Tag: Electoral offences

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu spoke with reporters in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), on uncollected Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs), voter apathy, electoral violence and how to curtail the growing problem of financial inducement of voters. Excerpts: 

What are the prospects for a free, fair and credible election under your administration of INEC?
I think it is very bright. We thought that we had opened a new page after the Edo and most especially Ondo elections, but Rivers did not turn out quiet that good. I want you to note something; the most difficult elections for INEC to conduct are off-season or stand alone elections. Reason? The political actors are trying to mobilise everybody, nationwide to focus on a particular place; the kind of things you do not see in a general election. So, frankly speaking, general elections are easier to conduct. If we are organizing an election in one state, you would see so many governors going there to campaign for their party. It is their democratic right to so do, but who would do so in a general election? Everybody is fighting for his own in his own state. So, these stand alone elections are often very difficult for us; even, media attention is focused on a particular state or a particular constituency, whereas in a general election where you have thousands of participants the situation is different.
I think related to that question are the kind of things we see in smaller elections. We are equally worried about low voter turn out. We had a bye-election in Ifako/Ijaiye federal constituency in Lagos State. It is a federal constituency in the middle of Lagos. In one local government, the voter turnout was 2.9 percent, less than three percent, but when you deploy for the elections, you mobilize for a total number of registered voters, which was over 330, 000, but just a little over 10, 000 people voted. But, this is the pattern for bye-elections worldwide, they are always not as keenly-contested as the general elections. The problems sometimes with off-season elections is that actors who are not even candidates in the elections (as it happened in Rivers) were not heard. How many of you heard from the candidates who canvassed for votes in the Rivers elections? It was the patrons that were speaking. So, that is another issue.
The perception among some Nigerians is that you are being influenced by the president…
For those who know me, with my antecedents in the places I have worked, it is too late to be intimidated by anybody. I cannot. For what purpose? To achieve what at this stage? Nothing! There is nothing I am looking for that God has not given me. I completed my PhD from Oxford at 29 and my father was a headmaster. So what does anybody want to give me now? The only job I prayed God to give me was to be a university lecturer and I am now a professor. Another thing I do is bonus. I do not think that there is anybody who can influence me. I headed the biggest funding agency in this country and at the end of it, I went back to my teaching profession in the university. Directly or indirectly, I have not been approached by anybody to do anything entirely other than what is in the law. The best marker is to do an analysis of all the elections we have conducted and tell me which party won what and then you can see our neutrality or otherwise. Look at Rivers, look at the statistics. People criticising do not look at election figures; in fact the party of the person criticising us won 70 percent of the elections and it’s an opposition party, yet they would say we are biased. When a politician wins an election, he would say the best thing to have happened to this country is INEC and when he loses, he would say the worst thing to have happened to this country is INEC and I will give you my favourite example, but I won’t tell you the state; we conducted governorship election in one of the states and on election day, one of the leading political actors went to vote, and unfortunately, the card reader could not take the man’s biometrics. He turned to the television cameras and abused the chairman of the commission and his management; that they told us that these machines would not work and that we keep giving the impression that we are a nation of scammers. Well, we conducted elections and he won; we went to present the Certificate of Return at our. state office a week later as required by law and the same person turned around to say the best thing to have happened to our elections was the card readers and that whatever the imperfections were, he would work with INEC to improve it. Very seriously, this is the way we conduct our debate in extreme terms. It is either one is extremely good or extremely bad, there are no middle grounds.
There is no influence on INEC. There will never be any influence on INEC. The best marker for INEC’s neutrality are the elections we have conducted and the outcome of those elections. I know that we have conducted some elections that were not conclusive under the law, hence the issue of inconclusive elections. The law is very clear. There are conditions under which we can suspend elections. Violence or natural disasters. The second one is where there is over-voting, INEC is empowered under the law to suspend the process and conduct the election at another time. So, we apply the provisions of the law where we feel that we cannot in good conscience declare the outcome of the elections. Remember, after the 2015 general elections, 80 elections were nullified by the courts; 23 elections were upturned and INEC was ordered by the courts to issue certificates of return to the right winners, making a total of 103 elections from the 2015 general elections. So far, we have conducted 163 elections and I am happy to say that only one has been nullified by the courts. So, be looking at the figures, be looking at the statistics, because these are the markers of what we are doing in the interest of our democracy.
What about the allegation that a candidate in the Rivers rerun relocated a whole polling unit to his house?
We heard about it and it. Is also going to be part of that comprehensive investigation. If polling units were located outside of where they should be, that is clear illegality and if our investigations show that truly, polling units were located outside of where they were supposed to be, be assured that those responsible would be prosecuted. But help us also and bring forward evidences that would help us.
Don’t you think that deploying more technology in our elections could help solve some of these challenges?
Let us not think that a piece of technology alone can solve our problems. Elections are ultimately conducted by human beings. Germany, one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world, conducts elections. There is nothing to do with technology whatsoever. There is no majority in the German election and I had the opportunity of discussing this matter with the returning officer for the state of Berlin, the equivalent of the chairman of SIEC (State Independent Electoral Commissions) in Nigeria and I discussed the matter with my colleague, the federal returning officer, the equivalent of the chairman of INEC and they laughed and said Germans don’t trust technology with their elections. But what makes the difference is the level of trust the people have in the system. Some of the worst violators of our laws are among those who accuse us of bias. You can deploy technology, but technology cannot solve all the problems. We have to solve our own problems
Some of the national commissioners here went to Benin Republic in February and March; they had their presidential election. What we call ‘sensitive materials’ for which we deploy helicopters and gun boats and even armoured personnel carriers in Nigeria to protect, were the same materials that were given to a presiding officer in a polling unit and they put everything in a box, into the ballot box and then the presiding officer would stop a motorcycle and carry the materials to the polling unit unaccompanied by any security personnel.
At the end of the elections, it was the party agents that calculated the votes, completed the result sheets, put them in a box and they stopped a motorcycle to take it to the collation centre unaided by any security. Why is our own experience different?
We can introduce technology, but technology cannot be all, But, that is not to say that there is no place for technology in elections. There is a place for technology and I want to assure you that, as part of the new initiatives, what we considered only just yesterday in our weekly commission meeting was this idea of introducing e-collation and e-transmission of results. Already, we have a pilot scheme. When we conducted state-wide elections, the results were uploaded. Each time such elections are conducted I observe the results in our situation Room and we follow the results from every polling unit, but you know INEC does not declare any result in Abuja, only the presidential election. So, we have reached a point where we are prepared to deploy (the technology) and I am very happy to say that the senate in amending the electoral act is also going to empower the commission to introduce e-collation and e-transmission. If you noticed, much of the violence in recent elections do not take place in the polling units; it is in the course of transmitting the results. Now, once we introduce electronics to the transmission of results, we then have to take other measures to protect the polling units because violence will now turn to the polling units.
What can be done to reduce the financial inducement of voters?
Financial inducement of voters is an offence. It is a crime, but of late, something is happening. Sometimes, we do realise that before our own eyes, our country is changing. Our elections are getting better; parties have become strong and our votes are increasingly counting. Gone were the days when politicians would use a lot of money before the elections and in all the recent elections, some politicians that spent money saw that the outcome was not what they expected. So, the next thing they are doing now is what we may call ‘pay as you go.’ Some unscrupulous persons would go close to the voting cubicle as agents of parties and discuss with prospective voters to vote for their parties. The agents have to be sure you vote for their party before you are paid. Somebody stands in another corner, after you vote, they would say see him in a corner, but it is even instructive that they would ask the voter to show them their ballot paper before they are paid because they no longer trust their money alone to do the job for them. Those who want to subvert the process are those who resort to these desperate extreme measures, but it is an offence and the solution is the enforcement of our laws and to also implement some of the recommendations of previous panels like this electoral offences commission. We should not think that the agencies in the country are too much.
What are you doing about the high rate of uncollected Permanent Voter Cards PVCs?
It is a big issue. I have been receiving monthly returns from the state offices, but sometimes there would be 400,000 PVCs uncollected in a state and the monthly return would show only 30 as having been collected. People don’t want to collect. It has to be tied to something, maybe, election is around the corner and they wish to vote, there is an incentive for them to do so. The Director of ICT was telling me that the issue of cards is always tied to something. You want to drive, you go for a driver’s licence, you want a bank account, you go for your BVN or you want to travel, then you go for your international passport. There is always a need; it has to be tied to something.