-carrying members of political parties. When you appoint a card-carrying member of a political party to be in charge of a state, what do you expect?

 He is likely to favour his political party, and by then INEC is no longer independent,” he added.

On the role of the judiciary in election matters, Uzuegbu said there are people who are no longer interested in ensuring that justice is done, noting that he does not support a situation where the judiciary determines who won an election.

“I prefer a situation where the voters themselves decide who will be their leader and not for the court to pronounce who won and who did not win. 

That brings a problem to the judiciary itself. In the definition of democracy, the judiciary was not mentioned. It is the government of the people, by the people. So, democracy is all about the people,” he stated.

He said he does not fancy taking every electoral matter to the judiciary, emphasizing that INEC is supposed to be independent in conducting elections.

“If INEC is truly independent and votes are counted and a candidate sees that he lost or won, what is the purpose of going to court?

It is because INEC is not properly constituted and does not carry out its functions well that everything is taken to court,” he argued.