Abuja – Justice Mohammadu Uwais, former Chief Justice of the Federation, has called on stakeholders in the electoral process to improve on the conduct of elections in 2015.

Uwais made the call in Abuja on Wednesday at the 2011 Post-Election Situation Room Review organised by Policy and Legislative Advocacy Centre, a civil society organisation.

Uwais said, “ideally, there should be a perfect election but as we all know, there is no perfect election in the world.

“But we should endeavour to improve on what has been achieved in 2011 as a near perfect election.”

He urged stakeholders to bring their experiences to bear on the conduct of future elections.

Prof. Attahiru Jega, Chairman of INEC, said that learning from past elections had enabled the commission to improve on the conduct of April general elections.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the lessons learnt were negative, but in learning them, we were able to know what went wrong in order to address and improve on the conduct of the elections.”

He said the electoral reforms recommended by the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee had provided the needed guide to conduct elections.

“A lot of lessons were learnt from the work of the committee. We are happy that Nigerians have on one occasion or another acknowledged that the 2011 elections were an improvement on the previous ones.”

Earlier, Mr Jens-Peter Dyrbak, Governor Advisor of DFID, stressed the need for stakeholders to employ new strategies towards the conduct of subsequent elections.

We are looking forward to best strategies in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.

“The objective of the election situation room was not only elections based, but to provide room for suggestions.

He called on African countries to learn from recently conducted elections in Nigeria as a way of deepening democracy on the continent.

The election situation room is a forum for civil society/community, security personnel and the media to discuss a way forward in the conduct of future elections. (NAN)