[omaks]

In a democratic dispensation, there are always checks and balances. That's the whole beauty of a 'properly design democratic process'. If the Executive arm of government was serious about the reforms of the electoral process, it should not display any fears of erosion of its oversight responsibilities. If out of may functions it concedes to the judiciary the responsibility of choosing the Chairman of INEC it wouldn't necessary be the end of the world. My fear though is even if the executive does oblige the judiciary the opportunity to choose the Chairman of INEC, it still withholds the capacity to interfere and manipulate the direction in which the representatives of the judiciary does sway with its selection.

My confidence of the electoral reforms being implimented conclusively has started to wane even before the process gathers momentum, largely because there have already been concerted efforts by the political elite to unearth ways to circumvent the reforms. there is ongoing moves to establish another 'SUPER POLITICAL PARTY', when the reforms clearly indentifies that there shouldn't be more than between 2 and 7 political parties in the country. Secondly, there are also concerted efforts by the state governors of the PDP to hijact totally the machinery of state party politics by abolishing the election of delegates to various levels of party conventions, and replacing such with state governors' cronies and party leader. This in in a bid to exert immense control on the outcome of party elections and decision making, and in the process inadvertently destroying democracy in party politics.

Though Reuben Abati points out the need to guarantee people's rights to choose their own leaders, the type of politics being played by State Governors and their cronies in stifling the entrenchment of democracy in party politics is the type of untoward behaviour that largely puts our nascent democracy at risk of hitting the rocks. Even at the highest leves of party politics, it is claring for all to see that the leaders are not comfortable embracing the recommendations of th Electoral Reforms commission, because in implimenting this to the very last letter, tey stand to lose immensely in the political rostrum. Unfortunately, as laudable as the ERC's efforts at sanitising our electoral process is , it appears that there are still a huge amount of work to be done to actualise these recommendations.