By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN—THE former Secretary to the Edo State Government and Chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has warned against the haste by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct the 2011 general elections, saying that it must ensure that Nigerians and political parties were ready for the election before embarking on it, so that it wil not be flawed.

He suggested that INEC should call a stakeholders meeting to allow for deliberation on the feasibility of the election time table as released by the commission in order to avoid another flawed election in the country.

He argued that it would be “a miracle” for INEC to achieve its estimated registration of 70million Nigerians in the two weeks voters registration exercise due to the difficult terrain in some regions, particularly the South South, which has riverine communities and rural communities that are inaccessible.

Ize-Iyamu who spoke to newsmen in Benin City, said though INEC was trying to abide by the new constitution and Electoral Act, “in reality, it is laudable, but how realistic is this time table? You know registration is actually the foundation for any credible election. The old register has been totally discredited.

All kinds of fictitious names are in it and there is no way any body can rely on it.

“Now, INEC chairman is promising that in two weeks, he will register as many as 70million people. That to my mind will be a major miracle. Our terrain is very difficult. We have riverine communities, we have rural communities that are almost inaccessible and in many parts of the South, the rain is still coming down heavily and might continue till the later part of this year.

“One will be wondering how this 70million will be achieved. I am of the opinion that INEC is going to find out that it will not be able to register as many people as it is presently projecting.

And they will now be forced, either to adopt the old discredited register or to adopt the register that excludes many Nigerians,” he said.

He said that “the time table is too tight. Even if you look at the issue of guidelines for political parties, you are saying that between now and October, all the parties would have done primaries.

You do not need to belong to all the parties to know that almost all of them are presently bedeviled with all kinds of crises. How are they going to conduct primaries that will be devoured of serious rancour before the end of October.

So I think that the haste is too much and at the end of the day, we might succeed in doing elections but whether it is credible is another matter.”