A National Commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr Festus Okoye, who doubles as the Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, tells TUNDE AJAJA and OLUWAFEMI MORGAN about the commission’s preparation for forthcoming elections
The rate of insecurity across the country is frightening and there are insinuations by some persons that the 2023 election may not hold if the situation persists, is INEC confident the general elections will hold?
The commission is concerned at the level of insecurity in the country. The commission is presently engaged in Continuous Voter Registration and has deployed thousands of its staff for this exercise. The exercise is not taking place in some frontline local governments with heightened security challenges while in others, it is restricted to the state and local government offices of the commission. For the 2019 general election, the commission deployed over a million ad hoc staff to conduct elections in the 119,974 polling units across the country. For the 2023 general election, the commission will deploy close to 1.5 million ad hoc staff for the 176,846 polling units. Activities will take place and staff will be deployed to the 8,809 Registration Areas, the 774 local government areas as well as all the electoral constituencies.
The commission will continue to work with the various security agencies under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on election security to degrade the current security challenges in the country. However, the remit of the commission is to organise, undertake and supervise elections. The question of the 2023 general election not holding does not arise. We must collectively work towards the restoration of normalcy in all parts of the federation. All component parts of the country and all communities are entitled to be part of the collective that will elect those that will govern the country in 2023. The commission is determined to conduct free, fair and inclusive elections in 2023.
If the situation persists, is there a possibility the date would be reviewed again?
The period, time frame and schedule for the conduct of the 2023 general elections have been constitutionally and legally circumscribed and any disruption of the timing and sequence will result in a constitutional crisis. Sections 132(2) and 178(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) makes it mandatory that elections to the office of the President, governors, National and state Assemblies shall hold not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office. The tenure of the President, Vice President, governors and deputy governors of states of the federation (except Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun states) will expire on May 28, 2023 while the National and state Assemblies will stand dissolved on June 8, 2023. The period set aside for the conduct of the elections is sacrosanct and cast in stone. The commission cannot add to or subtract or detract from it. The commission can orbit around it but cannot go outside it. Any attempt to sidetrack it or violate it will result in a constitutional crisis and no rational electoral management body will like to see such a scenario.
With the new Electoral Act in place and the subsequent review of the timetable for the 2023 elections, has INEC commenced the preparations for the general elections, like the procurement of sensitive and non-sensitive materials, or it’s too early for now?
The Electoral Act (2022) is a progressive piece of legislation. It is a product of multi-stakeholder intervention in the electoral reform process. It embodies and encapsulates previous amendments made to the repealed Electoral Act (2010). It contains some of the suggestions, recommendations and drafts submitted to the Senate Committee on INEC and the House Committee on Electoral Matters. After the 2011 general election, the commission harvested suggestions on further amendment of the Electoral Act and forwarded to the National Assembly. Those recommendations, together with additional ones harvested and consolidated in 2015, were submitted again for consideration. It was these two sets of recommendations, modified and updated, drawing from the commission’s field experiences, that were submitted after the 2019 general election to the National Assembly and this forms part of the Electoral Act (2022). The Act also benefited from recommendations made by accredited domestic and international election observers, internal and external review of the conduct of the 2019 general election and some off-season governorship and other bye-elections. The Act is also a product of civil society interventions; judicial pronouncements and decisions and the experiences of members of the National and state Assemblies; the various political parties and members of the public.
What progress has been made as regards procurement?
Before the passage of the bill, the commission had started preparations and the implementation of activities leading to the 2023 general elections. The commission audited the non-sensitive materials in its state and local government offices as well as zonal stores to determine gaps, needs and shortfalls. The commission commenced its procurement processes and procedures. The commission expanded access to polling units through the conversion of Voting Points and Voting Point Settlements to new Polling units. Since 1996, Nigeria operated on the basis of 119,974 Polling Units and conducted the 2019 election with a total registered voter population of 84,004,084 registered voters. The commission converted 56,872 Voting Points and Voting Point Settlements to full-fledged Polling Units bringing the total number of Polling Units in Nigeria to 176,846. The commission relocated polling units, which were not properly sited or situated, to public and accessible locations.
What about the printing of sensitive and non-sensitive materials?
Printing of sensitive election materials by security printers will commence early and will be delivered to the Central Bank of Nigeria in the various states ahead of the election. The commission has launched its Strategic Plan 2022-2026 and 2023 Election Project Plan. These, in addition to the constitution and the Electoral Act, will form the legal framework for the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
The commission said in January that it would need to procure about 200,000 BVAS machines for the forthcoming elections, has that been done already and what happens to the card readers?
The commission has retired the Smart Card Reader as an accreditation device. Technology keeps improving and evolving and does not travel backwards. We now have a more modern and robust technology for voter accreditation. The Electoral Act 2022 validated the technological innovations deployed by the commission. It cemented the place of the Smart Card Readers/Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System in voter accreditation process, which was hitherto an administrative decision provided in the commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections. Section 47(2) of the Act provides that to vote, the Presiding Officer shall use a smart card reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the commission, for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the particulars of the intending voter in the manner prescribed by the commission. However, the commission is taking delivery of the BVAS in batches.
INEC presented a N305bn budget to the National Assembly for the 2023 elections and the commission said in January that N100bn had been released. Has the remaining funds been released to the commission now or part of it is still pending?
The commission has the requisite funds to carry out most of its pre-election activities. Procurement processes have started for the shortfalls in terms of non-sensitive electoral materials. A large proportion of the funds required to execute the 2023 general election will go towards the payment of ad hoc staff and this will be required towards the period for the conduct of the election.
Now that the electronic transmission of results has the legal backing of the Electoral Act, will INEC adopt e-transmission of results in the Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections or will its deployment start with the general elections?
The Electoral Act 2022 validated the technological innovations deployed by the commission. Section 50 of the Act provides that subject to section 63 (here read section 60) of the Act, voting at an election and the transmission of result under the Act shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the commission. Section 60 of the Act mandates the Presiding Officer in an election to count the votes, enter them in the prescribed forms and transfer the result including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner prescribed by the commission. Section 64(6) of the Act prescribes procedures for the resolution of disputes during collation.
Where during collation of results, there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election from any polling unit, the collation officer or returning officer shall use the following to determine the correctness of the disputed result: the original of the disputed collated result for each polling unit where the election is disputed; the smart card reader or other technology device used for accreditation of voters in each polling unit where the election is disputed for the purpose of obtaining accreditation data directly from the smart card reader or technology device; data of accreditation recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed as prescribed under section 47(2) of the Act; and the votes and result of the election recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed, as prescribed under section 60(4) of the Act. The commission will conduct the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections within the confines and compass of the Electoral Act (2022).
Will INEC procure fresh equipment for the electronic transmission of results?
The commission has introduced an all-in-one device to the electoral process. This multi-functional integrated device has different acronyms for the different activities it is used for. During voters’ registration exercise, it is called INEC Voter Enrolment Device. During voters’ accreditation, it is called Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, known as BVAS. During result upload, it is called INEC Result Viewing Device, known as IReV.
The INEC in Lagos State said a few weeks ago that about one million PVCs have not been collected. Can we have an idea of how many have yet to be collected nationwide?
The collection of permanent voter cards remains an ongoing venture. We have devolved the voters’ registration exercise to the Registration Area level and Nigerians are seizing the opportunity to collect their cards. The commission registered a total of 84,004,084 Nigerians before the 2019 general election. As at February 11, 2019 just before the election, a total of 72,775,502 Nigerians collected their PVCs representing 86.63 per cent, but 11,228,582 did not collect their cards. Since then, the commission has conducted many off-season governorship elections and bye-elections and so many Nigerians seized the opportunity to collect their cards and the collection is ongoing.
Section 77(3) of the new Electoral Act mandates each political party to make its membership register available to the commission not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses or convention. INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, said only one party had complied. Is that not disturbing?
The parties have between April 4 and June 3, 2022 to conduct their primaries. They are still within time to comply. It is a mandatory provision and they must comply.
How does the commission intend to monitor campaign spending and how can the worsening voter apathy in elections be addressed?
We have decongested the existing polling units and taken some to underserved communities. We have introduced transparency in the electoral process and Nigerians are experiencing a new resurgence in electoral power. We will continue to introduce technology and other creative and innovative initiatives that will make the votes count. All the critical stakeholders must work assiduously and reassure the Nigerian people that votes must count. We will as a commission continue to monitor campaign spending within the confines of the law.
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