As the elections get closer Nigerians have all eyes on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Not many Nigerians would want to be in Professor Mahmood Yakubu’s shoes at this moment. The toughest job in Nigeria today is the INEC Chairman’s job.
INEC must be coming under a lot of pressure from the All Progressive Congress for ruling that the party has no candidates on the ballot in Rivers and Zamfara States. INEC has stood its ground on this matter and that should be applauded. INEC has come under pressure from opposition parties on the appointment of Amina Zakari as collation officer and stood its ground on this matter.INEC has also responded positively to pressure from international observers to change some of the provisions in the 2019 Elections Guidelines to give all the stakeholders a bit more comfort. It is also worthy of note that INEC has announced that it will throw open the processes that would take place at the Situation Room during the 2019 elections to enhance the integrity of the election. It is therefore assumed that the Situation Room will have international observers, accredited representatives of the various political parties and election monitors.
As regards the status of uncollected PVC’s, people believe, and I share the view that INEC has not done very well in the way and manner PVC’s are collected in certain parts of the country. In some parts of Nigeria traditional rulers are used to aid collection of PVC’s and in other parts the local government offices were PVC’s are collected are not properly manned. It should be noted that there are 774 local government areas but the population of each local government area differs. It is therefore unfair not to have several collection centers for the populous local governments. At the Eti-Osa Local Government in Lagos State where I was supposed to collect my PVC the process was quite shoddy and disorganized. With each person who comes to collect PVC’s the officials have to shuffle large packs ofPVC’s to manually search for your PVC. Many people were told their cards could not be found but the cards were later found when the citizens persisted.
Still on uncollected PVC’s I find it difficult to believe that in this day and age INEC cannot update the number of uncollected PVC’s on a daily basis from 774 local governments. Why do we have to wait until 8th February when PVC’s collection ends to know which states or local governments has the least or most collected PVC’s. This information is very important from a voter mobilization stand-point. INEC has also been taken to court in relation to voting guidelines for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s). INEC has come up with guidelines for IDP voting under an amendment to the 2010 Electoral Act which provides that: “in the event of an emergency affecting an election, the Commission shall, as far as possible, ensure that persons displaced as a result of the emergency are not disenfranchised”. The question being asked is whether the IDP’s in the IDP camps are subject to any ‘’emergency’’ to warrant a separate guideline on how votes are collated for IDP’s. This becomes a significant issue when we consider that there are approximately 2 to 3 Million IDP’s from available statistic. As regards collation the IDP guidelines provide for E-Collation which has raised eyebrows because INEC has insisted that collation of results for the rest of the country shall be manual. So why are IDP’s different? The plaintiffs in this case have sought a declaration that it would be unconstitutional and illegal for INEC to conduct elections in IDP camps, without first complying with the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act (2010) by compiling and maintaining as part of the national register of voters, the names of all persons entitled to vote in each IDP camp.
In my view, there is no such thing as a totally independent umpire. Umpires are human or manned by human beings who have their innate preferences and prejudices no matter how subliminal. The INEC Chairman and staff of INEC may not be outwardly partisan, but they surely know who they would vote for if they were allowed to vote. I frankly do not expect INEC officials not to have their own favoured candidates. They are also Nigerians and have their personal views on who deserves to be elected.
That said, Nigerians simply expect them to ensure that their personal views do not influence the way they do their jobs. Therefore, their sacred duty is simply to create a level playing field to enable all parties compete favourably. Unfortunately a fair number of Nigerians do not think INEC intends to create a level playing field. Why? Ebuka Obi-Uchendu the host of the TV programme Rubbing Minds could not have put this any better when he said in relation to INEC that a team is only as good as its last match or last few matches. He then went further to say that a fair number of Nigerians generally believe that INEC’s last two outings in Ekiti and Osun state gubernatorial elections indeed showed INEC’s propensity to use some‘’remote control’’ in collation of election results.
I recall that even International Observers attested to this.On the back of this perception, some voters I have spoken to have said elections are not about who votes but about who is counting and since they have no faith in INEC they do not intend to vote. My simple response to people who are of this view is that your doubt on INEC’s independence is the more reason why you should vote – the more voters out there, the more difficult to dis-count or mis-count in favour of one party or the other. Go out there and vote! Don’t be discouraged! Go get you PVC before the 8th of February when the collection centers at the various local government offices close.
Ayuli Jemide
