By Inalegwu Shaibu
DEPUTY Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), has said the proposed electoral reform cannot guarantee credible elections in 2011.

Ndoma-Egba, who is also member of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review,  who spoke exclusively to Vanguard in Abuja, stressed that future elections cannot be different from the previous ones even with the electoral reform unless Nigerians begin to respect and obey laws governing elections.

He said the problems with Nigeria is not with the absence of  a legal framework but the general apathy of the people towards constituted authorities and the laws of the land.

He said, “I have said it before and I will say it again, that I don’t mind saying it and repeating myself on this, that no matter how good your legal infrastructure are, if you don’t have a corresponding mindset, that very good legal infrastructure will not serve you as much as you will want it.

“What do I mean? If you take an example of the existing laws and look at them critically and look at what the problems of our electoral process are, they really are as a result of lack of laws. When a man snatches a ballot box is he doing it because there is no law? He is doing that because he knows that nobody is going to go and stop him.

“So, we must begin to enforce the laws that we have first and foremost and then the electorate themselves most begin to appreciate the value of their mandate, the sanctity of their mandate.”

Speaking further on why it has become difficult for credible elections in the country, Ndoma-Egba said Nigerians have lost their voting rights to corruption.

He  said: “The kind of things we prioritise to, during and after elections are totally unimaginable elsewhere. First of all, let me give you an example, when people talk about elections in Ghana, South Africa or the United States of America, are their public officers subjected to the kind of demands that the Nigerian public officers are subjected to?

“Wake up today and say you want to run for an election, you will soon begin to pay the cost of every marriage and naming in your community, you will pay every child’s school fees in your community.

“So, elsewhere, people seeking public office are not subjected to these kinds of demands. So, Nigerians most know that their mandate, their vote is scared and cannot be traded off for a minute.

“We need a voter-education, we need voter-participation, we need community-participation, community-consciousness and all that in the electoral process. So, no matter how the laws are crafted is the mental attitude, if the mental component of the citizenry is not corresponding with the laws you will achieve little or no result,” he stressed.