As a young TV news reporter many years ago, one public officer I had to cover extensively was by name, Mr. John James, Commissioner of Police in the then Midwest State. One of my colleagues hypothesized then that the man was not likely to be a Nigerian because he had two English names.

Riots which normally follow the release of election results in Nigeria are obviously condemnable for several reasons. In the first place, rioting is an illegal method of protesting the outcome of an election because it normally leads to loss of lives and property. The riots which followed the presidential election of Saturday, April 16, 2011, were particularly destructive.

By Tonnie Iredia On April 20, 2010, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, at a public forum made the following statement:  “If we are to be honest with ourselves, we have not been fair to the Niger-Delta… The Niger- Delta has been producing the funds with which we have been running […]

In some countries, political debates are often cumbersome to undertake. Nigeria is one of such countries because candidates in a Nigerian election are usually too many to engage in any meaningful debate. For Presidential elections alone, there were five candidates in 1979; six in 1983; 20 in 2003; 23 in 2007 and 19 this year. Nigeria has thus maintained a funny history of Presidential debates deviating from the envisaged format of diametrically-opposed viewpoints being canvassed at a time for meaningful comparison.

Recent media reports that officials of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), are under pressure to do wrong should be a source of worry to many people, especially at this eve of general elections.

The transmission of partisan information through the electronic media which is generally referred to as political broadcast involves several materials. These range from political party manifestos, slogans, jingles, emblems and election promises. The significance of political broadcasts is that they offer opportunities to all political parties to publicise their manifestos and other party activities.

According to media reports, there are hundreds of unresolved election cases concerning next month’s general elections in the country. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), appears to be the hardest hit by the development following the claim by its Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, that no fewer than 150 pre-election cases had been filed against it nationwide by aggrieved politicians.

Since a couple of days back when the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji, made public his threat to frustrate the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill, many people have reacted violently against him. I don’t think they know what Abba-Aji is capable of doing. For me, I have chosen to fervently beg him not to carry out his threat in view of the pedigree of his ingenuity.

Pioneer African nationalist leaders who fought for independence were no doubt gallant agitators but they certainly were not democrats. What they sought after was power not democracy.

On November 28, 2010, a rerun presidential election was held in Cote d’Ivoire between the incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo and his challenger, Mr. Alassane Ouattara. The Electoral Commission proclaimed the opposition candidate, the winner with 54.1 per cent of the vote.