Moses Ofodeme
Civic Hive, has released an assessment of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s preparedness and conduct of the 2023 Nigeria General Elections.
According to the group which is committed to the principles of open data and governance, citizens’ participation, and data transparency, “Elections are pivotal to our democracy. Not only do they promote participation in governance, but they are also a prerequisite for sustaining democratic institutions.
“With over seven general elections held in Nigeria since 1999 and given our size, population, and human capital, it is abysmal and heart-wrenching to see how badly elections are continually conducted in a country posing as the “Giant of Africa.” Not only is our electoral budget an ever-increasing black hole, but INEC’s electoral conducts and operations have also spiralled down in voter turnout, with the 2023 Presidential election being the lowest since 1999.”
As an organisation, it expressed its concerns citizens’ participation in governance and grassroots civic education. Below are some of the issues we have observed and our suggestions for conducting free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria.
In its assessment it observed that INEC staff were usually late to some PUs across the country which it said is unacceptable, unethical, and tampers with the voting process, credibility and security.
Some PUs counted results well into the night because voting started late and could have been avoided if they did the right thing as they promised, the group observed.
The group said it witnessed some disparities in BVAS’ importance and usefulness in this election. “We also noticed a significant delay in result collation at the ward level, a process that gave room for result manipulation before they reached the state level. INEC, whose work is to coordinate the aggregation of these results in real-time so that final election results can be available within 24 hours, failed woefully at this.” the report said.
On IREV’s redundancy, the group while commending the IREV’s platform, which promotes transparency, it said it was appalled that it did not transmit election results on time, thereby weakening the citizens’ trust in the electoral process. “We believe the platform should be programmed to display election trends to the viewing public as they are declared at the PUs, and that results should be downloadable in the users’ preferred format. Captured voters’ images were low quality, blurry and unrecognisable. Investing in image quality is crucial to the voting process’s credibility and should be a top priority for INEC.”
According to the published report, the group said, “From our observations and citizens’ reports, we have witnessed INEC staff who displayed open partisanship and misused their position to advance voters’ intimidation, vote buying, and political thuggery. In most cases, their actions were neither addressed nor punished. This is totally detestable and unpatriotic and should be corrected.”
It also said, “Our attention has been drawn to political figures and devotees who influenced INEC staff operations. We are concerned that there is a strong political influence on INEC personnel, especially at the local government level. In some cases, we saw governors who have no respect for the rule of law act in unethical ways, resulting in massive voter suppression and intimidation.
“Our attention was drawn to incidents of interference by political figures who sought to influence the election day processes being supervised by INEC designated election day staff. We are deeply concerned about this undue influence on INEC personnel especially at the Local Government Areas level. In some cases we saw Governors acting contrary to the rule of law and with impunity, resulting in massive voter suppression and intimidation.”
It also observed that citizens and even legal practitioners are yet to arrive at a confluence on the interpretation and meaning of some salient items in the Electoral Act, which may further create uncertainties about the electoral process, participation, distrust, and apathy in INEC to uphold its commitment to conducting free, fair and credible elections.
“We are concerned that the interpretation of salient items of the electoral act remain unclear to many including citizens and legal practitioners thus sustaining an atmosphere of distrust and uncertainties about the electoral process and INEC’s commitment to conducting free, fair and credible elections. We therefore seek for timely judicial clarifications of these salient items towards enabling the restoration of confidence in the electoral process.
“As an organisation committed to building strong institutions and promoting active citizens’ participation in electoral processes, we are ready to support INEC and like-minded agencies. We do this through partnership and collaboration for capacity building, systems audit, and technical idea exchange that compliments the agency’s work and its readiness towards delivering credible election and voter experience in Nigeria.” it concluded.