INEC guidelines for 2019 elections: Matters arising
On
Monday, January 14, 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission
officially published the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of
Elections, 2019 in pursuant of the powers conferred on the commission by
Section 153 of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended. INEC had earlier released a
Draft Guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 elections to the 91 registered
political parties, civil society groups and organisations, the media,
professional groups and organisations, security agencies and other critical
stakeholders in the electoral process for their input.
I
was privileged to be at the quarterly meeting of the commission with the CSOs
held on Tuesday, January 8, 2019. At that meeting, INEC updated the audience
with its preparations for the forthcoming elections and shared the draft of the
guidelines with us for our review and input.
The
National Commissioner & Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee
of INEC, Festus Okoye, gave a breakdown of 10 key highlights of the regulations
and guidelines as follows: The voting procedure for the conduct of all
elections covered by the R&G remains the Continuous Accreditation and
Voting as provided in Section 8(a) of the Guidelines; The mandatory use of the
Smart Card Reader. This is in accordance with Section 8(b) of the R&G; The
use of Tendered Ballot has been provided, consistent with the provision of
Section 60 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended). Also, voters whose fingerprints are not
authenticated or for whom wrong picture pops up, both due to technical hitches,
will still vote, but polling agents will be consulted. This is in accordance with
Section 11(f) of the R&G .
It
is instructive that presenting someone else’s Permanent Voter Card for voting
may lead to prosecution. This is in accordance with Section 12(b) of the
R&G which provides that “Any person who presents the PVC of another person
with an intention to use it to vote, shall not be allowed to vote and may be
liable to arrest and prosecution”. So, those buying up the PVCs with the intent
to give it to unauthorised persons to vote should beware.
INEC
also stated how elections can be declared inconclusive. This is clearly defined
in Section 32(e) of the R&G as follows:
“Where the margin of lead between the two leading candidates in an
election is NOT in excess of the total number of voters registered in Polling
Units where elections are not held or voided in line with sections 26 and 53 of
the Electoral Act, the returning officer shall decline to make a return until
polls have taken place in the affected Polling Units and the results collated
into the relevant forms for Declaration and Return. This is the Margin of Lead
Principle and shall apply wherever necessary in making returns of all elections
to which these Regulations and Guidelines apply”.
Recall
that INEC had on several occasions declared elections inconclusive to the
chagrin of many members of the public. The last of such was when the September
22, 2018 Osun State governorship
election was so declared only for the All
Progressives Congress’ candidate to
overturn the slim lead of the Peoples Democratic Party candidate after the September 27, 2018 supplementary polls in
five units. Under this R&G, recount
is provided for in accordance with Section 64 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as
amended). There is also the mandatory
Pasting of Form EC60E. The R&G provides that at the close of poll and after
sorting and counting and recording of votes, the Presiding Officers shall post
the completed Publication of Result Poster EC60(E) at the Polling Unit; Not pasting of Form EC60E is electoral
offence in line with Section 123 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).
Lastly,
it is very important for security agencies providing election security to note
that the Regulations and Guidelines have affirmed the right of the voters to
remain within the vicinity of the Polling Unit after voting. This is in
accordance with Section 20(d) of the R&G which provides that “After casting
his/her ballot, the voter is free to remain within the vicinity of the Polling
Unit to witness the sorting and counting of votes and the announcement of results,
provided he/she is orderly”
I
commend INEC for issuing these Regulations and Guidelines on time to ensure its
usage for the training of poll workers, and other critical stakeholders in the
electoral process such as the polling agents, security agents as well as
accredited observers and journalists. Be that as it may, opposition political
parties have raised a number of issues with the guidelines and have even sued
the commission to court over them. In a January 11, 2019 letter to the
commission, the group under the auspices of Chairmen of Nigeria Political
Parties stated their nine-point grouse with the R&G.
Most
prominent among them is the demand for separate accreditation and voting as was
the case in the last two general elections in 2015 and 2011. Much as I
sympathise with the positions being canvassed by the opposition political
parties aimed at enhancing the credibility of the country’s elections, I dare
say that this particular demand is not in consonance with global best practice
in elections.
I
have had the privilege to observe elections in Nigeria since 1999 and I have
also been accredited short-term election observer status in Ghana in 2008, the
United States of America in 2010, Egypt in 2014 and Uganda in 2016. In most
democracies I know, the voting system is simultaneous accreditation and voting.
That has been the practice in Nigeria since 1923 when we started our electoral
democracy. Prof. Attahiru Jega’s INEC introduced the separate accreditation
from voting in 2011 in order to prevent multiple voting given the fact that the
commission having just carried out a nationwide voter registration in February
2011 ahead of the April polls has not completed
running Automatic Fingerprint Identification System software to identify and
remove multiple registrants from the database.
The
belief in INEC then was that having accreditation between 8am and 12:00 noon
and forming a queue of voters nationwide between 12 noon and 12:30pm will
prevent electoral fraud as no one with multiple registrations will be able to
vote in more than one place. We should also not forget that Nigerians voted
with Temporary Voter Card in 2011. It turned out that poll workers did not
strictly adhere to this instruction. In 2015, INEC retained this voting method
due to the introduction and non-piloting of the use of Smart Card Reader. These
scenarios that necessitated the use of separate accreditation and voting are no
longer there. Most voters now have their PVCs, multiple registrants have been
largely sieved out of the Voters Register while Smart Card Readers functionality
have been enhanced and perfected.
It
is instructive that separate accreditation and voting may cause voter apathy
because of the inconvenience it subjects the voters to. According to the
European Union Election Observation Mission report on Nigeria’s 2015 General
Elections, the separation of accreditation from voting on March 28, 2015 led to
over 2.3 million people who were accredited in the morning staying away from
coming to cast their ballot in the afternoon. I have enjoined political parties
and candidates to ensure that they recruit, accredit with INEC, train and
deploy credible persons as their polling agents across the electoral value
chain if indeed they are interested in shoring up the integrity of the
forthcoming general elections.
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