Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has said Nigeria needs a deep refection about if it wants democracy or not over persistent low turnout of voters during elections.
Speaking during an interview on Thursday on Arise Television’s ‘Prime Time’, Onaiyekan attributed the low turnout to loss of interest by Nigerians because of insincerity of the government and the electoral body.
Last weekend, the FCT Area Council election witnessed low turnout of voters across all the polling units in the nation’s capital city.
Airing his views, the cleric said, “This deterioration has been going on. Like I mentioned, if you take the indices of the numbers of Nigerians that come out to vote, you will discover that they are very few
“Only 23% of registered voters showed up in the last general election because the people no longer believe in the process. Which means whoever emerged as the winner had been elected by a very small minority of Nigerians.
“Those in power need to make sure the election becomes acceptable and popular with the people.
“I could remember that some people were not allowed to vote. There was a lot of manipulation. I still remember how many young people made pilgrimages to the INEC offices for many days to collect their Voters Cards, PVCs.
“If we do not want democracy, we should say it. We should be sincere about elections in Nigeria.”
