Former Benue State Secretary of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP), Dr. Bem Ugoh has stated that the most appropriate people to act as Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning officers are university lecturers.
In an exclusive interview with THE WHISTLER, Dr Bem Ugoh pushed back against criticism that lecturers are ill-suited for INEC roles, arguing that their inherent discipline and disposition make them ideal candidates for the role.
Recall that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was all for university lecturers being deployed as ad-hoc collation and returning officers for the 2023 elections, provided they swear to an oath of neutrality
INEC had however stated that to be eligible, lecturers must not have obvious political affiliations or convictions for electoral malpractice.
Ugoh noted that though few lecturers have acted below expectation, many others maintain their dignity and integrity in the process of conducting elections.
“Well, systematically, by their disposition and official discipline, the most appropriate people to return election results should be university people as it is today.
“But elections, which are the gateway to political power, have been so overvalued. If you want to bring a chief judge to be a returning officer, you will still have the same problem.
“Most of the time the person who takes responsibility for returning results of the election becomes a target. So much attention is focused on him. So sometimes there are cases where VCs have met a clear difference by trying to maintain their dignity and integrity in the process of conducting elections. There are few cases of compromise here and there,” he said.
He, however, added that the solution to electoral malpractice does not lie in changing new referees but in introducing a new political culture that must start from the grassroots.
“But I think the solution does not lie with changing the referee. The solution lies in introducing a new political culture and getting it entrenched across the grassroots. Because it is the political elite that are hanging on to power and using every means to return themselves to power. They are the ones who seek to manipulate elections in their favour,” he said.