(L-R) Human rights lawyer, Barr. Eze Eluchie; ex-INEC REC for Enugu State, Dr. Emeka Ononamadu; director of CCIDESOR and coordinator of South East Social Accountability Network (SESAN), Comrade Emmanuel Acha at the event.
A former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State, Dr. Emeka Ononamadu, has urged Civil Society Organizations in the Southeast geopolitical zone to help change the course of democracy in the region.
Ononamadu, who gave the charge during a roundtable organized by Citizens Centre For Integrated Development And Social Rights(CCIDESOR) in partnership with Southeast Social Accountability Network on the judiciary, INEC and CSOS in deepening democracy in Southeast Nigeria.
He also urged the CSOs not to allow the political space get shrinked like the civic space, saying if Nigerians are not given the opportunity to freely and fairly elect those who will represent them, democracy would suffer the real setback.
According to him, democracy in the Southeast has suffered the worst setback among all the zones in Nigeria and said there were lots of reasons CSOs must in the region should pay closer attention to what the judiciary is doing with the mandate of the people via their votes.
“This is because elections in the Southeast appear to be worse than a war situation. I call it election genocide where opponents are openly hounded and supporters prevented from coming out to vote if you are not voting a particular political party. Citizens and even some traditional and community leaders are recruited into this atrocity against humanity.
“We have had couples of electoral injustices in Abia, Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi, but the electoral injustices in Imo outweighs the injustices in the four states put together. Unfortunately the impact of election injustice is fast robbing off on the entire Southeast zone, which used to be a republican society”, he lamented.
He noted that electoral injustice begets underdevelopment, insecurity, hopelessness and in fact, backwardness, which he said is what the Southeast has been suffering from.
“Elections are designed for citizens to elect those who will listen to them and do exactly what they want that is backed by the law.
“When someone uses different machinations to capture power instead of being elected, he owes the people nothing than being indebted to the source through which they captured power. The source could be the judiciary, godfather or thugs, they pays special attention and channels people’s resources there to enable him or her consolidate their hold on to power”, he said.
Ononamadu emphasised that CSOs must do everything within their mandate to assist the judiciary protect the people’s mandate and become the real last hope of the common man instead of God.
“Let us not reduce post-election cases to one party versus another. It is about the citizens versus those who want to wrongly take their mandate.
“If CSOs monitor elections and election judgments go against your reported election infringements, you have been indicted and CSOs have a duty to clear their names by ensuring that they monitor the cases all through until final decision.
He also called on judges handling outstanding election cases southeast to look at what is happening in southeast and proclaim justice and not technicalities.
In his keynote address, the coordinator of South East Social Accountability Network (SESAN), Comrade Emmanuel Acha, noted that the event was to celebrate the nation’s democracy day, a significant milestone in the country’s journey towards a more just and equitable society.
Reflecting on the state of Nigerian democracy since last 25 years, he noted that the nation’s democracy was facing numerous challenges and crisis of legitimacy from the erosion of trust in institutions to the rise of divisive rhetorics, lack of transparency and accountability in governance, among others.
While stating that these challenges were not insurmountable but required a collective effort to address them, Acha urged CSOs to renew their commitment to strengthening democracy, adding that the CSOs must work together to strengthen its fabric, ensuring that it serves the interests of all citizens.
