Governors are overbearing, says Eyiboh

Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs Hon Eseme Eyiboh yesterday lamented the overbearing influence 36 state governors in the governance of the country. He said they have tuned Nigerian democracy into a monarchy.

Eyiboh who spoke as chairman of the National Summit on Free fair and credible election organized by Vintage Press Limited in collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja, said with they way those in position of authorities conduct their affairs, democracy in Nigeria is not too different from military dictatorship.

He said since state governors have arrogated to themselves “the right of Kings”, it is left to be seen how April’s general elections would be free and fair.

Eyiboh said: “When I was invited to today’s occasion, something came into my mind that I need to express my own opinion not as the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs and the spokesman of the House of Reps but as a Nigerian who is very particular about the issue of free and fair elections.

What I understood to be fair was playing to the rules that anybody who goes beyond the rules must not just be punished; the full course of the law would take its turn. But from my experience I have found out that the prosperity of our democracy today is the emergence of 36 monarchies in this country which is quite unfortunate.

“I have also realised too that in the military era, the governor or the president or whoever is in authority would say ‘you are sacked with immediate effect’. Would say ‘you are appointed with immediate effect,’ ‘you are transferred with immediate effect’. But today the difference between military dictatorship and these presidential monarchies is just the change of the order and the personalities but the order remains the same.

“So we are having situations when you have 36 monarchies across the country and each of them exercises the right of the kings. They say what is going to happen next and under that atmosphere it becomes very worrisome to some of us how free and fair elections, that is , how individuals would be able to vote and be voted for freely and how individuals would be able to participate in the process fairly would take place without the king being offended.”

Eyiboh added: “However I have also looked across and examined our bureaucracy. It looks like our bureaucracy is a departure from the presidential monarchies. What we are having is more or less parliamentary bureaucracy.

“And if it is so, the issue of responsibility and accountability is becoming a problem and if that is not so I would want to know in the course of this discussion how the security agencies would be able to rise up to the challenges of free and fair election with the history of enforcement of the law.

“The governors are the chief security officers of the respective states. We have before now, before the present Electoral Act, we have in our criminal justice administration the issues of sundry offences like assault, affray, arms bearing and of course other offences like arson. And people have been participating in these issues, what has been the extent of enforcement?

“As a member of the parliament, I will not say we have done very well but I would frankly want to say that it is one of the several institutions which of course have suffered the same weakness associated with the poor leadership recruitment process. And now is only a free and fair and credible election that would throw up the right people in the right places.”