By Nnamdi Ojiego
Barrister Teddy Obi Akwari is the chairman of Imo State Independent Electoral Commission, ISEC. Before his appointment as ISEC boss on May 23, 2012, he was a private legal practitioner based in Port-harcourt.

In this interview, he speaks on the commission’s readiness to surpass the performance of Prof Attahiru Jega led INEC in conducting local government election in the state. He also speaks on other activities of the commission including ward creation and revalidation. Excerpt:

On creation and revalidation of electoral wards

When we came in, we discovered a lot of mistrust of the commission by the public. I tried to find out why? Their mistrust was based on their experience of the 2010 election. There were a lot of complains that so many of the wards created in 1998 and after 1999 that election was not conducted in those wards, rather election was conducted in 305 wards.

Teddy Obi Akwari i

A lot of people complained also that most of the councillors and chairmen were ignorant of what they went to the council to do. We then sat down and decided that we are going to re-validate wards – those ones wherein elections were not held in 2010.We also decided to create more wards because more autonomous communities have been created, and that’s exactly what we are into now. We are creating new wards and as well, re-validating the old ones.

Already, what is in existence is about 305 wards, because the 2010 election was conducted in 305 wards, and that means in Imo state, we have only 305 wards. So we intend to create about 301 wards, because Imo state has about 637 communities. Our intention is to give wards to every communities, bearing in mind that if the amendment that is going on in Abuja succeeds, it means that the local government will be more powerful, and they will get their allocation directly from the federation account and any community that is not represented stands to loose. So to ensure equitable representation in the local government, we decided to create wards. And any ward we create now, means that a councilor must emerge from that ward. That means we must organize elections in all those wards that we are creating including the 305 wards.

Are the communities going to pay?

Yes you collect the form with N50,000 non refundable. And the ward itself is N250,000

Why? Must communities pay for this service?

Yes. Because, ISEC is independent, and being independent, the activities of ward creation, the financial involvement is very huge. For instance, we have to go to the communities, to educate and talk to them, make them understand the need for these wards creation. The commission will go to these communities one by one.

We have been on radio talking, we have been on television, we have been making adverts on pages of newspapers, all theses things cost money. For you to do a good job, you require money in this country. So that’s why we are collecting money, if you may think that way. What we are charging is not even commensurate to the activities and what we are putting in but we are trying to ensure that every community gets a ward. When we talk about communities, we mean communities that are qualified. For instance, one of our conditions of giving out wards is that, the would be community must have at least 2000 registered voters, and again must have 4 pulling boots in that community. So any community that merits this, is entitled to have a ward and you will agree with me that this is very equitable condition.

On Leadership training for council workers

We equally discovered that some councilors and chairmen don’t  know exactly why they were elected or what they went there to do. You see, one may be a graduate but may not know anything about the law or rule making. When you compare the present leadership and other leaderships of Nigeria, you can now discover that it is better to have somebody who knows what to do at the helm of affairs.

Because of this, we approached Imo State College of Advanced Provisional Studies, ICAPS, and reached an MOU with them, to train our aspirants into positions of councilors and chairmanship of the local governments. It’s about 8 weeks programme. Right now we have instructed ICAPS to start selling forms to would be aspirants, that is, those who are going to aspire for the positions of the councilorship and chairmanship of the local government areas.

Must every aspirant undergo this training? And what if an aspirant decides not to attend, will it disqualify him/her from contesting?

Well, as it stands, the constitution talks of school certificate to contest for any election. With school certificate, you can rule Nigeria. However, we discovered that this school cert issue is not helping matters. So we decided to introduce this training programme. If you have a school certificate and even if you are a graduate, you can also be trained in the act of leadership, act of human management and rule making. So, minimum qualification is school certificate but the training is compulsory  as far as Imo State Electoral Commission is concerned, because, it is compulsory for any aspirant to know how to make rules, how to lead, and how to manage the resources of the local government.

On conducting free and fair election

The issue of election umpiring is a thing of morality, a thing of the mind. The fact that the incumbent governor appointed me, will not make me to look at somebody who failed and say he passed, and look at somebody who passed and say he failed, this thing has got to do with morality. However, one of the measures we have taken to ensure a credible election is that we have applied to INEC to get a voters register and getting electoral materials ready little by little. So the assurance we are giving to Imolites is that we are going to organize a free and fair election.

Surpassing INEC’s performance in conducting credible election?

That is our intention and our plan. Our intention is to ensure that we beat INEC’s record in ensuring that election is free, fair and credible. That is our plan and fair enough, states independent electoral commissions in Nigeria have collaborative agreement with INEC. So whatever they miss, ISEC intends to improve on that. So I am assuring Imolites that we are going to conduct a free and fair election. Again, I want to encourage the communities to take advantage of the ward creation and revalidation exercise and ensure they get wards for their communities.

Will you resign if you are compelled to rig the election in favour of the ruling party?

I don’t think anybody will compel me, nobody will compel me to get a man who failed and say he passed, I will not do that. My advice to political parties now, which APGA is one of them and other parties, is for them to go and do their home work well. Get the best candidates for the election.

I am not interested in any manipulation of process. we are unbiased umpire and we will remain unbiased.