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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged that Nigeria would within the limits of resources do her best to support the consolidation of democracy in West African countries.
According to a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari made the vow at State House, Abuja, when he received President Roch Marc Christian Kabore of Burkina Faso, who was on a one-day official visit to Nigeria, yesterday.
“We are keeping tabs on situations in countries that have elections ahead. We know the countries that are calm and the ones where there have been unfortunate casualties. We will always support those who have elections ahead, so that things can go smoothly.”
Burkina Faso holds legislative elections in November, this year.
President Kabore, who chairs the Economic, Trade and Liberalization Scheme of ECOWAS, said he was in Nigeria to discuss crucial sub-regional issues with President Buhari. The issues discussed included the convening of a joint commission meeting between Nigeria and Burkina Faso, reported trade difficulties among Nigeria, Ghana, Republic of Benin, and Niger Republic, and the way forward.
President Kabore commended President Buhari for what he called “strong leadership and support” displayed by the Nigerian leader in his capacity as Chairman of COVID-19 response in West Africa.
On the situation in Mali, he expressed hope that the summit held in Accra, Ghana, on Tuesday, would yield positive results, stressing: “We need cohesion all over West Africa.”
Meanwhile former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has proposed a grading system for elections within Commonwealth member-nations as a means of improving the quality of elections, promoting democracy and strengthening institutions.
The former president who is the Chairman of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation advised the 53-member nation body to develop what he called a ‘democracy marker’ which is a benchmarking system of election reporting to serve as a scoring formula for measuring compliance to identified democracy standards within the Commonwealth. He stated this at a special virtual High Level panel which focused on 40 years of Commonwealth’s election observation experience.
“I associate myself with the efforts to improve Commonwealth election observer experience in line with the Revised Commonwealth Guidelines for the Conduct of Election Observation in Member Countries. As in any human experience, we can always seek to further strengthen the efficiency and effectiveness of our involvement and enhance the impact it will have in ensuring the sustainability of democracy among Commonwealth member nations.
“Along this line, I suggest that the Commonwealth develops a benchmarking system of election reporting that weighs member-nations’ performance against defined assessment standards. This can be done without compromising Commonwealth’s policy of neutrality and non-interference on internal affairs of member-nations,” he said.
Dr. Jonathan further counselled the Commonwealth to develop “a kind of ‘Democracy Marker’ with a grading framework or template for the assessment of a country’s performance after every election season.
“Once you do that you will find that those in charge of affairs in every country in the Commonwealth will then begin to make conscious efforts to improve on their performance. That way, Commonwealth recommendations after observing elections, will become more meaningful.”
He affirmed that the rating would serve as a scoring standard for measuring compliance to identified criteria, preferably on a scale of 1-4 or category A, B, C or D, depending on the agreed template.
“There will be no risk of direct interference because those who win under any of the identified categories will of course continue to run their countries according to their own national rules and laws. But they should know, depending on the rating of their elections, whether the process that brought them to power was below or or within Commonwealth standards. That way, leaders will know that the world is watching and assessing their performance. From their rating, they will be able to know whether their election satisfies the expectations of the international community or the Commonwealth to which they freely belong.
“From one election cycle to the other, a nation will be able to determine whether they are improving or retrogressing. There is no doubt that such a grading system will see nations struggle to move up the ladder.”
