2015: INEC must rise to the occassion

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has just blown the whistle for the commencement of electioneering campaigns by all those aspiring to one position or the other in the 2015 elections. With the development, a lot of political activities will begin to take place across the country. Needless to stress, INEC, more than any other agency, holds the key to the success of next year’s general elections.

While we have no intention whatsoever to lecture the leadership of the commission on its primary role of seeing to a logical conclusion an exercise that matters a lot to the future of the country, we must, however, point out that Nigerians, indeed, the world, are looking up to INEC to organise and supervise a process that will be devoid of rancour and acrimony.

While also we do not dwell on the corridors of pessimism, we, nonetheless, want to admit that we nurse a serious fear over the ability of the commission to repeat the feat of 2011 or surpass it. Our reasons are genuine.

In recent times, INEC has lent itself to too many unnecessary controversies. Some of its actions and inactions appear not to wear a ring of transparency. For instance, the creation of new polling units across the six geo-political zones of the country, which was obviously lopsided, was an exercise that, rightly or wrongly, impugned the very integrity of the leadership of the commission. But we are happy that reason has prevailed on the 30,000 acrimonious polling units, with Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman, ordering a stay of action on the new units.

A few days ago, fingers pointed at INEC again. This time it was about a shoddy job done by the commission in relation to registration of eligible voters and issuing of the permanent voters cards (PVCs) to those who had already completed the processes. The controversy was set off in Lagos when it became public knowledge that about 1.4 million names of registered voters in the state were missing as INEC declared the number in its custody.

Apart from Lagos, there were also pockets of other states that experienced the same thing, a sad development that has since put the commission to task.

Members of the opposition party accused the commission of consciously trying to skew the process in favour of some other parties. A lot of postulations were made following the hitches detected in the distribution of PVCs.

Now, it is our candid advice that the commission should wear and be seen to wear a badge of neutrality. We recall that fears had been raised over the capability of the commission to abide by the provisions of Section 158 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which says INEC “shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other authority or person”.

It was that sentiment that gave rise to the recent allegation that INEC was working for a certain party. There has been recurrent observation that appointment of the electoral chairman, singlehandedly by a sitting president, does not guarantee the independence of the electoral body.

We also recall that issues have been raised over the election timetable released by INEC. For instance, Balarabe Musa, national chairman, People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and the first civilian governor of the old Kaduna State, said the timetable, if followed, would create a bandwagon effect during the elections.

“The sequence of the elections is top-bottom; the presidential election holds first. If INEC as an institution is desperate to have public confidence going by the poor conduct of past elections and the need to rediscover itself, why would it do such a thing that will raise a high level of lack of confidence in it? Why change the sequence of election? This has drastically reduced the level of confidence people have in the body,” Musa said.

But in spite of all this, we believe that the commission under Jega could replicate what it did in the recent Ekiti and Osun States gubernatorial elections, provided it takes appropriate steps, henceforth, to be a little bit more transparent.