Jega, INEC And Ability To Deliver Credible Polls

Uzo Chikere

Since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the rescheduling of the dates for the elections in Nigeria from February 14 and 28, 2015 to March 28 and April 11, 2015, there has been so much buzz in the polity. And it is not about to stop as it is being speculated that the electoral body has continued to exhibit symptoms of seeming inability to successfully see to the conduct of the general elections even as it had been rescheduled.

Before the postponement, the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had boasted that his Commission was fully prepared for the exercise. But according to him, based on advice by the military chiefs, to the effect that they could not guarantee the security in the event of elections being conducted in the troubled states of the North-East states of Bornu, Adamawa and Yobe, it became expedient to shift the dates of the polls. 

But at a National Council of State meeting where the security chiefs’ advice concerning insecurity, was said to have prompted the postponement of the polls, it would seem that this provided Professor Jega and his INEC a veritable lee way to gain time over which to fine tune its unfinished arrangements for the important national exercise.

For the elections which had been earlier billed for February 14 and 28, 2015, as at February 17 the major instrument for the participation of the electorate, the Permanent Voters’Cards (PVCs) were yet to be adequately and evenly distributed to registered would-be voters across the country. And yet the INEC chairman insisted that the Commission was fully ready to conduct free, fair and credible polls on the hither-to scheduled dates.

As at the time under review, INEC according to its claim had been able to distribute in all the six geo-political zones of the federation 75.88% of the PVCs. while the average collection percentage for all the zones excluding the North East and North West regions was below the 75.88 percentage.

A close look at the breakdown of this shows a huge disparity between the north and south;  North East – 82.95%, North West – 88.66%, North Central – 73.78%, South East – 73.35%, South West – 63.20% South South – 74.09%.

Curiously, by March 8, 2015 all elections would have been concluded even with the results announced INEC under Prof. Jega’s record of PVC distribution and collection could only amount to 80%. According to the Commission’s National Commissioner in charge of publicity and Voter Education, Dr. Chris Iyimoga,: “I am delighted to report that as I speak to you, we have surpassed the 80 % threshold for the collection of the PVCs nationwide. We have distributed 55,234,874 PVCs to 68,833,476 registered voters.”

The fact of the matter is that INEC with Prof. Jega on the saddle is pretentiously making progress after the postponement of the election whose date he had persisted would be February 14 and 28. However, following its shift to later dates, they realized that it was time to latch onto the postponement to correct their inadequacies regarding their ill preparations for the polls.

Even as INEC held that card reader machines had been tested and met the required expectation, the electoral body still found it expedient to use the extension period of the elections to test-run the devise in two states of each of the six geo-political zones on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

The states selected for the exercise included, Ekiti and Lagos, (South-west); Anambra and Ebonyi, (South-east); Delta and Rivers, (South-south); Kano and Kebbi, (North-west); Bauchi and Taraba, (North-east); Niger and Nasarawa, (North-central).

Again, the electoral body for the umpteenth time recently extended the period for the collection of PVCs to March 22. 2015,six days to the postponed presidential polls.

For some politicians, it is either that Jega is incompetent or trying to use Nigerians. According to him, Jega should have test-run the card reader machines before pushing them out for the botched February 14 elections.

In the view ofDelta State governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Great Ogboru, Jega should have test-run the card reader machines before pushing them out for the botched February 14 elections.

“Till today”, he noted,” nothing good came out of Jega’s Electronic Machines; now he has come with Card Reader Machines’ I think it is high time he stopped using Nigeria as a testing ground; the commission should do what is needful." 

For the chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) in Cross River State, Mr. Cletus Obun, the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, is incompetent. Hinging his reason on the postponement of the polls, Obun said it was wrong for Jega to have caved in to the pressure mounted on him, on the excuse of insecurity in the North-east of Nigeria, more so, when the military has no constitutional role in the conduct of elections.

It is also no secret that INEC under the leadership of Prof. Jega had before now started exhibiting signs of decline in the performance of its mandate to deliver to the electorate free fair and most credible election. It will be recalled that the commission under the watchful eyes of its chairman bungled the November 16 Anambra gubernatorial poll when he admitted that the exercise was an electoral gain reversal.

Even as the INEC helmsman owned up the shoddy performance of the body in the South-East state, he promised that all hopes were not lost, stressing that the electoral body would do well in future.

Said he: “Anambra is an election we fully prepared for. We worked more than we had ever done in any state. Regrettably however, what we saw was evidence of reversal in Delta and Anambra. We are disappointed with the reversals,” the INEC chairman said. “But we are not leaving any stone unturned at unraveling what actually transpired. We will investigate Anambra thoroughly and meticulously. We will do a thorough enquiry in Anambra. We cannot afford to lose hope. We will do better in the future.”

Presently, activities of the commission in the build-up to the polls appear to cast doubts on the ability of its topmost man to successfully deliver the expected mandate of a near flawless election in the couple of days ahead.

Close observers of the country’s political environment are of the strong view that the signals coming from the commission are wrong. They argue also that there was incongruity in the way Prof. Jega pursued the canceled February 14 and 28 polls considering that by the statutory provisions regarding his appointment his terminal leave was expected to commence on March 28 pursuant to his disengagement from office.

By the same token, according to a school of thought, the hurry by the INEC chairman to prosecute the elections in February despite that the commission was ill prepared for it, could be on purpose to act out a sinister script.

As the elections fast approach, it behoves Prof. Jega and INEC to show proof of diligence and ability to deliver to the Nigerian populace and in deed, the international community what seen to be highly credible elections even as time is of utmost essence.