American Congress has invited Innocent Chukwuma, chairman of Nigeria’s Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), to testify before its hearing on the recent general election and the unrest in the Deep South.

The hearing takes place on June 7, Sunday Independent can confirm from a letter sent to the TMG office from the U.S. Congress office in Washington DC.

TMG, a domestic election monitoring group, has handed down scathing criticisms of the conduct of the April elections and called for cancellation of the exercise.

Chukwuma had said in an interview: "My opinion on how the election went is best captured by the title of the report issued by domestic observers after the presidential election: An election programmed to fail. In every aspect of that election, you cannot escape the conclusion that the election was programmed to fail."

The hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the U.S, and is at the instance of Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Fellow Sub-committee on Africa and Global Health.

Alarmed at the reports by local and international observers, Washington had threatened to review its relationship with Abuja if it found to be true, allegations that government subverted the will of the people at the polls, because "an unstable Nigeria threatens regional peace."

"Congressman Donald Payne, Chair of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, has scheduled a hearing on the recent Nigerian presidential election discussing the results, recommended reforms and U.S. policy initiatives," read the invitation signed by Reed Genora, a U.S. congressman.

"Discussions will also include the crisis in the Niger Delta and escalating ethnic/religious tension in certain parts of the region. I would like to invite you to testify as a witness. The hearing is scheduled for June 7 at 10:30am," the letter which was sent to Chukwuma explained.

The unimpressive conduct of the polls rankles Washington, which perhaps informed the cold reception President Umar Musa Yar’Adua received on his visit to the country just before his inauguration on May 29.

U.S. invested millions of dollars in the elections, which outcome, analysts say, threatens national cohesion. A Congress spokesman had said democracy could fail in Africa if Nigeria’s civilian to civilian transition hits the rocks.

For the TMG, the elections were anything but free and fair. Chukwuma had said in an intervie
interview that failure to cancel the results, as demanded, would mark the "beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic."

His words: "This is because no society, no nation, can endure the level of criminality, the level of robbery – armed robbery – of the people’s mandate that we saw on April 21. The government that will emerge from that kind of election would have legitimacy and credibility problems. The government, from day one, will have vociferous opposition.

"The government will not be able to implement its policies, especially those that have to do with corruption. How can you fight corruption when you are a product of corruption? How can you preach transparency when you are a product of an opaque election? How can you call out people to follow you when the people know they did not vote for you in the first place? If they allow this to go on and if they pretend that it is business as usual, we can as well say bye-bye to the Fourth Republic. In my history of monitoring election in Nigeria – I started in 1993 and I have also monitored elections in Asia and other African countries – I have never seen this level of robbery.

"Even the National Democratic Institute (NDI) that had monitored elections in over 100 countries agreed that the level of fraud in this presidential election is monumental. In its report, it says the level of irregularities, lapses and malpractices it witnessed in the election is the worst.

"That means that the level of fraud in that election was unprecedented in the world. I can’t see how it will work. They may pretend about it; they can use the police to harass people and even arrest some of us who are saying the truth, but that will not help us, that cannot stabilise the government."

When Sunday Independent asked the TMG chairman whether the body will honour the invitation to testify even after the new government had been inaugurated, Chukwuma said: "Why not? We will be there. The inauguration has nothing to do with what we are being invited for. If anything, it willl even help in our testimony."



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Comment:
What is hidden shall be shouted from the roof tops. Now the whole world will know what we were cooking when the house got burnt down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, this is nothing but the truth;

[size=15pt]"The government will not be able to implement its policies, especially those that have to do with corruption. How can you fight corruption when you are a product of corruption? How can you preach transparency when you are a product of an opaque election? How can you call out people to follow you when the people know they did not vote for you in the first place? If they allow this to go on and if they pretend that it is business as usual, we can as well say bye-bye to the Fourth Republic.
[/size]