Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has tasked the All Progressives Congress government to provide good governance because Nigerians are expecting delivery of democracy dividends after campaigns and elections.
Ekweremadu threw this challenge when the Coalition of Election Observers paid him a courtesy visit. He urged the APC to form policies and programmes that would benefit majority of Nigerians irrespective of political affiliations.
Apparently referring to the statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari, where he was quoted to have said the election of Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President was unacceptable, Ekweremadu said the sanctity of the ballot box must be respected.
He cited the case of President Goodluck Jonathan who conceded defeat in the 2015 general election to the opposition party.
Ekweremadu also advised the political leaders across the African continent to borrow a leaf from Jonathan, pointing out that he saved Nigeria from crisis by refusing to be pressured into challenging the sanctity of the ballot box.
According to Ekweremadu, the eighth National Assembly will further amend the Electoral Act to make the 2019 elections more credible and acceptable than that of 2015, adding that the alterations made on the 2010 Act yielded good results. “We are about to form legislative agenda for the eighth Senate. This will include electoral reforms.
“As I said in the beginning, we have finished with politics, what is remaining now is governance and this country belongs to all of us and the constituents are not interested whether you are APC or PDP.
“What they want is good governance and we must unite as a people to give Nigeria good governance. The issue of bickering and differences does not have any place in the minds of our people. What they want is performance, they want to see good governance and we must unite.”
The convener of the coalition, Dr Nwambu Gabriel, condemned the Amnesty International’s report on civil rights abuses by the Nigerian military. The coalition urged Senate to also condemn what it described as Amnesty’s “blatant act of irresponsibility” as well as defend the military.
