August 29, (THEWILL) – YakubuThe Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which was recently commended for its performance in the off-cycle governorship elections held in Ekiti and Osun States, stirred the hornet’s nest when its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, was quoted as saying that the results of the 2023 general election would be collated manually.
“Section 60(5) of the Act makes it mandatory that the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner prescribed by the commission. Thereafter, the presiding officer shall after recording and announcing the results deliver the same along with election materials under security and accompanied by the candidates or their polling agents, where available to such person as may be prescribed by the commission.
“The implication of this is that the collation process of results is still essentially manual, but the collation officer must collate subject to his verification and confirmation that the number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units,” Okoye explained.
Okoye’s position was wrongly interpreted to mean that the commission would drop the electronic transmission of results that was used in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States.
This drew huge criticism from Nigerians who panicked and started spreading the rumour that INEC was already planning to rig the 2023 General Election.
In his reaction, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, speaking through his spokesman, Daniel Bwala, alleged that INEC had started laying the foundation for the rigging of the forthcoming general election through the manual collation of results.
“Section 60 is clear. At the close of voting at the polling unit, the voting results will be uploaded, meaning that by the time the officer from the unit goes to the ward, he cannot present a result different from the one that was uploaded, which every voter can have access to it,” Atiku said.
According to him, the same thing applies to the local government and the state, because there is evidence that results have been sent to a server where they cannot be manipulated.
He said, what Okoye said means they are creating the room and possibility for somebody to manipulate the result without prejudice to the counting and the result as announced at the unit.
The PDP candidate told INEC that Nigerians are not interested in litigation, but in a free, fair, credible election where their votes will count.
According to him, If INEC relies on manual collation, they will be going around the provisions of the Electoral Act to take the country’s electoral system backwards.
He continued, “Sadly, they are trying to find a solution where there is no problem because this same electronic upload and transmission has been done in Anambra, Ekiti, Edo and Osun States and they were successful. That procedure has not been challenged.
“If you go to court all the challenges in court were around certificates of the individual and whether that individual is qualified or not. But that procedure has worked.
“So why are you trying to fix something that is not broken? It means something is fishy, we smell coffee. And that’s why we’re calling all well-meaning Nigerians and lovers of democracy in Nigeria and beyond to raise their voices and speak with one voice.
“There must be strict compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act with respect to electronic upload and transmission of result, without prejudice to what INEC is thinking about bringing”.
He warned that INEC must never try to change the procedure that has worked in these states mentioned and the 2023 election must be free and transparent.
“We don’t want litigation. We want the voice and the will of the people to prevail in Nigeria,” he added.
But INEC two days later made clarification to the earlier report, as it said that it would continue to adopt electronic transmission of results for the 2023 general elections.
Okoye who had been criticised by Nigerians across social media platforms over the comment said it was misinterpreted. He insisted that the electronic transmission of results adopted in the recent off-season governorship elections has come to stay.
He argued that the electronic transmission of election results has boosted the INEC’s credibility as witnessed in the recently concluded governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States.
He said the commission had concluded plans to use the same procedure for the 2023 election.
“We wish to reassure Nigerians that the electronic transmission of results has come to stay. It adds to the credibility and transparency of the process when citizens follow polling unit-level results on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time on Election Day. There will be no change or deviation in subsequent elections.
Preparation for the 2023 general election
As preparation for the 2023 general election continues, INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has not minced words as regards the Commission’s commitment to raising the bar of the standard set in previous elections.
He recently charged Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) to work towards addressing some recurring logistic problems in the conduct of elections and ensure that the 2023 general election is different from all previous elections in terms of the commission’s preparation and delivery.
Yakubu said the commission was committed to reviewing the engagement with stakeholders on the proposed expansion of voters’ access to polling units as well as the preparation for the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, among other things.
He said, “As we continue to plan for the next general election, the RECs have been directed to compile and submit an inventory of all election materials in order to determine shortfalls and take early steps to ensure their adequacy and availability.
“Only a few states are still outstanding. I wish to remind the states that are yet to make their submissions to do so by the end of this week. This will enable us to address some of the logistics issues that have become a recurring decimal in the conduct of elections in the past. The 2023 General Election must be different from previous elections in terms of our preparations and readiness”.
Commenting on planning for elections, the INEC Chairman disclosed that the Commissions current Strategic Plan (SP) and the Strategic Programme of Action (SPA), 2017- 2021, has been reviewed to capture the period from 2022-2026.
Also as part of the preparation for the 2023 elections, INEC has disclosed that it would deploy over 200,000 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS).
Speaking on this, Okoye said that the BVAS would be deployed in the 176,000 polling units across the country, adding that the surplus will be kept handy as reserve.
He said, “We will have one BVAS reserve in every Registration Area Centre (RAC) to ensure immediate intervention in case of any failure.”
Okoye also said that technical officers would be on standby at every RAC to attend to any technical issues that could arise in the course of the polls.
He said that INEC had the capacity to conduct a credible general election in 2023, adding that the commission is poised to replicate the achievements and successes recorded in the Ekiti and Osun governorship polls.
As part of efforts to achieve a credible election, INEC has again made a case for the establishment of a new commission to deal with electoral offenders.
At a public hearing on the “Bill for an Act to establish the National Electoral Offences Commission,” Prof Yakubu said work on the country’s electoral process would remain incomplete if electoral offenders continue to walk freely without conviction.
He acknowledged additional powers given to the commission in the new Electoral Act 2022 and argued that only electoral offenders are made to face trial, while the masterminds of the offences have not been properly dealt with.
Yakubu said he regretted previous attempts to pass the bill for the establishment of the commission without success, saying the failure to do so had frustrated efforts to get justice against offenders in Nigeria’s courts over the years.
According to him, of the 125 cases of electoral offences filed in various courts, only 60 convictions have been made since 2015.
“The Bill for an Act to establish the National Electoral Offences Commission is a critical legislation. It has been part of all national conversations on constitutional and electoral reforms for the last 13 years,” Yakubu said.
“The Justice Mohammed Uwais Committee on electoral reforms recommended it in 2009, echoed by the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu Committee following the post-election violence of 2011 and, most recently, by the Senator Ken Nnamani-led Committee on Constitutional and Electoral Reform in 2017.
“Similar recommendations are contained in reports of police investigations, INEC administrative enquiries, court judgments, reports by the National Human Rights Commission as well as several accredited election observers. It is clear that the reform of our electoral process cannot be complete without effective sanctions on violators of our laws.
“At present, INEC is saddled with the responsibility of prosecuting electoral offenders under the Electoral Act. This has been very challenging for the Commission. For instance, since the 2015 General Election, 125 cases of electoral offences were filed in various Courts out of which 60 convictions have been secured so far, including the most recent one in Akwa Ibom State. In addition to these responsibilities, the Commission is required to prosecute electoral offenders”, he said.
He further said that the Commission’s inability to arrest offenders or conduct an investigation that leads to the successful prosecution of high-profile offenders led to the suggestion to unbundle it and assign some of its extensive responsibilities to other agencies as recommended by the Uwais and Nnamani Committees.
Yakubu said the proposed electoral offences commission would take care of such gaps.
He said he looked forward to a day in Nigeria where not just ballot box snatchers, falsifiers of election results and vote buyers at polling units are successfully prosecuted but “also high-profile figures that seek to benefit from these violations, are arrested and prosecuted.”
Dismissing the arguments against the establishment of the new commission in the past by different committees, Yakubu argued that if other security agencies had been established to deal with economic and financial crimes outside the EFCC, having an agency to specifically deal with this concern (election offences) should not be regarded as unnecessary.
The INEC boss also call the attention of the lawmakers to the observed gaps in Clauses 33(1) and 44 of the bill under consideration.
With reference to Clause 33(1), he argued that the section which confers power on Federal, State and FCT High Courts to try offenders has not been effective given the volume of cases before the courts.
He proposed that an “Electoral Offences Tribunal be established with exclusive jurisdiction to try electoral offenders.”
On Clause 44, which empowers the Attorney-General of the Federation to make rules or regulations for the Commission, Yakubu argued that conferring additional power to any other body may cause friction or conflict with the proposed Commission which should be independent in the discharge of its functions even if doing so requires a consequential amendment to other laws of the federation to empower the Commission and guarantee its independence.
“In any case, Clause 1(2)[c] of the Bill grants the Commission power to make its own rules and regulations,” he stated.
He said because work on the Bill started before the passage of the current Electoral Act into law, all references to the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), for example, Clause 39(1), should be replaced with the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
Speaking with THEWILL, Comrade Sola Olawale, a member of the Campaign for Democracy in Ogun State said, there is the need for urgent prosecution of electoral offenders especially those that were involved in vote buying and selling during the Ekiti and Osun governorship election.
He said this would serve as a deterrent to others who may wish to engage in vote buying and selling during the 2023 general elections.
A petroleum engineer, rights activist, and presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2015 general election, Mr. Martin Onovo said, “INEC is one of the major enemies of democracy in Nigeria. INEC has continued to violate the integrity of the ballot and the rule of law in many ways. INEC must not push Nigeria from a failed state to a collapsed state.
The electoral umpire has disenfranchised voters in the past, registered underage voters, allowed underage voters to vote, allowed voting without accreditation, falsified election results and frustrated the audit of election results.
My advice to INEC is to maintain its independence and follow the highest paths of integrity and transparency at every stage of the elections.
Also speaking with THEWILL, a former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines, Dr. Yemi Farounbi, said his advice to INEC is that it must in deed, action and truth demonstrate that “it is an unbiased, independent and impartial electoral umpire.” It must avoid inconsistency and policy somersaults that will give people the impression that it’s working for and with any political party.”
About the Author
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
