Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State, has urged the media to pressure President Muhammadu Buhari (retd) to sign the amended Electoral Act.

The governor stated that the media needed to educate Nigerians about why election results should be transmitted electronically to save the country’s democracy.

Wike said this after receiving the “Gold Prize for Exceptional Leadership” from the ThisNigeria Media Newspaper on Wednesday in Abuja.

In a statement made accessible to news reporters in Port Harcourt, the Governor’s Special Assessment on Media, Kelvin Ebiri, relayed this.

Given the importance of the Electoral Act modification to the nation’s democracy, he believes the media should consider pressuring the President to sign the amended Act as a top priority.

The governor stated that the Nigerian media, as a watchdog of the community, should educate Nigerians on the benefits of both direct and indirect primaries.

“Who are those to benefit more if the direct primaries are conducted. Who are those to benefit more if it is indirect primaries. So, it is important that Nigerians should know why there should be an electronic transmission of results to save our democracy,” he stated.

According to the governor, the only way for those in positions of power to become accountable to the public is for the electoral process to be free and fair.

Any electoral system that allows security personnel to rig elections and officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission to be influenced, he claimed, will not provide accountable governance.

Governor Wike praised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for conducting a successful governorship election in Anambra State.

“Now, they have performed well in Anambra State, everybody is praising them. But when they did not perform well in Rivers State, should we praise them? We cannot. When a general in the Army will convert a whole division to INEC office, will you be happy?”, he said.

For Nigeria to attain the desired national cohesion, he advised Nigerians to always downplay their ethnic and religious affiliations.

“There is the need for all of us to still believe that this country must be united. But, if we want to move forward, we must drop the issue of where you come from. We must drop the issue of where you worship. Overemphasis on these things causes a lot of disintegration and which is not the best for us,” he said.

Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ekiti State, who presided over the event, said the country was passing through difficult times.

According to Fayemi, the country’s current difficulties provide an opportunity for the country to emerge as a great nation.

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, who delivered the ThisNigeria inaugural speech, ‘National Cohesion for Sustainable Growth and Progress: The Nigeria Dilemma,’ faulted the country’s lack of national cohesion on the original authors of the Nigerian constitution.

“Something as fundamental as a constitution, the debate, and the issues that ought to form the kernel of our governance have never been subjected to the intellectual rigour that is required. The result is that we have never debated our constitution based on the peculiarities, the cultural expectations, the hopes, the anxieties, the fears of ordinary Nigerians,” Kukah said.

He claimed that the country will not be repaired unless Muslims understand Christians’ concerns and Christians understand Muslims’ grievances.

Governor Wike was given the newspaper’s flagship award for his remarkable leadership in the vanguard of the infrastructure transformation, according to Mr. Eric Osagie, publisher of ThisNigeria.