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.
–Follow me on Twitter @jideojong
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