Former gov dismisses Uwais Committee report

By Emeka Mamah

Kaduna – FIRST civilian governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has said that the Justice Mohammed Uwais committee’s report on electoral reforms which Nigerians are clamouring for will not bring about fair and transparent elections in the country.

He dismissed the Uwais Committee as a smoke screen to stem the revolution which would have followed the fraudulent elections that brought President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua into office in 2007.

Musa who acknowledged that his opinion was at variance with the belief by most Nigerians that the Electoral Reform Committee’s report will ensure free and transparent elections in 2011 said he was “prepared to stand alone on the matter,” and questioned the rationale behind the appointment of Justice Uwais to head the committee in view of the controversies which trailed him at the tail end of his tenure as chief justice of Nigeria.

The former governor spoke at a special prayer/tributes session to mark the 40 days Fidau prayers for the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi at the Labour House in Kaduna, weekend. Among those who paid tributes at the event which was organized by the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) and civil society organizations in remembrance of Chief Fawehinmi were the president of NUTGTWN, Comrade Reginald Agulanna-Uwa, general secretary of the union, Comrade Issa Aremu, president of Civil Rights Congress, Comrade Shehu Sani and the executive director of the Human Rights Monitor, Festus Okoye.

All the speakers recommended post-humous national awards for both Chief Fawehinmi and his client, Ken Saro-Wiwa who was judicially murdered by the late General Sani Abacha’s regime. They said that the civil approach which the two deceased Nigerians recommended was used by the Federal Government under President Umaru Yar’Adua in resolving the Niger Delta crisis and as such must be acknowledged.

Alhaji Musa who chaired the occasion literally tore the Uwais Committee’s report into shreds saying that there was nothing new in it.

His words:  The Uwais Committee’s recommendation that political associations seeking registration as parties must have functional offices in 24 states of the federation is against the Supreme Court judgment on the issue. We are talking of a civilian government not a military regime. Uwais Committee’s report is another form of militarizing Nigeria. This is because, freedom of association is guaranteed in the constitution.

You cannot also recommend five parties in Nigeria. Uwais Committee recommended independent candidates which we had at independence and during colonial days; so what is fundamental about it. Why did the committee recommend for example that anybody contesting for elections into the state House of Assembly must pay N500,000 deposit?”