Jega harps on credible re-scheduled, 2015 elections

Ahead of the nextgeneral electionin 2015, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, at the weekend, expressed the determination of the commission to ensure a free, fair and transparent electoral process in the re-scheduled governorship elections and the 2015 general election.The INEC boss, who stated this in Kaduna while giving his key-note address at a post-election workshop for the INEC press crew, said that after the April elections, the commission had been making efforts to ensure that subsequent elections meet international standards.The INEC chairman, who was represented by the chairman, Information and Publicity Committee of INEC, Prince Adedeji Soyebi, said that upcoming governorship elections in some states would be test cases for the commission, and he assured that all arrangements had been made to ensure further improvement on the last elections.In his paper entitled, 'Media and the Process of Democratisation in Nigeria,' Head of Department of Mass Communications, University of Maiduguri, Professor Umaru Pate, said the media, as part of the political structure of the society, must operate within some economic and political parameters, hence any effort the media made to facilitate and strengthen the process should be viewed within the context of the seriousness of the political leadership in the country.He further said that there were some specific responsibilities that were most appropriately discharged by the media in consolidating the process, 'because the media institution widens the frontiers of the public sphere for good governance and development by legitimising, criticising and questioning the legitimacy, as well as the operations of the stakeholders.'The scholar charged the media to be bold in the discharge of their statutory responsibilities, saying it was their stake to hold all public officers accountable to the people.He argued that since it was not mandatory for anybody to be in public office, those who were there must be ready to open their books for public scrutiny.
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