Former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has cautioned that if nothing is done to regularize the election in the country, Nigeria’s presidential election may one day join the eight states already having off-season elections.
Jonathan gave the warning after voting in Otuoke, his home town during the off-season election currently taking place in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo.
He urged the National Assembly regularize the elections in the country because off season election is not a global best practice.
He said: “I get worried about the issue of off-season election. I will use this opportunity to plead with the National Assembly that we need to block this off-season election. It is very odd. It is not the global best practice. We can have a system of electing people like the United States of America at different times. But every time we go out for election, we must elect everybody that is supposed to be elected.
“If we continue with this trend of off-season election based on the interpretation of our laws, it will come to a time when the presidential election will be off-season.
“When I say presidential election may be off-season someday, some people will ask how? It almost happened in 2007 when I contested as a running mate to late President Yar’Adua. The seven justices that presided over the case, three of them said the election be annulled. Four of them sustained the election. If one of them had crossed over, by now Nigeria’s election will be off-season,” he said.
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