not later than 120 days and not earlier than 150 days to the end of the tenure of the office holder, making the next general polls due latest by January.
Leaving aside, for now, INEC and the federal republic's persistent problems with substantive democracy ...
... are they serious? I mean, the people who wrote this new, "amended" constitution?
The amended document requires the federal republic to hold elections no later than 4 months before the end of the term of office of the respective incumbents? So we will have a substantive official (e.g. Governor) as well as an "elect" official (e.g. Governor-elect) concurrently for FOUR MONTHS?
Why?
I understand that the many, many imperfections of our system mean the post-election tribunals and judicial processes often continue up to two (sometimes even three) years after the election itself. And I personally don't think it is right to swear someone into office while there are outstanding challenges to the validity of his "victory".
On the other hand, four months is not enough, if that is what this is about, because, as stated earlier, these challenges (notably the Uba/Ngige/Obi affair) go on longer than four months, and time-limits on challenges (if four months is meant to be a time-limit) only allow for the system to be manipulated to defeat democracy (as happened when Rotimi Amaechi became governor of Rivers State without receiving a single vote).
More to the point, the solution to chaotic, disputed elections .... is to not have chaotic, disputed elections. That is the solution. Writing and re-writing your constitution to adapt to persistently atrocious elections is just counter-productive, counter-intuitive and self-defeating. Well, self-defeating if you are interested in democracy; if, like the men and women who wrote this amended constitution, you actually benefit from the existing state of affairs, it is easy to see why you think that it is your duty to make the existing state of affairs more convenient.
I do believe there should be a gap between the election and the swearing-in of the new office-holder. Aside from the fact that none of the office-holders were properly (i.e. democratically) elected, we have faced a problem of unprepared men and women taking up office.
In the current environment, most candidates don't have any set of policies, positions or worthwhile intentions when the run for office; basically they are just rolling the dice to see if they get a chance to join and chop. And so they enter office with no idea of what they are going to do with their newfound "power". There should be enough time between "winning" and taking office for the "winner" to give a thought or two to what they intend to do beyond "chopping".
But even in an ideal environment, I would want elected officials to have time to shift from campaign-mode to leader-mode. Executives should start planning their cabinets. Legislators should give thought to whom they intend to elect to the legislative leadership positions, and to which committees they want to try to get onto.
And at the other end of the spectrum, I want incumbents to have time to steadily wind down. Where an incumbent is being replaced, there should be meetings, at least one between incumbents and their replacements, and at least two or three between their respective staffs (particularly policy advisers), to discuss where things stood, where things stand, and where things are going.
And the citizens of Nigeria at large should be given time to mentally adjust to the end of one era and the beginning of another.
But FOUR MONTHS?
Come on.
Six weeks would be perfect.
No, it is not the same thing.
Six weeks is 42 days; four months is 120 days.
If we had a properly functioning democracy, a 6-week window would be wide enough to complete most election disputes, even if re-counts were necessary. Obviously, in a properly functioning democracy, protests about "rigging" would be aberrant rather than the norm, and gentlemanly/lady-like concession speeches would be the order of the day.
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