•To forestall bickering, the electoral umpire must partner with and enlist the electorate
THE ripple generated by the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to create additional 30,000 polling units is rather unfortunate. Based on distrust of the electoral setting and previous experiences that predispose public officials to act against the general interest, some politicians and non-governmental organisations have alleged that the commission had an undisclosed agenda in allocating more than 21,000 new polling units in the North and 8,000 in the South.
We agree with those who have called for caution in accepting or rejecting the new units. The commission last week explained in advertorials published by major newspapers that the decision was taken in the overall best interest of managing the electoral process. It also attempted to explain the criteria for the exercise, pointing out that it was based on the need to improve access control and security at the polling units.
However, INEC’s explanation that all it had tried to do was break down the existing polling units in such a way that no voter in the urban area would travel more than one kilometre to exercise his or her civic right, or two kilometres in the rural area, as well as prune the number of voters to about 300 per unit has not allayed fears expressed by politicians and political activists, especially in the South.
We are not surprised by the apprehension so generated. Nigeria had, especially in the recent past, been split on all major issues along ethnic, religious and communal lines. The opponents of the scheme are right to query why the exercise is just being conducted when the 2015 general election is at hand. Again, the commission owes the country a duty to carry critical stakeholders as well as the public along.
It is curious that, in the many engagements of the commission with the civil society before and after the recent elections, no attempt was made to sell the proposal. The era of forcing issues on the people is gone. If INEC is to succeed in the task of sanitising the political landscape by conducting credible elections, it must learn to partner with the people, step up public education and realise that previous experiences dispose the people to be suspicious of new moves.
The division in the country is so deep that even the ruling party at the federal level could not speak with one voice on the matter. The chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum, Chief Theodore Orji, has queried the motive, just as the party’s national publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, who is from Anambra State in the South. They do not see the justification for the move. Other chieftains of the party in the South West and South East have equally called to question the judgment of INEC in allocating about the same number of the additional polling units to the North West as in the entire South.
The INEC timing could be queried as anything at this point would attract critical comments. We hasten, however, to point out that what should matter to all now is the credibility of the next set of elections. We need to take more active interest in the credibility of the electoral register, training of polling officials, conquest of the logistics nightmare and generally building up the confidence of the voting public in the commission and the electoral process.
