One important ingredient of democracy is periodic elections. When there is no election in any democratic setting, dictators emerge.
Since last year April the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has been conducting particular elections in Rivers State without any headway. The INEC has introduced new terminology – “Inconclusive Elections” into the political dictionary of Nigeria.
The re-run polls in the state that had been fixed to hold this Saturday, 30th July, 2016 was later shifted to unknown date. This frequent shifting of Election Day and inconclusive polls cannot provide healthy development for our developing democracy.
As it stands today so many constituencies in Rivers State do not have representatives in the legislative chambers both at the state and federal levels. This is an ugly situation and does not portray the nation as democratic, but dictatorial.
If INEC continues to hold elections without success and spending tax payers money, what will be the future of our democracy? It is very disheartening that after seventeen (17) years of democratic practice, the nation’s independent electoral body is still fumbling and crawling which can truncate our hard earned democracy that built on human blood and series of protests.
It is our prayer that whatever it takes, INEC should fastly conduct elections in the constituencies that do not have representatives, so that our democracy will move forward. ###
