2023: Zone presidential tickets to the south, IBBN urges political parties

The Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria, IBBN, Tuesday, in Abuja called on all political parties to zone their presidential tickets to the Southern part of the country.

The IBBN stated that the need for the zoning is to ensure fairness and equity in Nigeria’s leadership, explaining that the North will be concluding a full eight-year term by 2023.

The President of the IBBN, Dr. Isah Sadiq, delivering a speech at the press conference said, “Morestill, as political activities hit the crescendo, we call on political actors in the country to play the game, putting Nigeria first over any parochial interest. Among other things, national interest first. “We call on all Political parties to in all sense of fairness, to zone their presidential tickets to the southern zone of the country, especially since the North will be concluding a full eight-year term by 2023.

“Fairness and equity is all it takes to service and continue to make every union work and indeed fairness and equity is what it will take to keep the Nigerian union as one indivisible great country under God.“

Sadiq speaking on the Abduction and Murder of Little Hanifa in Kano State, expressed fears that from the wave of mass abductions for ransom at schools over the last year, carried out by terrorists elements nicknamed bandits, there could not be any more endangerment of education

He said the recent abduction and murder of little promising 5 year old Hanifa Abubakar by the Proprietor of her own school, who demanded for a ransom of six million naira ($14,500) last month, only to later kill Hanifa with rat poison and bury her in a shallow grave in the city of Kano; there couldn’t violation of the right to life in Northern Nigeria.

“Truth is, a society perpetually void of safe spaces for children is a society with a bleak future, if it has any at all. For the act of terrorism against children alone, Nigerian Government need not show mercy to domestic terrorists and terrorpreneurs alike.

“We must stand up to the active defence of the right to life in Nigeria because the life of Nigerians matter!

“May God comfort the family of little Hanifa and all others who have lost loved ones in the hands of terrorists and terropreneurs in Nigeria,” he said

He further stated that the IBBN in alignment with Civil Society Coalition and well meaning Nigerians called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to authorise a new progressive electoral act for Nigerians that will make elections free, fair, transparent, peaceful and inclusive; especially that Mr President rode to the Presidency with a promise of electoral reforms to Nigerians.

“While we commend the 9th National Assembly for their efforts in advancing progressive clauses in the Electoral Act Repeal and Re-enactment Bill 2020, the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria however wishes to call on the National Assembly to consider and review section 91 of the Electoral Act Bill which dramatically and astronomically increased campaign spending limits by 300 percent, which suggests that the 9th National Assembly intends to entrench a heavily monetized and merchandising political system, and this has dire implications for election violence, youths exclusion, good governance and the economy, ” the IBBN added.

Still on the electoral process, IBBN recalled that INEC had in June last year, expanded voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years since the initial delimitation in 1996 by creation of additional 56,872 Polling Units nation wide bringing the total number of polling units in the country to 176,846. A feat he said, should ordinarily improve voter turnout and ease the management of polling units and crowds during elections.

“What we have however, noticed from the recently concluded Anambra State elections and from the recent INEC Consultative meeting with Civil-society Organisations, is that both old and new voters are either not fully aware of this expansion of voter access and or failed to take advantage of it to transfer to these new Polling Units which has the potential to defeat the intended objective of the expansion and even entrench voter disenfranchisement.

“The Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria (IBBN) therefore wishes to call on Nigerians, Civil Society Organisations and serious grassroot stakeholders and Politicians to take inventory of those new polling units in their constituencies, organise townhalls, educate the people and facilitate the even distribution of voters in those areas between the old overpopulated polling units and the new polling units closest to the old ones, by simply applying to transfer those affected voters’ polling units, as well as leveraging on the ongoing CVR for the regular recruitment and registration of new voters to locations where they would be during elections by visiting the INEC website.

“We all must turn to community organisers in our localities if we must make democracy work for Nigeria.”

He further expressed worries that the number of men and Officers of security agencies are obviously inadequate to secure Nigeria’s rural communities and forests which need security as well. “It’s obvious that if we don’t secure forests in Nigeria, terrorist elements will always take refuge in those forests and use them as a launching board for their terrorist attacks.

“Government is not oblivious of this, because we have adequate security deployments securing the forest within the villa area through Mambilla Barracks, through the Gwarinpa expressway and down to the AYA area here in the nation’s capital.”

According to him, “the expediency of experimenting with state police to complement the overstretched central Nigerian Police Force stares us in the face at this time of our national history. Beyond preventing deepening attacks, we need reclaim forests and ungoverned spaces already occupied by terrorists. When will we deploy the much celebrated tucano jets and other Airforce platforms procured to extinguish these terrorists? Is it better when the terrorists are done with killing Nigerians? We call on Government to Deploy those tucano jets to use now!”

The Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria commended the gallantry of Men of the Armed Forces, assuring that it will continue to stand with them, while expressing hope that Nigeria will surmount her security challenges, “we however call on Nigeria policy makers and President Muhammadu Buhari’s led Federal Government to be more innovative and proactive in securing the precious lives of and defending the inalienable right to life of Nigerians,” Sadiq added.