Attahiru M. Jega by office-seekers and are left to rely on whims or, indeed, primordial sentiments in exercising their choice of representatives. Of particular note is the spate of ex parte injunctions that have been issued against the Commission. One would expect that parties should have clear rules and procedures for selecting candidates and resolving issues therefrom to the satisfaction of all their members. It seems to me that a primary source of the problem here is lack of internal party democracy, resulting from lack of commitment to party rules. d. Need for even Greater Citizen Participation: Clearly, an active citizenry in a political system is crucial to the sustenance and deepening of a country's democratic experience. Although there has been a geometric growth in the involvement of stakeholders in the electoral process, there is room for improvement. The active participation of citizens not only ensures sustained engagement and participation in the political and electoral processes, it could also be a bulwark against the impunity in political culture, a bit of which I described above. EMBs across the world need an active citizenry to complement their efforts at ensuring that elections are free, fair and credible. Our experience in Nigeria is that the citizenry has been largely apathetic towards the political process due to widespread poverty, lack of literacy and distrust of government. Without an active citizenry, efforts towards enhancing the credibility of elections by the Commission would have limited impact on the electoral process. Apart from the four key challenges I have outlined above, there are a number of what I may call residual challenges. I outline them briefly: 40 Stakeholders and the Electoral Process in Nigeria: Review of 2011 Elections and Projections for 2015 a. Delay in Amendment to the Legal Framework, namely the Constitution and Electoral Act: The global best practice is to ensure that no changes are made to the electoral legal framework later than six months to the elections. We hope that all amendments will be completed early enough to ensure that they are widely understood by both practitioners and the general public. b. Completion of the Review of Electoral Constituencies and Polling Units: The Commission is committed to carry out this exercise, although the constraint of time makes it unlikely for this to be concluded before the 2015 elections. Equity of representation is one pillar on which democracy rests. c. Prosecution of Election Offenders: This remains a major sticking point in the work of the Commission. We have repeatedly noted that the Commission lacks the capacity to prosecute the huge numbers of offenders. We hope that our proposal for the establishment of an independent body to deal with electoral offences, which is also in the report of the Election Reform Committee, will materialise. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, election management and election governance must be broadly cooperative. Stakeholders are at the very heart of this cooperative, after all elections are for them. We at INEC have been prime beneficiaries of the support of stakeholders in the electoral process in the past, particularly in the 2011 general elections. To be sure, there is room for even greater cooperation as we prepare for the 2015 elections. 41