The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Inec

  • Drain pipe

    Drain pipe

    •Demand for 0.5% of budget to fund political parties is outrageous

    A bizarre demand was made by the political parties at a workshop on the “Role and Responsibilities of Political Party Agents on Election Day”, which drew participants from registered political parties in the country, on August 4. The demand was for 0.5 percent of the nation’s annual budget to allow them “function effectively”. Making the demand at the three-day Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in collaboration with the Democratic Governance for Development Project (DGD) the Chairman, Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), Dr. Tanko Yunusa, called on the National Assembly to set aside 0.5 percent of annual budget to fund the registered political parties.

    We know the issue of funding of political parties has always remained contentious, and rightly so. Without doubt, political parties, like most other things in life, require funding to be able to play their role in society effectively. Part of the reasons advanced by proponents of government funding of political parties is to ensure that no party is denied the opportunity of marketing itself on account of its inability to raise funds. Moreover, they believe that funding from government would prevent the situation where money bags would hijack the parties. A third reason, which is no less important, is the fear of some external bodies being the sponsors of political parties in the country. This has its implications for the polity.

    Perhaps these explain why our governments in the past funded the political parties. Indeed, the 1979 Constitution specifically provided for government funding of the political parties. The Babangida administration even went a step further by not only making funds available for the two political parties that it decreed into existence, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC), it also built the party secretariats.

    However, such a position would be difficult to sustain today. Indeed, since the introduction of free largesse for any group of politicians who “formed” political parties, the number of political parties in Nigeria has grown significantly to 50. This has only been pruned to about 26, with some of them operating from barbers’ shops under fake party officials with dubious spread in the country, just to collect party funding after which they fizzle out before elections. Many of them just make noise in the media. It has been such a massive fraud! Those in support of the existence of mushroom parties argue that government funding would enable all viable and unviable parties to propagate their ideas.

    But we are yet to see which ideals have been propagated and how effectively they have performed, with many of these parties usually scoring between zero and a limit of one digit in ward elections and an annoying woeful performance at the local government and state levels. Many of them have not a single candidate either in the state assemblies or National Assembly to justify being called political parties.

    Those who want to float political parties must have been sure of their capability to adequately fund the parties through their members’ contributions because the members must buy into their political parties.

    Happily enough, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to fund political parties, whether registered or unregistered. So, let every political party take care of its finances without being a burden to the national purse. It is important to remind those calling for funding of political parties which are only on paper that we already have enough drain pipes in the country, mostly through corruption of various descriptions. Calling for government funding of political parties in order to appropriate funds into private pockets without anything to show in terms of good results at any election is an unwholesome addition to our drain pipes.

    We don’t need more of this criminal wastage of public funds that could have been put to more productive use. What we need to do is monitor the expenses of the political parties to ensure they do not go beyond tolerable limits within the purse of their respective members.

     

  • Lessons from Osun governorship election

    SIR: The hype, frenzy and hullabaloo of the Osun governorship election have come and gone, it has left some echoes of lamentation of lost travellers on a maze of paths with no compass to chart the right course.   The election brought to the fore issues and principles around which political parties canvas for votes.  On focus also was the integrity of the political process, especially the neutrality of the electoral umpire, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC).  Equally conspicuous were the roles of security operatives, observers and election monitoring, reports, comments and analysis of the members of the fourth estate of the realm and the entire gamut of the election.

    Without a doubt, the election was a dress rehearsal to the forthcoming 2015 elections.    Elections in Nigeria are neither issue based nor ideological in outlook.   Qualifications and acceptance are on the narrow prism of religion, ethnicity, and other sectarian considerations.   This is the reason why the money bags purchase ballots and support by giving handouts to Nigerians whom they have impoverished through looting of our commonwealth.

    Crowds are hired for rallies to give semblance of popularity and acceptance and rigging machines oiled.

    Preparation for elections ordinarily was for candidates to introduce their manifestoes and programmes to the electorate but instead the candidates carry and distribute customized rice, salt and pepper with little cash for the D-Day.

    In the build-up to the Osun election, there was so much hues and cries about the presence of security in the entire states.  The APC accused the PDP led federal government of militarizing the state with the aim of intimidating the opposition and create avenues for manipulating the electoral result. The question then, is how does the presence of security forces translate to intimidation?  Yes, the roadblocks may be quite inconveniencing.   It is unfortunately our fate that we have to contend with for now.  However, it is my view that security agencies should be thinking beyond the “roadblock” intelligence which only visit hardship on the people and expose them to greater harm in event of “unlikely” incident of attack at those road blocks.

    The DSS operatives now operate like Rambo wearing hood and bearing arms offensively to the chagrin of any person with pretensions to intelligence gathering.    This to me has manifestly exposed our inability to get intelligence to arrest the mindless violence and insurgency in the North-east and other criminality in Nigeria.   Always, there ought to be synergy by the different security agencies each complementing the other in fine harmony not like the Nollywood pageant exhibitionism.

    The activities of the DSS also exposed the deep rooted partisanship of the service and perhaps other security agencies.  I was worried at the statement credited to the spokesperson of the Directorate of the State Security (SSS), Marilyn Ogar where she alleged that men of the department were bribed with the sum of N14 million.  To a rational person, it was obvious she was not only playing a script but wearing the garb of partisanship.   After all, it is common knowledge that all the political parties arrange financial package for the security men through some facilitators. Therefore she was not saying anything new or extra-ordinary about our elections; that may not be best global practice but a Nigerian political norm.  In all these murky water of political storm, the lesson is that the people, the masses, and electorate have the ace to change our political culture and fortune.

     

    • Mike Kebonkwu Esq

    Wuse 2, Abuja

     

  • APC: Jega’s assurances offer hope of free, fair polls if…

    APC: Jega’s assurances offer hope of free, fair polls if…

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said Nigeria may be able to organise truly free, fair, credible and transparent elections in the nearest future, if the recent comments by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, reflect the thinking of the electoral commission.

    In a statement yesterday in Lagos its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said three issues stand out in the comments credited to the INEC chairman. These are: that hooded security personnel would no longer be allowed during elections; that the security paraphernalia in future elections should be under the control of INEC and that the commission would use e-card readers for the 2015 general elections.

    It said if the INEC chairman meant what he said, this “is a breakthrough of sorts in Nigeria’s long quest to hold elections that are not only free, fair and transparent, but are seen to be so by the local and international community”.

    APC said it would hold Prof. Jega to his promises to avoid a repeat of past elections when promises made by the electoral chief were not kept.

    It said: “During the voter registration, Prof. Jega vowed that anyone who engaged in double or multiple registration would be prosecuted. However, some parties, who probably had an advanced knowledge that his statement was an empty threat, apparently encouraged their members to engage in double or multiple registration, thus gaining undue advantage over others. Yet, they were never prosecuted.

    “Also, during the last Ekiti State governorship election, Prof. Jega announced that colour-coded ballot papers would be used in different local governments to prevent election fraud. But that never happened and no reason was given for the failure. This is why we intend to hold Prof. Jega to every word he said in connection with the key issues mentioned above.”

    APC recalled that before the Osun State governorship election earlier this month, the party warned that the use of hooded security personnel would encourage hoodlums with access to police or the Department of State Service (DSS) uniform to invade the state and perpetrate mayhem in the name of providing security.

    “Sadly, that is exactly what happened during the election. In fact, reports have said at least one person is now being prosecuted after he and others were found wearing black T-shirts with the inscription ‘police’ in front and ‘DSS’ on its back during the Osun election. Is there any clearer evidence that some of those who came to Osun in hoods were actually fake security agents?” the party queried.

    It also recalled that on May 26, the APC issued a statement in which it tasked INEC to immediately commence the process that will lead to the use of the e-card reader for the elections in Ekiti and Osun states, if indeed the electoral body is committed to ensuring that the polls are free, fair and transparent.

    “If that advice had been heeded by INEC, perhaps the allegations of electoral fraud, and the litigation following the elections in both states, would not have arisen.

    “We said in the May 26 statement: ‘Impersonation, multiple voting and endless altercations and associated tension will be eliminated at the voting centres with the use of e-card reader and not by any other means. Also, the e-card reader will ensure the automatic recording of all accredited voters with verified permanent voter’s cards in such a way that does not lend itself to manipulation, thus preventing the falsification of results at the collation centres’,” APC said.

    The party challenged INEC to put its money where its mouth is by using October’s governorship election in Adamawa State to test the measures that would ensure credible elections in 2015, including barring hooded security personnel, taking charge of the security men and women to be deployed for the election and using e-card reader to forestall electoral fraud.

     

  • PVC: Group seeks extension

    PVC: Group seeks extension

    A socio-political organisation, Oyo Advocate Group, has urged the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, to extend the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) registration by two weeks.

    It said it would be an opportunity for every eligible voter to register.

    The group’s Chairman, Comrade Sayo Alagbe, in a statement, enjoined the INEC boss to extend the registration.

    The body frowned at the slow pace of the exercise, saying the call for the extension followed INEC’s slow beginning caused by the late arrival of personnel at polling units, distribution of defective computers and weak batteries.

     

  • Furore over INEC’s new polling units

    Furore over INEC’s new polling units

    It is meant to shorten queues and smoothen elections.

    But the allocation of the newly created 30,027 polling units by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2015 election is causing a big row.

    The electoral agency last week announced its plan, which will increase the total number of polling units nationwide to 150,000.

    The North got 70 per cent of the new units.

    Southeast Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders cried out yesterday that the region had been shortchanged.

    A member of Delta PDP Col. Joseph Achuzia, described INEC’s decision as illogical.

    The Southeast zone also rejected the promotion announced by the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Inspector General of Police. It alleged that the promotion did not promote unity.

    The region spoke after a meeting of some of its governors, some ministers and political leaders at the Government House in Umuahia, the Abia State capital.

    Governor Theodore Orji, who is the chair of Southeast Governors’ Forum, hosted the meeting.

    Apart from Orji, the meeting was attended by Ebonyi State Governor Martin Elechi, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, the Ministers of Labour (Emeka Wogu), Health (Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu) and Aviation (Mr. Osita Chidoka) and the five state chairmen of the PDP.

    PDP National Publicity Secretary Olisa Metuh told reporters that a situation where the southern part of the country is allocated 8,000 polling units and 21,000 to the North is a great disservice to Nigeria’s unity.

    Metuh said: “The people of Southeast PDP reject entirely the alleged allocation of polling booths by INEC; we view it as a great disservice to the unity and progress of this country if the entire South will have 8,000 polling booths and the North will have 21,000 polling booths.

    “We demand that this should be suspended forthwith as it is completely against the spirit of one Nigeria, the unity and progress of our dear country.”

    He said the meeting also resolved that the Inspector General of Police should revisit the recent appointments and promotions as it affects the zone.

    He said: “We are worried about the announcement of the postings and promotions in the Nigeria Police Force and we request the IG of police with the Police Service Commission to revisit these appointments and promotions with the view of properly balancing the positions.

    This country belongs to all Nigerians and the Southeast is a great contributor to the progress of this country and we demand our fair of the allocation”.

    Metu added: “We request that the registration of voters be extended, especially where we are having problem with the registration and the provision of the PVC.

    “The officers in charge are not adequate, the materials provided in terms of handling the situation on the ground require a bit of adjustment with the timing of the INEC. So we are demanding that the INEC extend the timing accordingly.”

    The meeting, however, praised the effort of the Federal Government in tackling the Ebola scourge.

    “We commend the President, especially the Minister of Health, our own Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, for the effort the Federal Government has taken in containing the Ebola scourge.

    The Southeast PDP identified with all the measures that the Federal Government has resolved to undertake in handling this grave matter of concern to the entire country”.

    The meeting also resolved to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s yet undeclared aspiration for President in 2015.

    It noted: “We are totally in support; we believe that this country in the past three and half years has witnessed great transformation and we want it to continue.”

    Col. Achuzia asked: “What is the rationale behind this move?” The inference from the INEC move, he added, is that majority of the voters in the country are in the North, whereas the cleaning up of the voter register done recently by INEC has belied that notion.

    Achuzia, a former secretary-general of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, said he would rather wait for INEC to go ahead with the latest resolve, before making any further statement.

    “We would like to wait until it becomes a reality that INEC has done that, then it has to tell us the justification for establishing 70 per cent of the new polling units in the North. This is my position for now.”

    He said in the past, enumerators who registered voters in the North usually based their figures on estimates by virtue of being told that they are not allowed to get into certain places. “They always use it as an excuse. It didn’t start today.

    Ogun State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Bayo Dayo is worried about the lopsidedness in the distribution of the 30,000 additional polling units. He said: “Professor Attahiru Jega is an intelligent and honest man but if his honesty is not in the best interest of the Southwest, we will react and if need be, we will seek redress in the court.”

    Civil rights activist Comrade Moshood Erubami said it would be premature to fault INEC’s wisdom in the distribution of the additional polling units when we don’t know the criteria used.

    Afenifere chieftain Chief Supo Shonibare agreed that the distribution was lopsided. “I am not aware INEC is an authorised body on population census. If it is based on estimate, it is wrong to give a section of the country more polling units at the expense of the other,” he said.

  • PVC: Council boss decries INEC’s arrangement

    PVC: Council boss decries INEC’s arrangement

    The Caretaker Chairman of Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State, Prof. Adeniyi Olowofela, has condemned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for its shoddy arrangement for the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) registration.

    He spoke during his visit to Anglican Primary School Ward 9, where registration took place.

    Olowofela said the equipment available to the INEC officials were inadequate, adding that if things continued in such manner, many eligible voters would be disenfranchised.

    Said he: “In Ward 1, of 800 people, only 50 registered. In Ward 2, of 780 people, only 71 registered. Ward 3 is not different. That was how it happened in all the wards in the local government.

    “If things continue like this, there is no way eligible voters will not be disenfranchised.”

    Olowofela urged INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega to provide more machines.

    “The election cannot hold in 167 days’ time with this kind of arrangement. Among the 80,000 people willing to register, only about 100 have been registered.”

     

  • APC, APGA reject Aba bye-election result

    The leadership of opposition parties (All Progressives Congress and All Progressive Grand Alliance) in Abia State has respectively rejected the result of a bye-election for Aba State Constituency as was announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    The seat became vacant after Hon. Nwogu Iheasimuo, the former member representing the area died due to a protracted illness.

    According to the result announced after the poll, Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate and wife of the former House of Assembly member, Mrs. Blessing Nkemdirim Iheasimuo, pulled a total vote of 1655, APC candidate, Elder Smart Ebere, 313 and APGA candidate, Chimaobi Akwara, 252 votes.

    However, leaders of APC and APGA in the state have rejected the result, alleging that it was massively rigged by the ruling party.

    According to a chieftain of the APC, Chief Okey Nwagbara, the election which was held at the weekend was characterised by electoral malpractices.

    A chieftain of APGA, Chief Sylvanus Nwaji, alleged the INEC collaborated with the ruling party to deny APGA victory in the bye-election by insisting on taking cast votes to Aba South Local Government headquarters to count instead of counting them at the polling units as stipulated by law.

  • Jega and security

    Jega and security

    We support the call by the INEC Chairman that hooded men have no place during elections

    Professor Attahiru Jega’s assurance that never again shall the “unknown security official” be a feature of the nation’s electioneering process comes as a soothing relief. As the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pointed out, the practice in the recent Osun State governorship election was a deviation from the norm and an attempt to rob the process of transparency, fairness, honour and integrity. These are qualities every electoral system is expected to have to be adjudged in line with global standards.

    Following the Delta Central Senatorial election and the Edo and Anambra governorship polls, the electoral commission had come under heavy criticisms by domestic and international observers, the media and political activists, for falling short of expectations. As usual, materials arrived late at the polling units, officials were poorly trained and remunerated, while INEC officials were easily compromised by desperate politicians. The commission then promised to return to the drawing board before the Ekiti and Osun polls.

    As key stakeholders have pointed out, the commission largely lived up to its promise in conducting the elections in Ekiti and Osun states on June 21 and August 9, respectively. Yet, it was pointed out that there was confusion in coordinating the activities of security agents drafted for the assignment, while some displayed open partisanship. The three arms of the military- the Navy, Air force and Army were made to send troops, while the Police and Nigeria Civil Defence Corps also deployed officers, men and materials, ostensibly to ward off trouble makers.

    For the first time in the history of elections in the country, the Department of State Security (DSS) also played a visible even if detestable role as its men were seen menacingly armed and pointing guns at innocent citizens. Worse still, the men were masked, thus making it difficult to differentiate them from hoodlums who could have procured the military uniform. The use of hoods, now common with the Boko Haram insurgents, was first noticed as some gun-toting men accompanied the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) candidate on his campaign. It was condemned. But, the practice continued as, a few days to the election, some of the men were seen at the Osogbo Township Stadium where they refused organised Labour that had booked its use for a rally entry.

    Then, on Election Day, some men wearing masks turned up at strategic nooks and crannies of the state, threatening the same peace they had apparently been deployed to secure. In a nocturnal raid on the eve of the Osun election, prominent members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had also been picked up for no justifiable reason, with some released three days after the election. In none of the abductions was any reason adduced for the action.

    The defence put up by the service’s spokesperson, Ms. Marilyn Ogar, is not only ludicrous but an indication that the high command might have instructed the men on the field to align with a particular party. Her linking the APC to attempted rigging is an indication that she knew more than she volunteered and her men would gladly do anything to pervert the process. This trend must stop.

    The introduction of hooded security men on Election Day is a dangerous development as we earlier pointed out in an editorial after the election. It is commendable that Professor Jega has come out boldly, not only to condemn the development but assure that the commission would not accept them for future elections.

    We call on the INEC chairman to insist that the security functions during polling can only be coordinated by the commission. This is the practice in many parts of the world today. Part 1, Paragraph 15 of the 1999 Constitution as amended saddles the electoral commission with the power to “organise, undertake and supervise all elections to the offices of the President and Vice President, the Governor and Deputy Governor of a state, and to the membership of the Senate, House of Representatives and the House of Assembly of each state of the Federation.”

    We also call on the National Assembly to accord priority to reforms needed to restore honour to the electioneering process. Six months to the 2015 general elections it is to be noted that the needed fund, legislative cover and administrative rules should be made expeditiously available to empower INEC perform its role without fear or favour. The electorate needs time to get familiar with the rules and the terrain.

    Hooded security men must be removed from the scene; the military has no business participating in elections. It is a civil responsibility with which the Police and Civil Defence should be saddled while the military men should be left with tackling the more damaging threat posed by the Boko Haram insurrection.

  • Can we begin to have confidence on INEC?

    The two elections conducted by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in two states of Ekiti and Osun have shown to all Nigerians and the world over that maybe we should start having confidence on our electoral umpire.

    In the past, Nigerians have lost confidence on the activities of most of the agencies responsibility of conducted any election in our country.

    But of recent, the present INEC has started on good note with the way it has conducted the two elections in those states without any form of malpractice from any of the staff of INEC and the transparency the elections was conducted.

    The assurance by the chairman of INEC Prof. Attaihru Jega of his Commission’s preparedness of conducting credible elections between now and 2015 should be commended and should be applauded by all Nigerians.

    The two elections in the two states known as flash point areas in the country should be seen as launch pad towards getting free, fair and credible election that would be accepted by the entire country and the world in particular.

    We should conduct our elections into various elective posts without any form of intimidation or any harassment for Nigerian to elect people of proven integrity that would represent them in the elective position.

    Nigerians would be proud if our electoral umpire would put the interest of country and good image of its people at heart, then Nigerian say we have arrived in conducting credible election without any form acrimony and unnecessary bickering.

    With election of 2015 in few months’ time and all Nigerian would start to have confidence on our electoral system, and conducting election to the admiration of all and sundry, we shall say our promised land is insight.

    Bala Nayashi, Yashi Area

    Lokoja, Kogi State.

  • Activist sues INEC for registering UPN, SDP

    Activist sues INEC for registering UPN, SDP

    A pro-democracy activist, Mr. Richard Akinnola, has sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at a Federal High Court, Abuja, on alleged unlawful registration of two proscribed political parties – Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) – to participate in the 2015 general elections.

    Akinnola is praying the court to nullify the purported registration granted the two parties because they had been proscribed and dissolved by existing laws.

    Joined as co-defendants are UPN and SDP.

    In an originating summons filed by Mr. James Ode Abah of Bamidele Aturu Chambers, the plaintiff claimed that UPN and SDP couls no longer be registered as new parties, having been outlawed by the Political Parties Dissolution Decrees of 1984 and 1993.

    The pro-democracy activist is asking the court to determine whether or not INEC has the power to resuscitate prohibited and dissolved parties without first repealing the laws that proscribed them.

    Akinnola also prayed the court to determine whether or not parties dissolved or prohibited by an existing law could function or act as parties without the repeal of the law that proscribed them.

    The plaintiff is seeking a declaration that, having been duly dissolved by existing laws of 1984 and 1993, the UPN and SDP were no longer parties and could not function as such.

    The activist applied for a court declaration that INEC, as the first defendant in the action, could not validly or lawfully register the two parties in the face of the existing laws that legally dissolved them.