Achieving credible and peaceful 2019 elections

The die is cast! It’s now 72 hours to the D-Day! The long-awaited 2019 general election is here with us. On my own part, while the political parties and candidates have been mounting the soap boxes at campaign rallies trying their best to woo voters, I have been busy building the capacity of election stakeholders including the media, civil society groups and security agencies. I have also been behind microphones on many radio and television stations educating, sensitising and mobilising for peaceful and successful polls.

There are many things unique in the forthcoming elections. The elections will go down in Nigerian history as the costliest. A whopping N242bn has been earmarked for the polls by the Federal Government, N189bn of that sum goes to the Independent National Electoral Commission while the remaining N53bn is shared out to the various security agencies ranging from the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Immigration Service, and others. This sum is apart from the billions of naira being spent by political parties and the candidates as well as the millions of dollars being spent on INEC and CSOs by international donor partners such as the United Kingdom Agency for International Development, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development as well as several foreign embassies and foundations.

The exponential cost of the 2019 elections is borne out of several factors. First, there has been a quantum leap in the number of political parties. Twenty eight registered political parties contested the 2015 elections while the number has astronomically risen to 91 in this electoral cycle. Two, INEC’s constitutional mandate to monitor political parties and their finances is now gulping more funds as the election management body has to monitor the party congresses and conventions of 91 political parties and also monitor the party primaries of all those fielding candidates in the elections. Three, arising from the very flawed party primaries, about 600 petitions have been filed by aggrieved aspirants with each of them joining INEC as a defendant in a case it has no input in the making.  This means INEC has to spend a lot more on hiring of defence counsel since the commission does not have a large pool of lawyers who can represent its interest in different courts across the country.

In 2015, the number of registered voters was about 65 million, as of today the number of registered voters has increased to over 84 million. The implication of that being more resources needed to print Permanent Voters Cards, procure Smart Card Readers and ballot papers. INEC has also doubled the number of ad hoc staff recruited from about 500,000 in 2015 to about one million in this round of the elections. Though INEC has not created additional Polling Units despite the significant increase in the number of registered voters, the commission has however had to create additional Voting Points in order to ensure that large Polling Units are sub-divided into voting point of not more than 750 voters. It should also be noted that instead of five elections being held over two weeks period in the past, this time, INEC has added the Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections to the presidential, Senate, House of Representatives, Governorship and state Houses of Assembly  elections to be held on February 16 and March 2, 2019.

This year’s elections are also costing more due to the fall in the value of the naira in the foreign exchange market. In 2015 the naira to dollar was about N165 to 1$, but today, it’s about N360 to 1$. Incidentally, because of mutual suspicion and lack of trust by our political actors, the printing of sensitive election materials that should be done by Nigeria Printing and Minting Company is rather done overseas. Opposition political parties always believe that the NPMC, being a government parastatal, can be influenced to favour the ruling party in the printing of sensitive election materials. Also, the desperate act of some politicians makes the commission to be printing our ballot papers to a currency level.

What I mean by this is that in order to prevent desperate politicians from succeeding in their attempt at counterfeiting sensitive materials like ballot papers and result sheet, a lot of security features has to be put on those documents just the same way as one would put on a nation’s currency. It does cost a lot more to print such highly securitised and customised  election documents. The volume of election materials and personnel needed for this election has thus increased the amount to be spent on haulage services and transportation of election officials and materials. The exponential rise in the number of political parties also gave rise to the high number of candidates vying for elections in 2019. Unprecedentedly, according to the electoral umpire, over 23,000 candidates are contesting 1,558 seats across the country over the next two weeks. Invariably, the size of ballot papers and result sheets has increased from what it used to be.

Now, given the huge resources being consumed by the 2019 elections, nothing short of peaceful and credible polls are being expected. However, actions and behaviour of some political actors are given jitters. My concerns stem from the fact that some arsonists seem to be having a field day burning down INEC offices. It first happened on February 3, 2019 in Umu-Ikaa, in the Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State. A week after, a similar incident took place in the INEC office at Qua’an Pan Local Government Area of Plateau. Just yesterday afternoon, part of INEC State office in Awmabia near Nwka , Anambra State was also gutted by fire with many Smart Card Readers meant for Saturday’s elections  reportedly burnt. While arsonists are on the loose to destroy INEC property, some unscrupulous politicians are also reportedly buying up Permanent Voters Card and collecting Voters Identification Numbers. These are very unfortunate actions being perpetrated by some unpatriotic Nigerians.

It is noteworthy that the credibility of next Saturday’s elections is a responsibility of all actors and stakeholders in the electoral process. Nigerian politicians and their collaborators should stop undermining the electoral process with their inhuman actions. They should desist from vote buying, hate speech, fake news and other behavior capable of discrediting the forthcoming polls. Accredited media and observer groups need to act professionally. Conflict sensitive reportage of the elections is needed from them. I do hope the mindless actions of some desperate politicians to orchestrate insecurity will not compel INEC to postpone the Saturday’s election nationwide as was done in 2011 and 2015. Am thus challenging the security agencies to redouble their efforts and provide adequate security for men and materials being deployed for these elections.

Lastly, it is incumbent on the electorate to troop out on Saturday to exercise their franchise. Not only that, they should shun violence and reject all forms of inducements by  crooked  politicians. At the end of the day, INEC too must ensure value for the humongous sums being expended on these elections.