THE President of the Ijaw National Congress, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, has said the rejection of the electronic transmission of election results by the National Assembly has exposed those who want Nigeria to remain backward and unworkable.

Okaba spoke in Yenagoa on Monday during the formal opening of the office of the National Spokesman for Ijaw Youth Council, Ebilade Ekerefe, as well as the commemoration of his one year in office.

He described the shooting down of the amendment bill as anti-democratic, retrogressive and pathetic, adding that fraudulent electoral processes had been the greatest challenge affecting the country from moving forward to the path of sustainable development.

Okaba, who teaches Sociology at the Federal University, Otuoke, said forces working against the country’s progress were at work to continually promote and protect their selfish interests.

The INC chief said, “Nigerians know that the day the votes of the people count and the choices of the people matter, a lot of things will change in this country and the key to having that is to have a transparent electoral process.

“But if people who got voted and had the mandate to change things for better in this country still feel that we should go analog, retrogressive; it is very pathetic.

“For me, it is another way of saying that many of the leaders are not good leaders in the first place because they are not prepared to lead this country to greatness. They are only there to serve their selfish purposes, their personal aggrandisement, personal interests and not national interest.”

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He urged the nation’s leaders to take a cue from the INC’s election which was smooth and clean and the results electronically transmitted as voting was going on.

Okaba, who declared that Nigeria was on the edge of the cliff with the enemies of the country showing more impunity on a daily basis, called for the unity of the Ijaw people.

“In his remarks,  Ekerefe, said that the Ijaw youths would work with the INC to realise the Ijaw cause.