Don urges Nigeria to modify the electoral system after South Africa’s

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By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
An Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Ilorin, Dr ‘Gbade Ojo on Friday advised  the Nigerian government to take a cue from the South Africa’s voting system as a way of having an all-encompassing electoral system in the country.
Dr Ojo who gave the advice in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan after his visit to South Africa where he monitored the country’s municipal elections held on 11 August, 2016 declared that the South Africa’s electoral system reduces both cost and frequency of elections at the municipal level.
According to the Don, “South Africa’s federal system exhibited glaring variations from Nigeria’s federal structure” saying his visit to South Africa was borne out of curiosity to see how both the whites and blacks co-habit since the collapse of the apartheid policy of the country. Dr Ojo pointed out that “a unique feature of the local election and per adventure the electoral law in South Africa is provision for special voters” whereas the  Nigerian electoral law and system did not make any provision for special cases of such.
“The law allows those that apply for special consideration to vote before the actual voting day. This was two days before the D-day. They were the aged and physically challenged including those that may have genuine reasons not to be available on voting day,” he said.
Dr Ojo added that “both the aged and people with disabilities compete for space and attention here. It is amusing that most of our public buildings do not take into consideration the plight of the disables” saying, “in  essence, it may be expedient to take a dim view of local government creation in Nigeria. With population growth, it is better to expand the space for grassroots development. The United States of America that we ape as a model of both democratic and federal state, there are well over 10,000 local government areas that take care of municipal governments.”
The Associate Professor stressed further  that “the uniqueness with the South African system which is cost saving is the fact that voters do not need voters’ card which was even non-existent.  To vote, all potential voters signify their intention by registering to vote before the election.”
He noted that “what you require on the D-day is the National identity card or International passport.  More so that the name was already on the voters register; the voter must have also signified which province he/she intends to vote”.
“Nonetheless, South Africa’s federal system exhibited glaring variations from Nigeria’s federal structure. First, local government election took place in all the provinces and municipals simultaneously across the country.  Secondly, local governments in Nigeria are not perceived as ‘locale’ of power because they are far away to autonomy as a tier of government”.
The teacher of Comparative Politics stated that two things struck his mind about the South Africa electoral election which was held  on a Wednesday, though with public holiday declared with no restriction of movement (unlike the usual norm in Nigeria), and that voting hours was between 7.00am and 7.00pm.
Analyzing the South Africa local government electoral system with that of Nigeria, he said “the 1999 Constitution as amended made them an appendage of state governments; completely under legal supervision by the state Houses of Assembly, while the South African model actually made the third tier to be a training ground for democracy”.
“One other juxtaposition that worth noting is that of tenure; while, the life span of elected local government functionaries in Nigeria is three years they govern for five years in South Africa.”

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