The Presidential candidate of PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has said that Nigeria must address electoral lapses that cause rigging of election in the country.
Atiku, a former vice president, in a statement yesterday by his media office, said one way of addressing the lapses was to implement the salient recommendations of the National Electoral Reform Committee (NERC) headed by a former Chief Justice of the Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais.
He said the second was the creation of electoral crimes commission.
The former vice president said one of such recommendations, which would enhance the independence of the “supposedly Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)” was the recommendation that the power to appoint the chairman and board of INEC be taken away from the president and given to the judiciary.
He said Nigeria today faced a lot of challenges, chief of which was security and economic challenges, adding that to effectively tackle these, government must have an honest and indisputable mandate.
“Obviously, the 2019 elections were several steps down from the 2015 elections in terms of credibility, and as a democrat, I am challenging that election in the right arena, the courts,” Atiku said.
“However, leadership does not just entail getting justice for the past. A real leader knows that in terms of justice, prevention is always better than cure,” he said.
