On Monday, March 22nd, 2010, a group of protesters under the aegis of MakeYourVotesCount.org besieged the Abuja headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). They called for the removal of INEC Chairman, Mr. Maurice Iwu, as the first step in the implementation of the Justice Uwais Report on Electoral Reforms. As soon as the group arrived the premises of INEC, security operatives stationed at the Commission accosted them asking them to vacate immediately. However, the group, led by the Coordinator, MakeYourVotesCount.org, Mr. Chido Onumah, declined, insisting on the constitutional rights of citizens to hold peaceful protest in public places. After a series of verbal exchanges, and with the arrival of pressmen, the security operatives gave up on their demands.

According to Mr. Onumah, the peaceful protest is just the beginning of a daily two-hour protest for the removal of the INEC Chairman. “The protest will continue until Mr. Iwu is removed”, he said.

Link:

http://www.saharareporters.com/news/5607-iwu-must-go-protesters-besiege-inec-headquarters.html

Why do they want Iwu to go when he delivered on his promise that election results would be announced at every single polling booth? This single act made it difficult for anyone to rig the election and Anambra state election came and did not result in fights or deaths as many people had feared.

Now, Iwu has equally stated that future elections would have results announced at the polling booth. Is this not what we want?

My fear is that we are usually carried away with emotions and fail to address to core issues.

Amodu qualified Nigeria for 2002 world cup. He was removed and replaced by Onigbinde who recorded the worst performance by the Super Eagles in the world cup.

Amodu was not around during the next qualifiers and Nigeria did not get to the world cup.

Amodu was called up again and in spite of the difficulties he qualified Nigeria for the world cup and he has been replaced again while bringing in a foreigner that failed to qualify his own country for the world cup and signed a 5 months contract.

Who do we really want in Nigeria? Results or unnecessary sentiments that lead to more disappointments?

If Iwu is removed today and a new person comes in and the person conducts a major election and we have mistakes and rigging don't you think that Nigerians will make excuses for that person citing newness to job as reason?

Sometimes I wonder if we really know what we want in this country.

Conducting elections and announcing the results after counting them right there at the polling booth is the surest way to put an end to election rigging.

If this man has promised to do just that then I prefer him to any new person that may come to experiment and probably fail to deliver like the Amodu case.

Iwu has lost the confidence of the Nigerian population.
He's got to go.

Tippy Top:

Iwu has lost the confidence of the Nigerian population.
He's got to go.

I personally don't like him but we must begin to focus on results now otherwise we may continue to change people for the sake of changing them while the issues we want changed may never be changed.

An Iwu that will announce election results at the pooling booths will be 100% better than someone we don't know who may want to try out his/her own idea that may even bring about worse elections.

I believe in results not excuses and since he has started to deliver them I hope he continues.

Just like poverty, the hungry man in Sokoto is facing the same wahala with a hungry man in Enugu regardless of who the respective governors are or who the president is.

Likewise, these hungry men would not bother with the person in charge of their affairs as long as things are ok with them.

Iwu's removal NOT equal to electoral reform.

By the way, I don't know whether by Law the President can by executive power simply stroke out the INEC Chairman.

Nigerians should learn to be patient and prioritize so that we can learn from the past.
Iwu does not have control of all the thugs who misbehave on election day, its the politicains and ordininary Nigerians who make themselves available we must blame. Iwu does not have control of the police who choose to most times become complicit and favour the most connected and most money bag.

Nigerians around the country must be ready and learn to queue up patiently and vote just like the Anambra People did recently. These are things no INEC chairman will have control over. Nobody can claim to have the capacity to teleguide every Nigerian. Its up to us as Nigerians (whether you are an ordinary voter, a soldier, police, Judge, INEC official, corps member) to understand that the electoral process must be treated with the civility it deserves.

Has Iwu being a very wonderful public officer? NO

But let us not over simplify and trivialise a very serious issue. Removing the INEC Chairman alone is not enough to change our electoral fortunes. Our problems are more fundamental than that. We can hold Iwu to task and demand that he learns from his mistakes.

mikeansy:

Iwu's removal NOT equal to electoral reform.

By the way, I don't know whether by Law the President can by executive power simply stroke out the INEC Chairman.

Nigerians should learn to be patient and prioritize so that we can learn from the past.
Iwu does not have control of all the thugs who misbehave on election day, its the politicains and ordininary Nigerians who make themselves available we must blame. Iwu does not have control of the police who choose to most times become complicit and favour the most connected and most money bag.

Nigerians around the country must be ready and learn to queue up patiently and vote just like the Anambra People did recently. These are things no INEC chairman will have control over. Nobody can claim to have the capacity to teleguide every Nigerian. Its up to us as Nigerians (whether you are an ordinary voter, a soldier, police, Judge, INEC official, corps member) to understand that the electoral process must be treated with the civility it deserves.

Has Iwu being a very wonderful public officer? NO

But let us not over simplify and trivialise a very serious issue. Removing the INEC Chairman alone is not enough to change our electoral fortunes. Our problems are more fundamental than that. We can hold Iwu to task and demand that he learns from his mistakes.

Well stated especially the last paragraph. I believe our major problem is that we often look at issues from the surface without doing any sort of critical analysis and thinking devoid of sentiments.