Okowa canvasses alternative funding for INEC

Editors hail governor, decry insecurity, vote-buying
Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has stressed urgent need for an alternative source of funding to ensure that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) truly performs as an independent umpire.

Okowa stated this at the weekend during the 14th All Nigeria Editor’s Conference (ANEC) in Asaba. He said: “INEC is supposed to be an unbiased body, so, how can they truly be unbiased? How will they get their source of funding? How will they work on their process of appointments? These and more questions are what we are supposed to address and they have to be dealt with in such a manner that we can give them enough power and make them truly independent.”

However, the governor Okowa who used the occasion to reel out his achievements in Delta State, said: “Generally, in our country, I do believe that the need for voters’ education and the need to ensure that we take our people out of the poverty level, are motivations that will help us improve on the electoral process because, as long as our people continue to remain in the poverty bracket, there will be no integrity.”

He took members of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) on an inspection tour of landmark projects across the state that were initiated, executed and completed by his administration since assumption of office.

Meanwhile, the NGE, in a nine-point communique jointly signed by its President and Secretary-General, Funke Egbemode and Victoria Ibanga respectively, yesterday, commended the 91 political parties in the country for the maturity displayed during their primaries but frowned at the allegation of vote-buying, which the editors observed was a subtle but worrisome way of institutionalising corruption.

The editors while also decrying the level of insecurity in the country, said: “The nation deserves more than rhetoric and political slogans on issues of citizens’ welfare.“Elections in Nigeria are not built on truth and therefore urged the umpire, the INEC, to remain independent in its practice by allowing citizens’ votes to count; as such is cardinal to sustaining democracy.”

They, however, commended the Delta State government for the rapid growth in infrastructure across the state as well as human capacity development.They also expressed the need for Nigerian journalists to intensify efforts that will deepen democracy through sustained investigative, balance and analytical reportage.