Polling agents and electoral integrity

Since last Thursday, January 3, 2019 appointment of Hajia Amina Bala Zakari as the head of a 10-member committee in charge of the logistics for the national result collation centre, opposition political parties have called for her removal on the basis of her purported relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari. There are reports to suggest that her father married a sister of the President which makes her a niece to the No. 1 citizen. But she has denied being a niece of the President. My independent finding of the true situation is that the committee she is heading is made up of about three national commissioners and about seven directors.

At inauguration, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said: “The ad hoc committee, which is entirely internal to the commission, shall be responsible for the national collation centre from where results of the presidential election will be announced. As was the case in 2015, the commission will use the lnternational Conference Centre in Abuja…It will serve as the secretariat for collation of results and venue for briefing of international observers and the media. It will also be accessible to agents of the 73 political parties fielding candidates in the presidential election. Facilities such as power, access to the lnternet, live transmission for national and international media as well as accreditation for access to the ICC and security of the venue shall be handled by the committee.”

As I have said on several media platforms where I have had the privilege of discussing this controversy, the woman has nothing to do with the actual collation of election results and is not in a position to influence the outcome of the presidential election. For the purpose of clarity, she is not the sole member of the committee; there are two other national commissioners and several other directors of the commission as members. Secondly, collation of presidential election results starts from the Ward to Local Government to state before getting to the national level. If the results are not manipulated at the lower levels, it will be difficult to do so at the final collation point. The Chief Returning Officer for the presidential election is the INEC Chairman and not Mrs. Zakari. In my own estimation, the call for her removal is a needless distraction.

What I will enjoin political parties and candidates to do is to appoint credible people as their Polling Agents. In this clime, many do not understand the enormous powers that the electoral laws have given to Polling Agents better known as Party Agents.  What does the Electoral Act say about the role of Polling Agents?  Section 45 of the Act recognises and allows all political parties to submit names of their Polling Agents to INEC and to deploy them after accreditation by the commission.  Section 43 (4) of the Act entitles Polling Agents to  be present at the distribution of election materials as well as being present at the voting, counting, collation and announcement  of election results.

Section 50 of the Act says: “A candidate or a Polling Agent may challenge the right of a person to receive a ballot paper on such grounds and in accordance with the procedures as are provided for in this Act.” Also, according to Section 64 of the Act, “A candidate or a Polling Agent may, where present at a Polling Unit when counting of votes is completed by the Presiding Officer, demand to have the votes recounted…” It is noteworthy that the Polling Agents are also given the opportunity to countersign results of elections and given official copies according to Sections 63 (3) and 74 of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended.

These are some of the measures put in place to ensure that political parties and candidates they sponsor for elections have their interests protected. On Monday, during its quarterly consultative meeting with political parties in Abuja, where he presented the 2019 voter register and electoral guidelines to the parties,  the INEC chairman advised leaders of political parties to start compiling lists of party agents for submission not later than 14 days to the elections, in line with the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 elections. The commission planned to train the agents on their role in the forthcoming elections.

From experience, many political parties will either not submit the list of their Polling Agents on time or not at all. This is done either out of ignorance, mischief or due to lack of resources to pay for the appointed agents. Ordinarily, party agency at elections should be a voluntary exercise by members of the political parties.  However, due to our lack of culture of volunteerism, those recruited as polling agents have to be paid by either their political parties or candidates. I do not blame the agents for demanding to be paid by their political parties given the high nomination fees they must have collected from the aspirants ahead of the party primaries. After all, a party like the All Progressives Congress was said to have made N6.9bn from the sale of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms. Unfortunately, it may still be the candidates who will pick the bill for the payment of the polling agents.

My experience on the field while observing elections in Nigeria is that many of the political parties will not submit any list of the polling agents to INEC but will rather print badges for their own agents. Even where they do present their list to INEC for accreditation, the deployment schedule is not shared with INEC for the commission to know who is assigned to a particular Polling Unit or Collation Centre. More importantly, the polling agents’ badges are not customised. Unlike those of accredited observers which have the name of the organisation being represented as well as name and photo of the observer, the Party Agent badge only has the name and logo of the party. This presents credibility issue as the badges become transferable. Non-accredited persons are able to wear the badge; even persons who are not members of the political party they claim to be representing their interest can take possession of it. My advice is that INEC should henceforth customise Polling Agents badges with the names and logos of the political parties as well as names and photos of the agents and refuse to admit to polling units or collation centres anyone without those cusomised tags.

It is also open secret that some ruling political parties print Polling Agent badges for opposition parties to shore up the credibility of their victory at the elections. This is often done for political parties who do not deploy agents. Another sharp practice is the buying out of Polling Agents of other parties. Ruling political parties or those who have enormous resources to prosecute elections do induce party agents in order to commit electoral fraud. A former Deputy Senate President admitted to this on a TV programme last year while confessing to his “electoral sins”.

In my own opinion, should all the political parties fielding candidates in the forthcoming elections recruit, train and deploy trustworthy persons as their Polling Agents from the point of distribution of election materials down to Polling Units to various collation centres, their presence will help to curb electoral fraud as they will be whistle-blowers on any sharp practices and malpractices. Should they decide not to deploy agents, they have themselves to blame and not INEC..