Tope Adeboboye
Recently, senior officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), led by the commission’s chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, converged on Ikeja, Lagos for a review of the 2019 general elections.
For five days, they were engaged in a series of interactions with different professionals and stakeholders, including journalists, university teachers, resident electoral commissioners and others.
The forum was the commission’s post-2019 General Elections Review Meeting with different stakeholders.
At the review with the media, INEC top shots and editors brainstormed on critical challenges that confronted the electoral system during the last elections and how future challenges might be tackled.
Some of the challenges identified by the participants include the procedure for accreditation of media organisations and reporters, access to information on INEC and its officials before and on election day, adequacy and effectiveness of public enlightenment and voter education, conduct and experiences of voters – notably people living with disabilities and other vulnerable persons – on election day, voter turnout, conduct and experiences of party agents, security personnel, candidates and political party chieftains, collation and declaration of results, fake news and hate speech.
The meeting also deliberated on INEC responsibilities, number of political parties, campaigns by candidates and political parties, prosecution of electoral offenders, legal framework and election technology.
In his address, the commission’s chairman, Prof Yakubu re-echoed INEC’s determination to improve on future elections. He assured that there would be noticeable improvements in the governorship polls holding in Kogi and Bayelsa States in November, as well as the by-election scheduled for August 3 in Bassa, Plateau State.
Yakubu asserted that elections are a collective responsibility involving all stakeholders. He emphasised that all stakeholders – the electorate, political parties, politicians, security agencies, electoral officers and the media, among others – have roles to play to ensure a credible exercise.
He explained that some of the recommendations received from foreign observers, especially the Commonwealth Observers’ Group and European Union (EU) would be addressed by the commission, but informed that some others could only be addressed by the National Assembly.
The INEC chairman applauded the media for their assistance and support during the last election
While describing the poll as the most acrimonious in the nation’s history, Yakubu said even before the election, disagreements in the conduct of primaries among the political parties had created an atmosphere of distrust and enmity.
He said the acrimony that marred the electoral process had forced the commission, while obeying various court rulings, to issue 87 certificates of return.
“We have been taken to court in 809 cases relating to the conduct of party primaries. That is more than the number of cases arising from the elections itself,” Yakubu recalled.
The INEC chair blamed the parties for what is perceived as its poor outing. He recalled that attempts by the parties to change the names of candidates who duly won in the primaries was first noticed in the conduct of the primaries of two political parties in Anambra State. He said the parties changed the names of candidates that won the primaries as they were bringing the list from Awka to Abuja.
Yakubu said the commission had, in the past, held the impression that Section 31 of the Electoral Act, which states that once a party submits the name of a candidate, INEC could not reject it under any condition whatsoever, was sacrosanct.
He explained further: “That was until we discovered that Section 87 provides certain conditions be met for Section 31 to apply. A political party must conduct direct or indirect primaries. I am happy that issues were joined and we went all the way to the Supreme Court. Now, it is clear that where there is no evidence that Section 87 was complied with, you cannot plead Section 31. We have played such activist roles to advance the electoral and legal framework in our country,” he added.
Chairman, INEC Planning, Monitoring and Strategy Committee, Dr. Muhammed Lecky, said the entire review would be concluded with the publication of the INEC report on the 2019 general election. This, he noted, would be part of the commission’s accountability to Nigerians.
He said the commission was contemplating having some town hall platforms to engage a wider Nigerian audience on the outcome of the general election.
He said the commission had been forced to, on many occasions, fight off misinformation about its activities and position on some very sensitive matters, with repeated issuance of counter rebuttal and press releases.
“While I am not sure of the documented outbreak of violence attributed to mainstream media in Nigeria, the same cannot be said of social media, which has taken a more virulent tone and large-scale falsification of the truths.
“INEC has been a victim of this. We may want to recall the bashing INEC received on account of fake news on the Kano under-age voting saga, which was widely and uncritically reported by even the mainstream media,” he said.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr. Festus Okoye opined that constitutional and legal alterations and amendments alone would not solve the challenges in conducting elections. In his words, reforms in the electoral process must include improvements in the administration and management of elections, as well as a change in the attitude of major stakeholders.
Said he: “There is no doubt that the conclusion of the 2019 general election offers the commission and the major stakeholders in the electoral process an opportunity for reflection and appraisal of the constitutional, legal, administrative and logistic issues.
“It offers us an opportunity to appraise the challenges in the election and adjust it, jettison some of the issues and processes that did not work or did not work well.
“While it is right and rational to alter the constitution and amend the laws to take care of new, emerging and novel issues that may arise or have arisen, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that every electoral challenge must be solved through constitutional or Electoral Act amendment.”
Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Sam Olumekun said it was regrettable that blames were being heaped on the commission for many situations that were beyond its control. These, he noted, were vote buying, violence, and violation of nomination guidelines by political parties, among others.
While insisting that INEC was not a “solve-all” organisation, he stated: “It is not uncommon to blame the commission for every inconceivable fault during elections. It is surprising to hear people blaming the commission for issues such as vote buying, political violence and nomination of candidates.
“It is imperative for the media to not only interrogate the 2019 elections but also ask where we were in 1999 and where are we today. If there have been improvements since 1999, I think these ones also should be mentioned.”
He recalled that Lagos State had 6,570,290 registered voters, 245 registration areas and 13,423 voting points. A total of 60, 560 ad-hoc workers were recruited for the conduct of the elections, he added.
He also said there were 73 presidential candidates, 54 senatorial contestants, 276 for House of Representatives and 640 for state House of Assembly candidates, while 45 contestants entered the governorship race in Lagos State.
In her own contribution, President, European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES), Monica Frassoni, addressed the issue of ‘fake news.’ She opined that when journalists are not allowed to report the facts and speak the truth, others with no qualification, experience or judgment would fill the vacuum for a public that is constantly hungry for content on social media.
“This is by no means a Nigerian issue,” she noted. “This is a growing global threat. As such, we have to deal with it.”
She recalled that her organisation held a workshop on fake news, which was designed to help lNEC staff across the headquarters and states recognise, flag up and deal with fake news, disinformation and misinformation.
President of Guild of Editors, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, who was represented at the forum, raised a number of issues.
“How do we handle political parties that are fond of endorsing candidates of other parties? How do we curtail the do-or-die attitudes and desperation of politicians to win, which leads to violence? How do we handle cancelation of voting due to violence since politicians will like to disrupt election where they are not strong?”
She also complained that security agents were fond of harassing journalists on electoral duty.
Chairman of the Lagos State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Dr. Qazeem Akinreti, wondered why INEC had continued with the tradition of employing members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) for the movement of sensitive materials during elections. He suggested that professionals in logistics should be saddled with that responsibility.
He also proposed that NUJ be involved in the accreditation of journalists for electoral duty to avoid fake journalists. He agreed with Egbemode that politicians might want to disrupt elections in places where they are not popular, since INEC would cancel the results from such places. He said a new solution was needed.
While regretting that electoral crime had persisted over the years, he said electoral offenders should be given adequate punishment to serve as a deterrent to others.
Other issues discussed at the review include field experiences with collation processes, logistic issues in the collation process, issues and challenges in the collation process and other general matters.