“Nigerians will recall that when this Commission was appointed in November 2015, we promised Nigerians two cardinal things. First, we shall work hard to consolidate the improvements made in the management of elections in Nigeria,” Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman told stakeholders on Saturday after postponing the presidential polls.
“Secondly, we shall always be open, transparent and responsive. We have strived diligently to keep these promises in very trying circumstances,” he said.
Three years in the saddle, the INEC boss has conducted enough elections to learn how to speak like politicians. “We have strived diligently to keep our promise” is not the same as “We have kept our promise”. On a day Nigerians expected action, Yakubu offered a litany of excuses.
One important question asked at the stakeholders’ conference by a representative of a political party is what preparations the commission was going to make within a week that it could not make in three years. The INEC boss essentially recapped what he said in his speech.
In the speech, he said, “We began the planning quite early, with a Strategic Plan (SP), 3 Strategic Programme of Action (SPA) and an Election Project Plan (EPP).
“In fact, the plan for the 2019 general elections was ready in November 2017 and we subsequently issued the timetable and schedule of activities for the elections over one year ago on 9th January 2018.
“We carefully followed the timetable and implemented 13 of the 14 activities as scheduled. We kept to the timeframe and have not missed the date fixed for any single activity.”
This explanation is akin to a student who failed a test justifying his failure by insisting he read all the recommended textbooks.
Yakubu said in preparations for the 2019 general elections, the commission has come face-to-face with the realities of conducting such an extensive national deployment of men and materials in a developing country like Nigeria.
“It is said that elections constitute the most extensive mobilisation of men and materials that any country could undertake in peacetime. The challenges of doing so even under the best of circumstances are enormous,” he said.
While this is true, the INEC boss was given everything he needed to execute the assignment. In October 2018, lawmakers approved N234.5 billion for INEC to conduct the 2019 general elections. Initially, the sum of N189 billion had been approved by the Senate Committee based on INEC’s request. An extra N45.5 billion was tacked on to avoid the very situation the Commission is giving to excuse its incompetence.
All the state security apparatus were at his disposal, the police and military forces were mobilised for the election and the nation was practically shut down for the elections.
With losses over $10 billion to the economy, in saner climes, the INEC boss would have tendered his resignation.
There are enormous challenges in delivering voting materials all around the country. DHL, Fedex and other courier companies face similar challenges making deliveries every day. Perhaps the commission could outsource these non-essential tasks.
Yakubu further said, “Within a period of 16 months, we registered over 14 million Nigerians as new voters, collecting their names, addresses, photographs and their entire ten fingerprints. Beyond that, we prepared, printed and delivered their permanent voter’s cards for collection. It should be noted that of the 14.28 million Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) made available for collection, about 10.87 million or 76.12% have been collected.”
The Commission may think it has done a spectacular job but it pales into insignificance when compared with a country like Indonesia. The country’s General Elections Commission (KPU) will register 190 million voters for its April presidential elections this year. Sixteen parties will be participating nationally for 20,000 seats in the MPR and local councils for provinces and cities/regencies all being contested.
But the key challenge is that Indonesia is the world’s largest island country, with more than 17,000 islands, and at 1,904,569 square kilometers, the 14th largest by land area and the 7th largest in combined sea and land area. It is the world’s 4th most populous country with over 261 million people.
Yakubu, a professor of Nigerian history, should know enough about the Nigerian terrain to use it to excuse failure. This postponement has raised a cloud of uncertainty over the elections as well as fears of its compromise.
While elections may hold next week, INEC has given reasons to believe that it will be shoddy, poorly organised and chaotic as every programme of this Commission, including PVC registration and collection, voter registration and management of adhoc staffs have been.
ISAAC ANYAOGU
