INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega
The Independent National Electoral Commission is saddled with, among others, the responsibility of handling electoral matters in Nigeria. In this report, the issues that will be used to assess the success of the electoral umpire in the conduct of the 2015 general elections is simply examined below.
All eyes are on the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria’s electoral umpire, concerning the conduct of the much-anticipated 2015 general elections. No doubt, it is a huge responsibility to conduct elections in an emerging democracy where many politicians crave for power.
The functions of INEC are contained in Section 15, Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (As Amended) and Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended). The laws, among other functions, empower the commission to conduct elections into elective public offices. These include the office of the president, vice president, governors, and deputy governors. It is also to conduct elections into the Senate and House of Representatives.
The power to conduct local government area chairmanship elections, which were vested in States Independent Electoral Commission, is being moved to INEC, going by the amendment of the laws.
The country has experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, when it comes to elections.
The 1993 elections, especially the annulled June 12 presidential election, have been widely acclaimed to be the freest, fairest and most credible. It was conducted by the then National Electoral Commission of Nigeria, under the chairmanship of Humphrey Nwosu. The commission deployed Option A4 voting system and the Open Ballot System for the election.
Despite challenges, some close watchers of the electoral system have said there is relative improvement on how the country carries out its electoral process today. They cited computerisation of the system by INEC and the coding of ballot papers, ballot boxes and polling units, among others.
Aside these, political pundits have called the attention of the commission to other issues. They are:
Voter registration and voter card
The ongoing distribution of permanent voter cards is part of efforts towards having a comprehensive and up-to-date voter register. However, both the voter registration exercise and the distribution of voter cards have suffered public criticism.
The nationwide voter registration exercise conducted by INEC had recorded several irregularities until the anomaly was eventually corrected.
Currently, INEC is distributing PVCs nationwide and conducting a Continuous Voter Registration. However, this is not without criticism, especially from political parties and politicians.
For instance, it was the turn of nine states — Kano, Edo, Ogun, Imo, Lagos, Rivers and Nasarawa — last weekend for the third phase of the nationwide distribution of PVCs by INEC. The exercise, scheduled to hold between November 7 and 9, was marred by irregularities.
Expectedly, the opposition All Progressives Congress and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party had engaged themselves in a war of words over the hitches.
While the opposition party accused INEC of programming the exercise to favour the PDP, the ruling party fired back by accusing the APC of having a hidden agenda.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Kayode Idowu, last Sunday, denied the allegations, while announcing an extension of the exercise in Lagos by 24 hours.
He said, “Contrary to allegations in some quarters, no duly registered person has been delisted from the Register of Voters, neither will any be denied his/her PVC.”
While INEC has deferred and reschedule the distribution of PVC and its CVR exercise in the affected areas, political scientists have warned that due to the political atmosphere which is becoming tense, any slight mismanagement of issues by INEC may generate controversy.
Voter apathy
Another issue INEC has to contend with is voter apathy. The development, observers have said, may frustrate efforts by INEC to ensure hitch-free and widely acceptable elections.
Just on Monday, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Abia State, one of the twelve pilot states where PVC distribution began in May, Professor Jacob Jatau, expressed worry over the alleged apathy by the electorate in the state towards collecting their PVCs.
Jatau told journalists in Umuhaia that voters in the state were not collecting their PVCs since the exercise started in May. He said less than 50 per cent of registered voters in the state had collected their cards since the collection exercise started six months ago – three months to the elections.
According to Jatau, unless there is an attitudinal change, many eligible voters might be disenfranchised in the 2015 elections.
Prior to the Ekiti State governorship election held on June 21, 2014, the REC in the state, Halilu Pai, had in May expressed fears that voters might shun the election.
He said over 285,794 permanent voter cards had yet to be collected with just five weeks to the election.
In a scenario like this, political analysts have raised the alarm over possible situations where the few who have their cards will have their say over the majority without cards.
Electronic voting
The commission has often blamed its failure to adopt electronic voting system on unavailability of enabling law.
The Head of Publicity Division of INEC, Mr. Nick Dazang, in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH in June, expressed the eagerness of the commission to adopt electronic system. He said this was why most of INEC’s operations were technology-driven.
He said, “By law, we are not supposed to use electronic voting machines. We also have canvassed for it but so far, the law does not permit the commission to use electronic voting machines. Until the law is amended, we cannot do so.”
Earlier in February, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had said it would be “practically impossible to adopt the electronic voting model in the 2015 general election, even if the National Assembly were to lift the prohibition on its usage.”
At the Senate on April 1, 2014, when three separate bills seeking various amendments to the Electoral Act 2010 passed for second reading, the lawmakers were divided on e-voting.
However, the Nigerian Bar Association, on August 10, 2014, urged INEC to introduce electronic voting machine to enhance the credibility of future elections.
The Chairman, Election Working Group of the NBA, Dafe Akpedeye, in a statement on behalf of the group, said, “INEC should move towards the use of Electronic Voting Machines for elections, as it has indicated that it has the capacity to use such process, which it used to collate results in the collating centres.”
However, the National Chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, on October 30, 2014, stated, “We are hoping that INEC will do their best. Good as the chairman is, he does not know the reality of what is on ground under him. Our prayer, as far as INEC is concerned, is that they use card readers in the election so that we can be sure of a cleaner process. It is a no-go area and a must that card reader has to be used.”
Better INEC management/techniques
Electronic voting is not all that the National Assembly is working on to improve INEC’s performance. The lawmakers are also working on the powers of INEC to issue duplicate voter cards before election, determine voting procedure, holding of elections on a single day, and to conduct debate for all candidates who are contesting election into the office of president.
With the ongoing review and amendment of INEC laws, there seems to be more work for the commission, and more challenges too, according to analysts.
The Assembly had on October 21 deleted the State Independent Electoral Commission from the Constitution, vesting the powers to conduct council elections on only INEC.
The lawmakers also made provisions for independent candidacy in future elections by amending Sections 65 and 106 of the Constitution. By so doing, analysts have said the electoral umpire may begin to cater for not only political parties but also politicians as independent candidates. In addition, ballot papers will carry more names, which translate to more cost on the side of INEC.
Political party (de)registration
Another issue the INEC contends with is the registration and deregistration of political parties.
In a massive swoop, INEC on December 6, 2012, announced the deregistration of 28 political parties.
The Commission’s Secretary, Abdullahi Kaugama, in a statement, said INEC deregistered the 28 parties “in the exercise of the powers conferred on it by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).”
However, some of the parties had sought redress in courts and won.
By the amendments made to the Constitution by the Assembly, the commission can now deregister political parties for non-fulfilment of certain conditions like breach of registration requirements and failure to secure or win either a presidential, governorship, council chairmanship or a seat in the national assembly or state assembly.
Not long ago, some newly-registered political parties emerged on the scene, including Dr. Frederick Fasehun’s United Party of Nigeria and Falae’s Social Democratic Party. This is an indication that more parties may emerge as the general elections approach, according to analysts.
With the new powers to be conferred on INEC in the constitutional amendment, observers of the political scene are expecting a massive deregistration of parties — those sometimes referred to as “mushroom parties” — after the 2015 elections.
Diaspora voting
At the moment, only citizens residing in Nigeria at the time of registration of voters can vote at any election, whereas Section 77 (2) of the Electoral Act says: “Every citizen of Nigeria, who has attained the age of 18 years at the time of the registration of voters for the purposes of election to a legislative house, shall be entitled to be registered as a voter for that election.”
Jega, who was represented by INEC Commissioner, Election Party Monitoring, Amina Zakari, had at a three-day National Stakeholders Forum on Electoral Reform in Abuja on January 29, 2014, said the much anticipated Diaspora voting was not feasible until the Electoral Act was amended.
The INEC boss, however, said it was proposing an amendment to the Act to enable Nigerians in the Diaspora, who were 18 years as of the time of registration, to vote. He added that denying the Diaspora the right to vote would be an infringement on their rights.
Terrorism and elections
Despite the ongoing terrorist acts by the Boko Haram sect, INEC has insisted it would conduct elections in the north-eastern part of the country, which is mostly affected by the insurgency.
In April, and subsequent other times, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said the commission would do its “best and conduct elections in every part of the country in 2015.”
Jega said, “Insecurity is a serious challenge to the commission and the entire electoral process. But we are ready to conduct elections in any situation. Security challenges are enormous, be it Boko Haram, kidnapping or even armed robbery.
“Elections can be conducted under situations of emergency rule. But all we are saying is that elections will be free and fair where there are minimal security challenges. Under a situation of emergency, many things are likely to happen, either people will be scared of coming out or they will come out and run into security cordons and be molested by security agents.
“Our hope is that by 2015 we will be able to conduct elections in all parts of the country. We are ready to conduct the elections everywhere in this country in 2015. We hope that security challenges will be minimal for us to conduct elections in 2015 and when we get to the bridge, we will cross it.”
Observers of the development in the region have expressed fears that a large percentage of the electorate might be disenfranchised in 2015 as millions of them had been displaced; some taking refuge in faraway Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Again, observers have doubted the possibility of conducting free, fair and credible elections in troubled states like Yobe, Borno and Adamawa, where Boko Haram is in control of the areas.
However, INEC’s REC in Borno State, Prof. Tukur Sa’ad, on Wednesday hinted that the commission planned to make provisions for Internally Displaced Persons to cast their votes in the 2015 polls.
Sa’ad, however, said INEC had yet to work out modalities for the IDPs to vote.
Militarised election
One issue that often generates criticisms is militarisation of election. This is massive deployment of security personnel and hardware by security agencies. Nigerians have witnessed such in recent elections, where the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police, the Department of State Security, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and several others deployed thousands of personnel for just a governorship election.
The October 20, 2012 governorship election in Edo State; the June 21, 2014 election in Ekiti; and the August 9, 2014 election in Osun are good examples.
Although during the public hearing organised by the House of Representatives on the bill for the amendment of the Electoral Act, 2010, held on August 20, 2014, Jega had backed a proposed amendment that would confer the exclusive power to manage and assign security men during elections on INEC. The bill also sought to limit the role of the military during elections.
Aside massive deployment of security, the appearance of masked security agents suspected to be DSS operatives during the Osun election had sparked protests, most especially from the APC.
In an apparent reaction to the development during an interactive session with local and international election observers in Abuja on August 20, 2014, the INEC chairman said “In recent times, we have witnessed an increased presence of hooded security operatives during elections. This is an emerging trend, which is highly worrisome and which needs to be addressed in good time.
“Security agents who are deployed on election duties should not be masked, the doctrine of transparency requires that they should be identifiable. We will not allow such persons during the 2015 elections. Any security personnel deployed for the election must be someone identifiable such that if anything happens we will be able to know who to hold responsible.”
While Jega also decried over-zealousness of some security agents during elections, he however maintained that the perceived over militarisation of the elections in Ekiti and Osun did not deter the electorate from voting for their desired candidate.
Jega said, “In fact, the two elections proved that there was a high correlation between the massive deployment of security and the willingness of people to come out and vote.
“Apart from over-zealousness on the part of some of the security men on the field, we discovered that people actually felt more secured to exercise their franchise. The key lesson our politicians need to learn from the two elections is that the era has gone when they relied on corrupt electoral officers or security agents to manipulate elections.
“In this era, any politician that intend to win election must reach out and convince the voters, be it through ‘stomach-infrastructure’ or otherwise. The only guarantee to win election now is to let the voters come out to vote for you, which in turn means that you must first of all convince them on your credibility.”
Speaking to SUNDAY PUNCH, the Head, Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Jonah Onuoha, said Nigeria was not ready for a digitalised electoral process, due to the infrastructural challenges in the country.
He, however, expressed approval of any means by which Nigerians abroad could exercise their franchise, adding that a transparent process should be the underlying factor.
Onuoha said, “If there is electronic voting and the numbers are not influenced, then one can be rest assured, especially with regard to voting by Nigerians in the Diaspora. Ensuring the eligibility of the votes is a different thing all together. But I don’t see how electronic voting can work in Nigeria because you can’t be particularly sure of electric power.
“Any idea that will enhance rigging should not be encouraged. In my opinion, it is a thing for the future. However, for those in the Diaspora, in order for their votes to count, it has to be done electronically. The facilities, unfortunately, cannot support it in Nigeria.”
According to him, INEC is not ready for the 2015 general elections. He cited mixed reactions to PVC distribution exercise as a basis for the argument.
“Many participants, including aspirants and officials who are in office, have raised the alarm. For instance, in the North-East where there is conflict, there is no sign that INEC can conduct elections. In fact, we don’t know where elections will and will not be conducted. We are about three months away from the elections, and the picture is not so clear. If INEC must conduct this election, it has to show evidence of capability,” he said.
Similarly, Prof. Remi Anifowose of the Faculty of Political Science, University of Lagos, argues that Nigerian expatriates deserve to be given the platform to vote in elections.
He said, “Nigerians in the Diaspora are patriotic people and, to a large extent, they would like to perform their civic responsibility. They even look forward to it. I think INEC should make the needful arrangements to ensure that such people are not left out. They should not be denied the privilege of choosing their leaders.”
