Is INEC Ready for 2023 General Elections?
Interrogates INEC’s readiness for a hitch-free general elections next year.
Political parties in the country recently held their primary elections for various elective positions as the nation move towards another election circle. The public exchange of taunts and dares between supporters of candidates for the election have taken a new dimension just as the biles and bites among opposition party’s faithful have also been raised to the bar.
While all of these would linger till the general elections are over next year, attention has however been shifted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as stakeholders interrogate the Commission’s readiness to conduct a hitch free election come 2023.
All this comes against the backdrop of the rise of a Third Force led by youth across regional divide in the country, a movement that has put the Commission under pressure to register more Nigerians ahead of the election.
Consequently, Nigerian Labour Party has called on the Commission to do everything possible to ensure that prospective voters are not disenfranchised in next year’s polls.
National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure, commended the Commission for the progress recorded in the last few months in addressing some of the technical challenges witnessed during the Anambra State governorship election late last year and the FCT council polls in February, this year.
He said: “We need to improve on continuous voters registration because a lot of young people who want to register have not been able to register in the past two weeks across the country.
“You know registration is the Commission’s precedent for people to have their PVCs and then to be able to participate in the election.
“We want to appeal to INEC that they should deploy more officials to the field to continue with the registration of prospective voters”.
Abure who gave a pass mark to the Commission, said, “I have confidence in INEC that they would not be overwhelmed in terms of their preparation for the 2023 general elections. I know that INEC is prepared for the election. I know part of the defaults we noticed in the Anambra and FCT elections were corrected. But I am sure that it’s going to be put to test in the EKiti and Osun elections”.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had at different fora cleared all doubts about its readiness for the 2023 general elections.
Analysts, however, believe that the outcome of next year’s polls would have far-reaching implications for the country beyond 2023. They have, therefore, appealed that INEC must be at its best this time, warning that poor results could affect democratic transition in the country.
The analysts further submitted that the electoral body must do all it takes to preserve not only its integrity, but also to sustain the existing political stability in the country by conducting a free, fair and credible elections to the satisfaction of the Nigerian public and the international community.
Several stakeholders, including civil society organisations are skeptical about the elections given the irregularities that characterised political parties congresses in most states and challenges connected with the deployment of technology.
In its review of the 2019 general elections, INEC confessed that the deployment of technology in the electoral process came with challenges. The Commission also disclosed that it recorded over 1,689 litigations arising from the 2019 elections.
This was not only the challenge, logistic and operational plans also came up as a result of shortage of voting materials, especially ballot papers in many states.
The National Peace Committee led by General Abdusalami Abubakar, has also expressed fear that the forthcoming 2023 general election could not meet the expectations of Nigerians for a free, transparent and credible electoral process.
In a recent statement signed by the former Head of State, the peace committee said, “judging from the experience at the recent party primaries, where politicians monetised the entire process, the hope of ordinary Nigerians that their interest and aspirations will be reflected in the outcome of the 2023 general election may be lost.
“We are aware that the 2023 election may not be the best – as can be attested to by the monetisation of the process, the acrimonious conduct of the recent party primaries, and the elevation of the ‘delegate position’ over and above the welfare of ordinary Nigerians,” the committee said.
INEC which had come under public criticisms over failure of the technology the Commission deployed during last year’s governorship election in Anambra State and the February FCT local government polls, was also criticised when the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mamood Yakubu, who was perceived to be under pressure from the ruling party, extended the deadline for party primary elections in a bid to give the parties enough time to prepare for the exercises.
The decision did not go down well with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who accused INEC of altering the goalposts in the middle of the game, emphasising that election certainty is the backbone of democracy.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on 25 February 2022, signed the Electoral Bill into law. The law has now toughened the country’s electoral laws, adding to the tension and signalling that it could,
for the first time in years, have elections that could widely be considered credible.
Provisions in the new law give the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) more decision-making powers and set aside early funding for it to avoid embarrassing technical and logistic lags that have characterised past elections in the country.
The INEC had in February this year disclosed that it has received substantial amount of funds for the election, this was even before the signing of the electoral law.
Similarly, the law also gives legal backing to the use of electronic card readers for voting and electronic methods for transferring results for collation, to the disappointment of some politicians who had argued that the state of the country’s telecommunications network system could hinder voting in some areas.
With barely nine months to the general elections, civil society organisations have advised that beyond the new Electoral Act that gives more power for the country’s electoral umpire, the INEC has the duty to purge itself off moles in its midst across the country.
On its part, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has maintained that for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a free and credible elections in 2023, it must summon the courage to dismantle its current technical department to consolidate on its ongoing reforms.
The group also warned that if the advice was not heeded, INEC would continue to harbour moles just as it would continue to experience technical hitches that might cause the Commission serious embarrassment that could put its credibility into question.
Chairman of the group, Auwal Ibrahim Musa, raised the alarm that despite ongoing reform efforts by the Commission, Nigerians were still skeptical of the credibility of next year ’s election due to several allegations of manipulation of sensitive electoral materials, especially BVAS by staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to favour selected political actors during election.
Auwal said the very reason why election in Nigeria was a do or die affair, was because “some politicians and some security agencies as well as some officials in the electoral body have turned election into a money making business”.
He explained that although there have been improvement in the electoral process by the way of reforms, however civil society organisations would continue to support INEC and provide them with credible information on how to improve on the electoral process in the country.
According to him: “We have seen that transformation since Attahiru Jega came into INEC and this current INEC has also consolidated on those achievements.
“We will urge the leadership of INEC to carry out a kind of deployment of some people within INEC headquarters because part of the observation that many people have made is that when you have some people sitting in a particular department, especially departments that has to do with logistics, they are used to this arrangement that continue to fail.
“So it’s important that INEC leadership redeploy and reorganize sensitive staff who have stayed long and whose contributions have not helped improve the electoral process. By so doing, the allegations made against these people would have been addressed.
“There are allegations that politicians have individual contacts in INEC. If you are able to reorganise the place, do some deployment, bring some staff from the headquarters to other places. I think it would also allay the fear that many people are having that one of the reasons why we continue to have logistics challenges, procurement failure is because some people have entrenched themselves in a particular department or location. So there is need to unbundle that and do redeployment and also have new orientation for the staff there. Also contractors who have been there need to comply with Public Procurement law.
“This is the only explanation on why these machines continuously refuse to work. If there is no manipulation or deliberate attempt to shortchange the electoral process, why is that we are having issues with these machines and why is that we have not sufficiently trained the electoral officials to handle these machines very well? This why I said the technical department also needs reform.
“Deployment is part of the technical issue in INEC, especially dealing with the BVAS which is one of the departments INEC must unbundle because there appear to be allegations of manipulation in that process. If we want to have a better election, that department would have to be dismantled. There is no way you will continue with the way things are structured there. BVAS would come and they would not be working and people complain. So where are the technicians.
“I think it’s important we take this very seriously because if we want to really see a better election in 2023, we need to take into consideration all these issues that I have just pointed out otherwise we would continue to have a repeat of these problems without solutions”, Auwal advised.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had at different fora cleared all doubts about its readiness for the 2023 general elections. Analysts, however, believe that the outcome of next year’s polls would have far-reaching implications for the country beyond 2023. They further submitted that the electoral body must do all it takes to preserve not only its integrity, but also to sustain the existing political stability in the country by conducting a free, fair and credible elections to the satisfaction of the Nigerian public and the international community