Former President Goodluck Jonathan took a cursory look at the rising trend of off-cycle elections in Nigeria and appealed to the National Assembly to start working towards scrapping it from the Electoral Act.
The former President made the passionate plea on Saturday shortly after casting his vote at Polling Unit 39, Ward 13, Otuoke, Ogbia in the Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
He expressed the fear that if the trend is not stopped, a day would come when the President of Nigeria would be elected in an off-cycle vote. And this, he worried, is inimical to the development of democracy in the country.
“First, let me congratulate all the three states that have elections today, Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi basically, because this is an off-cycle election,” he said.
“I get worried about the issue of off-season election and I will use this as a unique opportunity to plead with the National Assembly that we need to block this off-season election; its very odd, it’s not a global best practice.”
Though Jonathan acknowledged that a country can elect its leaders at different times, like the United States where “everybody knows when their elections will be conducted.”
He worried that: “If we continue with this trend of off-season elections based on the interpretation of our laws, it will come to a time that the Presidential election will be off-season probably that’s the time that a lot of you media people should be worried,” he said.
“Look at the American system, everybody knows when their elections will be conducted, that’s the standard practice of other countries. When I say Nigerian Presidential election may be off-season some day, some people will say how? why?”
The former President even recalled that that ugly trend almost happened in 2007 when he contested as a running mate to late President Musa Yar’Adua.
“You know that election, the seven justices that presided over the case, three of them, in their own judgment, said that the election be annulled, four of them sustained; and that is why we stayed. If one had crossed over, by now the presidential election will be off season and it is not the best for a country.”
Continuing, he said: “These 7 states with off-season elections can be migrated back to fall in line with the other states. The National Assembly can do that’; that is my message for the National Assembly and for Nigerians today.”
