President Mahama visits Nigeria's INEC

The President of Ghana, John Mahama, has urged other developing counties to emulate the quality of technology the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deployed to organise the 2015 general elections, describing it as the secret behind the successes recorded during the elections.

Speaking when he paid courtesy visit to the chairman of the Commission in Abuja, the Ghana President noted: “I met Professor Jega, in his calm self and gave me all the assurances that this Commission was ready and that we were going to have successful elections. If you see me here today, my presence in the Commission is telling you our appreciation to Professor Jega and members of his Commission for what they have done in terms of recent elections.

“I decided to come personally, when I asked for the appointment, Professor Jega and staff had offered to come over to my hotel and I said no, I want to pay you a tribute by coming here personally to congratulate you and all your commission.

“I believe that the role of the electoral Commission is critical, is key in any election, and in any election the role that the electoral commission plays as empire is what makes the election successful or not successful by building confidence in the process of the election so that when election outcome is declare, people as a result of the confidence in the process have to accept the result.

“That is why I think INEC has played a very fantastic role and of course the stakeholders, the political parties also have a role to play. And this morning I spoke to President Jonathan and I commended him for the show of statesmanship in not only conceding but also calling his colleague General Buhari in advance declaration of the result to congratulate him. I think that is a show of maturity and statesmanship.

“But, of course, the pivotal role is the one that was played by the electoral Commission in terms of the weight that was involved. I cannot imagine the scale of what you have to do with your electoral law within the region of 60 to 70 million voters, in Ghana we talk of 12 million. It is a very Herculean task if I compare that with what you have to do here because, I need to commend you even many more times for the work that you did.

“This year we have several other elections coming up in Cote d’Ivoire, after that in Burkina Faso, after that in Guinea and I think that everybody has been watching as an example what is going in Nigeria here. It sends a very good signal to other countries that are holding elections this year in the ECOWAS sub-region to emulate what has been done here.

“I think that there is a lot that many countries can borrow from you in terms of the roll out of technology, provision of voters identification cards and having distributed and the equipment for reading those cards in terms of authenticating the voter as who they are actually are. There will always be glitches with technology, but I think this is the first step to go for it and we can continue to improve the technology so that we have smoother elections.

“In the circumstances you faced, I believed that you have done a very good job. On behalf of all my colleagues, the ECOWAS president I congratulate you, your staff and to ask you to keep it up. We believe that Nigeria has done better and this election has consolidated Nigeria’s democracy in the ECOWAS community states. We would continue to work with you.

“AS President of Ghana, Nigerians and Ghanaians are brothers and sisters. We share the same values, we share the same cultures, and so we would continue to share experiences and I believe that this victory of your is much as ours. As I said, there is no winner and there is no loser, the winner is the Nigeria people. I think that this is the time in Nigeria that everybody, notwithstanding you political party to put your hands on deck to move forward Nigeria.

“Nigeria has a particular responsibility in our sub-region because is the biggest economy and I believe that Nigeria has to carry that responsibility to move our sub-region forward,” he noted.

Responding, the INEC boss said: “It is with great honour and privilege that I behalf of members of the INEC welcome His Excellency, President of Ghana and chairman of the committee of ECOWAS Heads of States, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama for this unique visit to our commission.

“We are overwhelmed by this show of goodwill and courtesy because this is the first time that we are receiving such a high-level courtesy visit in this commission. We are humbled and we greatly appreciate this gesture of goodwill and show of love which is very significant in terms of promoting unity, peace and co-existence and deepening democracy in the sub-region.

“Words cannot adequately express our appreciation and our delight for what is happening now and I want to say that Nigeria as a member of the ECOWAS, has a lot to do to contribute to the progress, development, peace and stability in the ECOWAS sub-region.

“The ECOWAS no doubt has a tremendous role to play in terms of harnessing the resources and energy of all the countries in the sub-region in order to develop our region and to ensure that we promote peaceful-coexistence and also deepening our development.

“We feel greatly honoured that in Nigeria we have been given the opportunity to contribute in the area of election management for deepening democracy in our country and we are very happy and delighted the little we have been able to do has been so widely appreciated that this show of goodwill and support and encouragement is really so overwhelming. We thank God almighty for that and we thank your Excellency for visiting us here today. We welcome you more sincerely and heartily,” he added.

Source: Sunnewsonline.com

By: Romanus Ugwu

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