News reports have it that the mock election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 12 states last Saturday, using Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and Card Reader Machines (CRMs), was ‘substantially’ successful. There’s now a consensus of opinion that the smart card readers are in good shape and that their deployment would undeniably strengthen and deepen democracy in this nation by helping to eliminate electoral wuruwuru such as ballot paper pre-thumbing and ballot-box stuffing.
The remaining bastion of opposition to the use of PVCs and CRMs is clearly the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO) and the national leadership of the ruling party. Based on what it described as “series of complaints from Nigerians,” the party’s national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, declared in a press statement that “Our response to the emerging problems and challenges from Saturday’s testing of the card readers is ‘REX IPSA LOQUITOR’ – the fact speaks for itself. The PDP and indeed all well-meaning Nigerians await INEC’s official response and/or its final decision after such defining challenges.”
And less than 24 hours later, INEC responded by insisting on the full use and deployment of the PVCs and Card Reader Machines (CRMs) for the forthcoming general elections.
Chief Metuh and his associates in the PDP define a “well-meaning” Nigerian as one who would mindlessly support their orchestrated campaign of calumny to undermine INEC. Quite interestingly, the governors’ forum of the ruling party led by Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio also reportedly met in Lagos, about the same time INEC top management was holding their meeting, and issued a communique rejecting the use of PVCs and CRMs. They also reportedly threw weight behind sinister plans to force Jega to resign prematurely, even though the conditions governing his appointment and removal are enshrined in the Constitution, not the General Orders (G.O.).
Of course, there’s no disputing the fact that any test run of new equipment and methods, such as that conducted by INEC last Saturday, would have its teething problems. But such an outcome shouldn’t automatically justify calls for jettisoning their deployment, especially when the challenges are not pervasive and can readily be resolved. The two ‘significant’ hitches that were noticed during the exercise were the non-capture of fingerprints of some voters and the relatively long accreditation time in a number of polling units – and both can be easily rectified.
It is indeed inconceivable that the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO) that has made a song and dance out of warning Nigerians not to allow themselves to be dragged backwards to the dark age of Buhari’s autocratic rule is disingenuously hell-bent on equally throwing the nation back to the ugly past of sham elections when false results were declared with impunity and the ‘losers’ were mockingly asked to go to court!
What baffles one the most is that given the eye-popping “preliminary findings” unveiled last January by the Department of State Security of “invidious plans” by the APC to clone PVCs, if anything else, Nigerians fully expected the PDP to be championing the crusade for the deployment of smart card readers if only to checkmate whatever electoral shenanigans the opposition party might have hatched; not unless the ruling party is implying that the SSS’ findings simply amounted to an abortive attempt to obfuscate and disorganize the opposition!
Rather than obstinately indulge in the unprofitable gambit of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it and be irresponsibly hell-bent on throwing away the baby with the bathwater, the ruling party ought to be collaborating with majority of Nigerians and our foreign friends to ascertain solutions to the glitches that reared up their heads during the mock election, if the party is genuinely interested in the conduct of credible and transparent elections that will truly reflect the will of the Nigerian voting public.
For example, it has been determined that the primary reason why the thumb prints of several voters were rejected was due to greasy/dirty fingers. The solution lies in getting INEC to intensify its efforts on voter education on how to vote with PVCs. In addition, INEC should provide clean water or spirit at polling units for people to wash their hands because if voters’ fingerprints are clean, the rejection rate will be significantly curtailed and the accreditation process would be much faster. INEC should also have more fully charged CRMs in good working condition on standby, especially at overpopulated polling units.
Needless pointing out that INEC foresaw the accreditation challenge far ahead of time and tried to forestall it by creating 30,000 new polling units. However, Jega was browbeaten into making a volte-face when southern-based organisations, PDP chieftains and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) accused him of disenfranchising the south by citing more than two-thirds of the polling units in the north. It was the proverbial case of the chicken refusing to quarrel with the knife used to kill it and opting to lambast the pot in which it was cooked.
When the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) launched a withering attack on voter registration in the southeast zone, for instance, only few people like then Anambra State Governor Peter Obi saw the danger ahead. But for speaking out against what MASSOB was recklessly doing to damage the electoral interests of Ndigbo – just as the same organisation did during the census – he was labeled Enemy No.1.
Today, MASSOB leader Raph Uwazuike is backing Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection bid but has come to realize that politics is a game of numbers and the incumbent president cannot win on the basis of genuinely registered voters where the north has a well-defined advantage. It is this eleventh-hour realisation that has spurned the Jega-must-go hate campaigns and strident calls for the preferred use of rigging-prone Temporary Voter Cards (TVCs) and abandonment of PVCs and CRMs.
There can be no disputing the fact that if only Jega was ready to play ball according to rules solely dictated by you-know-who, the current orchestrated calls for his removal or enforced terminal leave would be non-sequitur. Wise counsel, however, demands that with INEC now more than ever determined to deploy the CRMs, all hands should be on deck to ensure that the perceived hitches are corrected before the elections proper.
So, rather than continuing to overheat the polity by sponsoring campaigns for Jega’s removal and sprouting of proxy legal suits after the manner of Sen. Francis Nzeribe’s infamous Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), anti-poll proponents should have a change of heart and join other Nigerians in the quest to conduct credible elections using PVCs and CRMs – devices that have already been deployed to telling effect in neighboring African countries like Ghana.
And lest we forget, there are many PDP supporters and state party officials who see nothing wrong with using the machines. They and millions of other Nigerians simply do not understand why the national leadership of the PDP is worked up by the reality that INEC would use the machines to outsmart die-hard election riggers.
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