Ondo State Resident Electoral Commissioner Akin Orebiyi spoke with Deputy Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU on preparations by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the governorship election in the state.
How prepared is INEC for the challenge of October 20 in Ondo State?
We can confidently say that INEC is fully prepared for the conduct of the governorship election. As we speak, we have been receiving non-sensitive materials from INEC headquarters. We have also done quite a number of meetings with stakeholders. We have rounded up the voter education forum at the local government level. The essence of the voter education forum is to educate the voters on their responsibilities, their duties and also the procedures for the conduct of the election and the election process on the election day. It has been a useful experience and a unique one. This effort is being sponsored by the International Federation of Electoral System (IFES), a partner of INEC in the last 13 years.
What are the elements of the voters education programme?
The voter education forum involves two major activities. One, there is a stakeholders’ meeting at the local government level, which runs for three hours. There, the electoral process is explained to the stakeholders, political parties, members of the civil society organisations and officials of the National Orientation Agency and INEC officials in the local government. Questions are taken and answers are provided by INEC. After that, we did a road show and distributed flyers and posters. IFES provided 540,000 flyers and nearly 200,000 posters in English, Yoruba and Ijaw languages for the benefit of the electorate. we have been distributing them at the forum and various religious worship centres. We have presented to the political parties and electorate soft copies of the voters’ register. We have explained to them what to find inside the voters register and how the information could also help them to muster greater efforts in canvassing for votes at the 18 local governments, 203 wards and 309 polling units across the state. We have trained the 334 agents of 13 political parties. We have trained our supervisors for the election. We will have 223 supervisors for the election. UNDP sponsored the second training for party agents. The first one was sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI).INEC has also conducted training for presiding officers and assistant presiding officers. The bulk will come from the National Youth Service Corps. Whatever shortfall we have will be filled by students of tertiary institutions.
What are the rules and regulations guiding the governorship campaigns?
The first is understanding the process itself. We are urging the political parties and electorate to adopt the electoral process as their own. The campaign started on July 24. It is to end on the eve of the election, October 19. Any other campaign after that is a violation of the guideline. All campaigns must end on Friday, October 19. On election day, there must not be any campaign. There will be no movement around the state on the election day. Each voter will only go to his or her polling unit. Party agents are not allowed to roam about the streets. There is a party agent for a political unit. Government officials and party officials are not allowed to move around. They cannnot carry weapons to election grounds on the day of election . Security will be provided adequately. You are meant to carry to the polling booth only your voter’s card. If you don’t have a voter’s card, don’t bother to come to the polling unit. Accreditation will start 8.am. It is going to be different this time. This means our officials, men and materials would have arrivedat the 309,000 polling units at 7 am. Even, if there is delay, they should be there by 7.30 am. Accreditation will take place between 8.am and 12 noon. After accreditation, voting will start by 12.30 pm. But any polling unit where accreditation of voters does not end by 12 noon, the presiding officer will count the number of people yet to be accredited and he will now ask the security officer on duty to stand behind the last person on the queue, which means nobody can join the line after 12 noon.The implication of this is that voting may not start in some units at exactly 12.30 pm. When voting starts, it does not end until the last accredited person has voted. That means voting will not end at a particular time. After voting, there will be sorting of the ballot papers according to the political parties voted for. There will be counting and after counting, there will be announcement of results. Only results would be announced and no winner will be declared at that level. Voters are free to stay within the vicinity, two or three hundred metres, to watch the entire electoral process on election day. After the announcement of results, voters are advised quietly to return home. We will move from there to the ward collation centre to do the collation of all the polling units in that ward. We announce the result, we don’t declare winner. From there, we move to the local government collation centre. Then, we move to the state collation centre at INEC office in Akure where the final collation will be done and results will be announced.
How are you responding to the complaints of political parties raising eyebrow about the voters’ register?
There have been complaints about the voter’s register. We perfectly understand their feelings and they are based on the previous experience they had about INEC as the electoral umpire. INEC officials in the past have been part and parcel of the elections in the past. They have been partisan. But since Prof. Attahiru Jega came in with his new commission in June 2010, INEC has changed completely. It has very fair and unbiased in its activities and all the elections and rerun elections. This will also happen here on October 20. We are going to make sure that every aspect of the election will be laid open in a transparent manner for everybody to see.Concerning the voters register, we have organised a lot of stakeholders’ meeting, enlightening, informing and educating voters and political parties about the voters’ register. Also, we have reverted to the manual voters register as a back up where we are not able to use electronic voters register. Their names will appear this year as an addendum. The only difference is that it will not carry photographs of the voters. INEC is doing its best to ensure that the voters register is credible. After we released the voters register on September 20, I can say that, up to today, no party has officially approached us to complain about the voters register. When a party agent is given a voters register for his unit, he can verify whether the names are those who live in the vicinity or not. What we released last year was tentative. it has been upgraded now.
When was the voters register displayed by INEC?
The law says voters register should be published 30 days to election. That was what we did on September 20 when we gave political parties a soft copy each. The point is that the voters register has over 80,000 pages. So, if you want to publish it, newspapers will not be able to finish it until the day of the election.That is why we have the benefit of the soft copy. We have 1.6 million voters. On the day of the election, we will display voters register for the units.
What special arrangement is INEC making for the conduct of the election in the riverine areas?
We have two local governments in riverine areas; Ilaje and Ese-Odo local governments.There are one or two polling units by the river in Irele, one island in Odigbo local government. Ilaje local government has 181 of its polling units on water. Ese-Odo has 67 of its polling units on water. What we did was to work closely with security agents. We had had toured the creeks for about four hours, assessing the polling units there, the wards, and meeting with the community leaders there, seeking their understanding and cooperation. So, we have done a lot of assessment concerning the difficult terrain in the riverine areas. In addition, we are making preparation for boats from Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states. We will also hire boats locally here to complement what INEC is providing. We are looking at not less than 68 boats for the election. We have obtained life jackets to take care of hundred of people in the riverine areas on election day. In order not to get late to the polling units, we are going to move election materials a day ahead for Ilaje local government. Parties’ agents will also accompany them to Igbokoda where we are going to warehouse the election materials until they are moved to the wards.Within an hour or two after opening the 203 wards so that men and materials can get to the 3,009 polling units without delay on October 20.
What were the lessons INEC had learned from the recent governorship election in Ondo State?
A lot. We have learned to be open and transparent, explain everything in details to the stakeholders. We must regularly feed them with information at various levels. We have learned to carry all the political parties along in whatever we do. We respond to their questions promptly across the 18 local governments.In terms of the challenges encountered in Edo State like the late arrival of materials to a number of polling units, we want to prevent this here. We will leave by 5 am and within two hours, we are the various polling units, ahead of the 8 am when polling units are expected to open. There was protest about the use of the addendum. We have been telling people since July this year that the addendum will be used. It was rejected in Edo State because they said they did not know in advance. So, we have been telling the people on radio and television.
