INEC, VCP And Build-up To 2015
Elections
Uzo Chikere
February 2015 is like across the road. This year in question
is about elections in Nigeria, the country with largest number of black people
in the whole world. But as the citizens and in deed, the international
community look forward with trepidation to this all important political
exercise designed to make informed choices of individuals trusted up by their
political parties as leaders and representatives, the establishment saddled
with the responsibility to midwife the process, the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), in recent time has appeared to be exhibiting in
many of its steps abject lack of responsibility in that regard.
From what stakeholders in the Nigerian political arena have termed
INEC’s shoddy disposition to the handling of the issuance of the Permanent
Voters’ Card, it would appear to many Nigerians who had trooped out to the
various polling units to collect their cards without qualms, that the national
electoral empire might still be grappling with the challenges of being weaned,
and therefore not mature enough to be entrusted with a task of such magnitude.
Again, with the Professor Attahiru Jega- led INEC not being able to realize
that preparations for the next general elections after 2011 would have started
instantly with the commission firing on all cylinders, observers hold, casts
doubt on its seriousness about ensuring that a credible, free and fair election
would be achievable under its guidance in 2015.
If all that transpired in the process of collection of PVC
which ordinarily should have been the end result cum conclusion of earlier
registration exercise can be anything to go by, the inescapable summation is
that INEC could possibly be confronted with an overwhelming scenario when the
2015 elections matrialise. Given that INEC has, and draws up the time-table for
elections in the country, and appearing to have been caught unawares with the
distribution of the PVCs is an indication that the electoral body might have
lost its sense of responsibility or that the whole essence of its mandate to
conduct and regulate all elections and electioneering process has been lost on
the body.
From INEC’s conduct of the PVC distribution across the states
of the federation which was done in three staccato phases, coupled with the
citizens’ harrowing experience during that exercise, the disposition of the electorate
to the up-coming polls can only be conjectured. In Lagos for instance, those
who sought to obtain their PVCs found no INEC official at many of the polling
units where they had registered in 2011 on the first day of the exercise. On
the second day of the exercise initially slated to last from November 7 to 9,
2014, there were large crowds of enthusiastic residents of Lagos eager to
collect their PVCs. But their disappointment knew no bounds as they met with myriad
of discrepancies ranging from outright loss of data due to what the officials at
polling unit 039 in Mende Maryland, attributed to system crash to insufficient
supply of the PVCs by the company to which INEC contracted the printing others.
Frustration set in along the line as a lot of persons swore
to abandon the exercise even if it meant being disenfranchised.
There are those who feel that the Slovene and lackadaisical
manner that characterized INEC’s distribution of the PVCs, especially in the
opposition All Progressives Congress (APC)-ruled states was a deliberate plot
to disenfranchise the residents in such states as well as set the stage for
rigging by the ruling PDP.
In his reaction to the development, Governor Babtunde Raji
Fashola of Lagos State where the exercise had to be postponed as well as done
in two batches accused INEC of foul play. He maintained that: “This
is because by omission or commission, INEC has decided to make this a painful
experience for us in Lagos by announcing that it will only issue Permanent Voters’
Card in (Eleven) Local Governments.”
INEC had decided to distribute the PVCs in the
first instance, in such local governments as Agege, Ajeromi-Ifelodun,
Ifako-Ijaiye, Ikeja, Mushin, Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland, Ibeju-Lekki,
Ikorodu, Kosofe and Ojo, while postponing the exercise in nine local government
areas, which include Alimosho, Amuwo-Odofin, Apapa Badagry, Oshodi-Isolo, Epe,
Shomolu, Surulere and Eti-Osa.
It then promised
that it would conduct the exercise on November 28, 29 and 30 of, 2014.
Fashola further
lamented: “I can only imagine the level of disappointment that you must all
feel, having waited anxiously for this exercise and in spite of the fact that
we had declared a work-free day.I am deeply disappointed at this display of
lack of planning that speaks volumes of the contempt and disregard of this
national agency for the rights of citizens. I wish to recall that it was INEC
that first announced that this exercise was planned for August, and later
shifted to September, and later to today and yet they did not get it right. If
this is a foretaste of what we should expect in the general elections, for me,
it is a bad start. It tastes awful.”
The appalling
performance of INEC in the distribution of the PVCs which not only frustrated
would-voters in the impending 2015 pols, but reached the point of incensing
Lagos residents who angrily but peacefully protested against what some
stakeholders perceived as a subtle plan by INEC to rig the up-coming elections especially
in states controlled by the All Progressives Congress, APC, which informed the
hoarding of the PVCs from getting to the people.
In listing the
problems associated with exercise across the states, the national Leader of the
All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu expressed suspicion over the
development, pointing out that INEC was on purpose colluding with the
Presidency to rig the elections to the advantage of the ruling People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) through delay in delivery of Permanent Voters Card.
He also raised
questions concerning the eligibility of INEC to conduct a free and fair
election going by the shoddy manner in which it conducted the distribution of
the Permanent Voter Cards to eligible voters.
Tinubu lamented that
“INEC had four good years to prepare for the coming 2015 elections and there
are laws, particularly constitutional and electoral act requiring certain
actions to be taken.”
He further stated: “They
gave us temporary voter cards to vote in 2011 and now decided that there will
be permanent voter cards consistent with biometric verification devices to
improve on 2011 and make 2015 verifiable and show an improvement over the past
record consistent to the standards across the
world. INEC told us
that they are ready. They said they have put everything in place. They gave us
the date only to discover 48 hours ago that they are not even ready for the 20
local governments recognised by INEC in Lagos State.
“They gave us the
date only to tell us that only 11 local governments will be ready. Rather than
outright boycott, the party endures the frustration and appeal to the public to
continue with the 11 local governments. Our field reports, personal experiences
and from what we observed so far, the exercise even in the so-called 11 local
governments, the exercise failed and it is unacceptable. In some instances, we
don’t find INEC officials in some of the accredited booths, we don’t find them
arriving on time, the cards were not sorted, were inadequate, where are they?
To me, this exercise has failed. It is not acceptable. We will consider it as a
rigging exercise. INEC has colluded with the Presidency to rig this election
from the data.”
In all of this, INEC
appeared to be bereft of sound defense for its outing during the PVC
distribution in the country. When contacted on phone about people’s experience
in Lagos with the exercise, spokesman to INEC boss, Prof. Attahiru Jega, Kayode
Idowu, could only ask The Union
to send him an SMS stating the problem so that he could furnish the staff on
ground with the development.
Although INEC later
admitted that Permanent Voter Cards distribution was shoddy in Lagos, it offered
that the loss of the data of no fewer than one million people who registered to
vote in Lagos State was partly responsible for the poor distribution of the
cards.
In view of the
repeated irregularities that mired the distribution of the Permanent Voters’
Cards across the states as well as INEC’s proven inconsistencies in the
management of its attendant crisis, it is uncertain that the commission has the
promise of delivering sound and acceptable elections in 2015.
