2019: Can INEC meet Nigerians’ expectations?
Nigerians to change the status quo, as the then opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, APC wrestled power from the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP after 16 years in the saddle.
As the pendulum swings to 2019 with visible signs that Nigerians have not entered the ‘eldorado’ as they anticipated in 2015 since there is loud cry about heightened hardship and insecurity in the land. They are again desirous to “change the change”. That is indisputably the expectations of Nigerians now. But the big question that almost defies precise answer is: can INEC meet Nigerians’ expectations?
INEC on its part, has tried to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that it is keen to meet Nigerian’s expectations in the upcoming polls, having introduced five innovations aimed at conducting a credible exercise, as recently highlighted by Mohammed Haruna, INEC National Commissioner and member of its Information, Voter Education and Publicity Committee.
According to Haruna, “among the Commission’s key innovations in furtherance of its mandate in the last three years, are first and foremost, the fixing of the dates of future general elections going forward from 2019 and its subsequent issuance of the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2019 General Election on January 9.
“Second, is its reintroduction of simultaneous accreditation and voting.third, is its implementation of the constitutional and electoral provisions for continuous voter registration (CVR). Fourth, is its enhancement of existing 167,875 smart card readers (SCR) for authentication and verification of its biometric permanent voters’ cards (PVC). Last, but by no means the least, there is its introduction of Form EC 60E, the so-called peoples’ result sheet”.
Other measures include the signing of memorandum of understanding with transport unions for efficient delivery of logistics for the 2019 general elections, which Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, said is to reassure Nigerians that INEC is determined that all polling units nationwide will open at 8.00hrs.
Even with rising concerns on the growing phenomenon of vote buying witnessed in some offseason elections such as the Ekiti and Governorship elections, INEC said it has developed a special mobile application to checkmate vote buying and other electoral malpractices.
Mustapha Lecky, National Commissioner with INEC, announced that the mobile application which would allow Nigerians monitor the 2019 general election can be freely downloaded through the INEC website or Google Playstore, with geo-referencing features to address the new phenomenon of “vote buying,” a recurring feature in recent elections in the country.
With all these strategies, can INEC meet Ngerians’ expectations? The answer to my mind is no. This is because the main thing that made the 2015 general elections a bit better than the previous ones was the deployment of smart card reader for accreditation. The card reader later became a subject of litigation after the 2015 polls, on account of the absence of legal backing.
INEC still insists that it would use smart card readers for accreditation in the 2019 elections but that would be procedural and not lawful as President Muhammadu Buhari has declined assent to the 2018 electoral amendment bill which provides legal backing for the card reader, electronic transmission of data among other provisions that seek to make elections free, fair and transparent.
The inclusion of the card readers in the electoral act was made possible via an amendment to Section 49 by inserting a new subsection (2) which states that, “the Presiding Officer shall use a Smart Card Reader or any other similar technological device that may be prescribed by the Commission, for the purpose of accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the particulars of the voter in the manner prescribed by the Commission.
The declined assent rendered the prohibition of the use of incident form for election useless despite claims by INEC. The use of the card readers ensures that only registered voters actually vote on election day, making the process more credible but the reverse is now the case.
Also, the compulsory transmission of election results from polling units to collation centres, enshrined in the amendment bill has been thrown behind, giving room for manual manipulation of results in the process of physically transmitting them from the polling units to collation centres which in most terrains is kilometers away.
There are strong indications that if the use of incident forms and manual transmission of results from polling units to collation centres are not prohibited by law, such loopholes may be exploited to manipulate the results in favour of certain candidates.
In fact, many political observers have affirmed that the ruling APC has planned to rig the 2019 general elections in connivance with INEC. Buba Galadinma, National Chairman of the APC stressed that, Buhari, “has already decimated one of the indices of making elections correct by refusing to sign the electoral act for the fear that to strengthen the electoral act of 2018 will stop his people from rigging.
Another issue is that while INEC kept silent on the matter of Buhari’s refusal to sign the electoral amendment bill, it has however cried out loud that the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU without possibility of being called off before election dates would jeopardise the polls.
Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, had lamented that the ASUU strike is a threat to the Commission’s preparations for the conduct of the 2019 general elections as over 70% of the ad hoc staff requirement for the elections are drawn from students of federal tertiary institutions. This has further prompted the question of whether INEC can meet Nigerians expectations in 2019?