Public Affairs Analyst

Edo State through its State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) is gearing up to conduct elections into the 192 Wards and 18 Local Government Areas of the state.   Six political parties are fielding candidates at the elections. The poll scheduled to hold on April 20, 2013 is being held in accordance with the provision of section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.    The forthcoming poll is guided by the Edo State Local Government Electoral Law 2012 and EDSIEC Guidelines for the Local Government Council Elections 2013. Of great importance to this writer are the political finance provisions in the state law. Some of the grounds of disqualification of candidates as contained in section 16 (c) and (e) respectively are:” failure to produce evidence of tax payments as and when due for the period of three years immediately preceding the year of the elections” and inability to pay the non-refundable deposit as prescribed by the Commission. It was reliably ga...

On Saturday, March 23, I switched off my light for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30pm, in accordance with the injunction from Earth Hour Nigeria in order to demonstrate my support for environmentally sustainable action. I am really worried and concerned at the way we treat our environment. So much devastation and plundering are taking place on the milieu. Pollution ranks among the worst enemies of the atmosphere. Air, water, noise pollution is commonplace. The carbon-dioxide being released into the air from gas flaring, generators, cars, and various industrial machines is partly responsible for global warming and ultimately, climate change.   The liquid waste from our homes and industries is also not environmentally friendly. These wastes are toxic and pose great danger to the environment when not properly disposed. Worse off are oil spillages in the Niger Delta either as a result of pipeline vandalising or industrial accidents. They pollute and degrade the environs.  Some pe...

As a psephologist (someone involved in the study of elections), I like observing and commenting on the conduct of elections across the world. I have been privileged to observe Nigeria’s General Elections since 1999 and have had opportunity of being a short-term observer in Ghana in 2008 and the United States of America in 2010 during the mid-term elections. On March 16, duty called again as I was one of the accredited observers that went about the Federal Capital Territory Area Councils monitoring the election. At the end of the exercise, my peregrination had taken me to a total of 17 polling units across four out of the six area councils, namely Bwari, AMAC, Gwagwalada and Kuje Area Councils. The importance of council elections either in Nigeria or any other country of the world cannot be overemphasised. As many are wont to say, local government is the closest to the people in the communities either rural or urban. The law has made it non-negotiable for governance at this grass-roo...

"In the law, being sent to prison is nothing to do with putting you in a terrible prison to make you suffer. The punishment is that you lose your freedom. If we treat people like animals when they are in prison, they are likely to behave like animals. Here, we pay attention to you as human beings.” — Arne Nilsen, Governor of Bastoy Prison, Norway After reading Erwin James’ beautiful and didactic piece on Bastoy Prison in The Guardian newspaper of the UK on February 25, 2013, I was sunk in reverie. I thought of a scenario where it is possible for a convict to choose where to serve his or her jail term. Imagine a suspect saying: “My Lord, I plead guilty to all the crimes for which I have been charged by the prosecutor. My allocution is however that in sentencing me, temper justice with mercy by sending me to Bastoy Prison in Norway.” Norway has a population of slightly less than five million compared to Nigeria’s approximately 170 million. It has fewer than 4,000 prisoners wh...

After about three months of accusations and counter-accusations between the federal executive and legislature on the 2013 budget, President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday, February 26, 2013 signed the appropriation bill into law. A logjam was created when after the President presented the N4.92trn budget to the National Assembly on October 10, 2012, the federal lawmakers decided to increase the oil benchmark from the proposed $75 per barrel to $79; refused to vote any money for the Securities and Exchange Commission; reduced the recurrent expenditure and increased the capital vote; inserted some constituency projects that were not included in the financial estimates by the executive and generally increased the overall budget by about N63bn. The Presidency took umbrage at this unhealthy development and decided to withhold assent to the appropriation bill. When the budget was passed on December 20, 2012, I was very excited and hopeful that for the very first time in many decades, there wa...

On Friday, February 15, 2013, Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission officially published the 2011 audit report on political parties in three national newspapers in accordance with section 89(4) of Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). The audit was done in strict conformity with section 226 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The section says “The Independent National Electoral Commission, shall in every year prepare and submit to the National Assembly   a report on the accounts and balance sheet of every political party. Kudos to INEC The 2011 audit report which covers 56 registered political parties indicted 54 of the parties for being in breach of the provisions of the Electoral Act, which stipulate modalities for the running of parties, including details of their earnings and expenditures. Auditors’ comments and observations on most of the political parties were that they did not have an audited internal financial statement for the year 2011; they lacked...