Sultan roots for credible voters’ register

By Kenneth Ehigiator

LAGOS — The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, said yesterday that Nigeria needed a transparent voters’ register that is devoid of controversy.

The Sultan, who spoke in an interview at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, also charged Nigerians to give the new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the chance to sanitise the nation’s electoral system.

According to him, there can be no free, fair and credible election without a transparent voters’ register.
He said:  “You heard what the new chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, said yesterday (Wednesday) about how he will go about delivering the job of an election umpire.
 
“Let us give him chance to see how that will go.  I think, all Nigerians need a transparent voters’ register and a process that is free of controversy.”
The Sultan, who was on his way to Ogun State for the 50th coronation anniversary of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Adetona,  also said Nigeria still have a long way to go in her 50 years of existence, but agreed that some strides had been made in the nation’s quest to development.

On the show of shame in the House of Representatives last Tuesday, Sultan Abubakar described the incident as one of those things to expect in a democratic dispensation.

According to him, the fracas is not more than the usual disagreement that exists among people in any socio-political gathering.

“ I did not watch the drama that happened in the House of Representatives. The fracas that occurred in the House of Representatives was just a misunderstanding between them, we will disagree to agree,” he said.

On the clamour of the north for rotation of the presidency in 2011, the Sultan said at the appropriate time, he would offer his advice.