2011 elections: We are not yet out of the woods -Baba Ahmed
In your lecture last August, you listed what you referred to as, red flags, some sort of obstacles that may constrain INEC from conducting credible elections. You said that the time was too short to conduct free and fair elections. Now that INEC has cried out and the National Assembly is willing to grant it more time, will you say that your prophesy has come to pass?
I wouldn’t exactly say that it was a prophesy; I made some projections on the basis of my experience in election management and two, on the basis of the facts on ground. We had delayed the passing of the electoral Act much longer than it should have been. There were also arguments and otherwise of the conclusiveness of the constitution amendment.
All these were eating into the time that was given to INEC to conduct elections. It is great that we have the people who are now at the helm of affairs and they made decisions but these people are not miracle workers. I had the opportunity when FOMWAN asked me to address the issue of elections and I felt the best thing one could do was to look at the 2011 election against all the odds that were already evident.
And I tried to say that there were a number of problems that were likely to be encountered. That was why I called the lecture Red flags, simply to say that those were flash points that we needed to pay attention to. I wasn’t the only one who raised the issues. Quite a number of people did. May be some of them after my lecture.
I’m glad that we were able to get INEC finally to say that January 2011 was not feasible and I`m happy that the National Assembly and the presidency are moving at some speed to effect the amendment to move the elections beyond January. I think that it was most unfortunate that we found ourselves in this situation.
The time between the appointments of the commission, passing of the electoral act, concluding the amendment of the constitution was too short. That was why in the lecture, I used the word ``stampeding INEC``. It looked like someone somewhere was contriving to give INEC very very little time to conduct the election. When the commission said that the voters register it inherited from Professor Iwu is useless and it was coming up with an entirely new one, the problem was compounded. To create a new electronic voters register is not easy.
The commitment to come up with a new register and with very little time available and the huge array of tasks that INEC needed to do, were basically the issues that I felt represented major problems. And that was why I said, the first red flag has to do with the issue of timing. I made the case that I foresaw that January 2011 was not going to be feasible.
Some people are saying that now that the National Assembly has agreed to grant the time extension, the gerrymandering and the merry go-round of trying to amend the relevant sections of both the electoral Act and the constitution will also “eat” into the extension that INEC is asking for. Do you see this as another red flag?
Absolutely. The longer we delay concluding the amendment to move this election from January to either March or April, the more time we will deprive INEC to conduct credible elections.
All the arguments about what should go into the amendment, how long it should take, whether we should just insert a clause that will activate the amendment after the April elections, or whether we should go through the full blown process of going through the National Assembly, then state Assemblies and back to the National Assembly, is taking a lot of time. And even whether we are going to come back to the harrowing debate about whether it still has to go to the president for assent because it is a constitution amendment.
All these are major issues but I think we need to be very careful. I’m alarmed over the things that I’m beginning to hear, that INEC’s request for time extension is now being used by some people to seek additional issues.
One that I have seen in a report, and I’m praying to God that it is not true, is that there are some initiatives to revisit the issue of political appointees as delegates. Another one that I’m hearing is the possibility of rearranging the order of elections, which if you will recall, in my lecture I said it was wrong. The National Assembly shouldn’t have legislated on it. And as we move on, the more time it takes to conclude this amendment, the more the possibility that someone somewhere will also see an opportunity to achieve some gains.
That will again generate huge arguments. It will delay the process and if we conclude this amendment by the end of October or the middle of November, then I `m sorry to say that the benefits that would have accrued to INEC and the nation in terms of the leverage that they have gained, will be lost. I hope it is not going to happen and I hope that Nigerians will be very vigilant in watching what is going on. I hope the National Assembly, and the presidency and all the parties will see this amendment purely and simply as INEC has asked, moving the elections from January to April.
Nothing, and I repeat, nothing should be allowed to come on board because the amendments to the constitution and Electoral Sct were completed and no one has any reason now to bring another additional issues. If people do this, it will reinforce the perception that somebody has contrived to deprive INEC of time. Even with this additional time, they are depriving INEC of that time and somebody somewhere is not interested in giving Nigerians credible elections. Yes, it is a danger and it is important that we raise it as an issue now. INEC cannot determine when the National Assembly will conclude the amendment, but I hope the political parties, NGOs, CSOs and everybody recognise the fact that the longer we debate this, more issues will be brought up.
In your lecture, you alluded that President Goodluck Jonathan should not contest election if he wants to conduct credible elections. But you were INEC secretary when a sitting president contested elections. Why do you raise this issue now that it is the turn of Jonathan?
Let me correct you. The case I made was that it was important..at the time that I gave that lecture in the first week of August, it was important that the nation knew whether President Jonathan was going to be a candidate because the electoral process needs to be assured about whether he will be a candidate or not. I think that it is trite to say that President Jonathan has the constitutional right to contest; of course there is no arguing that. It is also a fundamental issue that as a president and a member of his party, there is a huge controversy regarding the morality and legality of his candidature.
When a person of no less stature than the president wants to contest elections, you cannot assume that the electoral and political process will be indifferent to that. Yes, in 2003, I was part of the INEC when President Obasanjo contested a second time, but I can tell you that his fall out with his deputy, was a major issue. Not so much for us as election managers, but for the political system. The problem here is that very often, what happens in the political system tends to have a major impact on the electoral process.
That is why the point I made in early August was to say that it was important at that stage, to know whether Jonathan was contesting or not, because the electoral process needs to be sensitive about this and everybody who is involved needs to know. So, that we can expect from the president a level playing field. Because there is a difference between being a candidate and being an unbiased umpire.
That was why I raised the issue at that time and since then, a number of things have come forward that have more than vindicated that position. Today, President Jonathan is an aspirant as the constitution gives him the right to be. The controversy over his aspiration is a party issue, but because it is the PDP, it has become a national issue. I have to say that if the report that we are hearing about the initiative to amend the Electoral Act and the constitution to bring back the issue of political appointees as delegates is coming from the president, this is the kind of thing that one was worrying about.
In plain terms, do you think that the country should expect a free, fair and credible elections in 2011, with the president contesting?
There is no reason why we shouldn’t. If he is willing to respect the oath of his office, if he is willing to comply with the wishes of Nigerians, he should give INEC complete and unfettered freedom, all his actions must be absolutely transparent, he must shield his office from partisan politics. Its a huge challenge but I think it can be done.
I hope that President Jonathan will go down in history as the president who was both president and a candidate and who allowed a free and fair election to take place. But the truth is, there are huge temptations. As we move on, you are likely to see his opponents throwing up alot of issues that compromise him and his office and use them for politicking. Nigerians will exercise their judgement and see whether they are mere political rhetorics or there is some truth about it. The office of the president of Nigeria is a hallowed office; it must never be allowed to be drag into the mud of electioneering.
Because, whether the president himself or his opponent will end up occupying that office. But a president can contest elections and he can do so while allowing the electoral process to operate the way it is. Right now, I don’t know; the extension of time has extended the electioneering and the rhetoric are going to get more bitter and more heated. A lot of mud will be thrown at the president and the president will do the same. The challenges of elections are going to be more demanding. All these affect the performance and the office of the president. Sometimes, it is not the president himself but his people who will see the opportunity of some short term gains they may try and seize it.
My hope is that they should just allow the amendment that INEC sought to take place. And this is going to test the will power of Mr President and the responsibility of the National Assembly.
So far, the searchlight has been on Professor Jega and his INEC as well as Resident Electoral Commissioners. People have been vouching for their integrity and capability to conduct credible elections. However, most of the staff were the ones who conducted the 2007 disputed elections. People are saying that there is little Jega and his team can do if these staff are the ones going to conduct coming elections. As someone who has been there before, do you think that a complete overhaul of the staff is necessary for credible elections to be conducted as people are advocating?
I have to tell you the truth that I feel very sorry for Professor Jega and a lot of his commissioners. I know quite a few of them. They are absolutely first class Nigerians and I will follow any one of these people anywhere.
Their personal integrity and history is beyond reproach and I know that they are taking this assignment with a high sense of responsibility. I think elections are safe in their hands. However, they may not guarantee free and fair elections.
One of the issues that I raised in my lecture was that INEC should look inwards. Take the issue of the so called Iwu’s register. We produced this register with huge amounts of money and up till now, nobody is asking who is going to pay for it. How did it come to be so bad? Who mutilated it? Who destroyed it? Was it Iwu himself alone? Could it have been done with the complicity of a large number of the present staff in INEC?
Could the few people who have been removed now be the only ones who are responsible? Do we have fifth columnists in INEC? INEC is not involved in full scale deployments, I can understand that. If they had say two years or one and half years, the first thing that they would have done was to look at the staffing but they don’t have the time.
But between the National Commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners, they should have done something as a matter of priority about the staff; their integrity, records and complicity in past elections but I don’t think that they were able to do that. One of the things that is happening now, is that we are going to the next elections with the same people who did the 2007 elections.
Hopefully, if there is nothing the present INEC leadership can do about the staff, it is to put the fear of God into them and demand that the very high level of integrity of the National Commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners can be imparted on the staff. It is a major weakness in the chain of INEC.
May be that is why, in my view, INEC wants to use youth corps members for registeration and even election duties because they are still somewhat untainted by the larger society, just coming out of the ivory tower. Why do you disagree with that?
It is basically out of experience. In my public service life, I have witnessed al ot of exercises like voter registration exercise, national ID card project and lots of exercises involving a large number of people in the field.
On quite a number of occasions, NYSC people were disappointing. Like I said in my lecture, they have caused huge levels of restiveness and many of them walked away with equipment and materials if you delay paying them their allowance by one day. I remember we did a lot of activities in compiling the voters register and some of our experiences with NYSC members were not very pleasant.
I`m very reluctant to criticise young Nigerians when we are celebrating 50 years of independence. The NYSC members were the same students in our universities where we see a lot of vices and they don’t become new people just because they have graduated. The advantages of using them is their levels of literacy and they are relatively untainted and are committed to Nigeria. I think that on the face of it, they are available and can be mobilised easily. They can be traced and tracked.
All these are advantages but my conclusion that we should be careful about the NYSC was drawn from an experience and I have reason to believe that things have changed. I worry about keeping track of the people, how many people will surrender laptops that contain vital information and even the cost of it. You are going to move these people into areas that they are not serving in. I hope that INEC has done enough homework to limit some of these abuses of the past. But I still maintain the position that INEC should endeavour to find other Nigerians, they should challenge people like you and I to go out and do election duties.
It really doesn’t take much. If more and more Nigerians who are disgusted that our electoral process has degenerated, it will be easy to mobilise them. You can mix up with some youth corps members and ask for some guarantees but I`m worried about this unquestioning faith, just because they are NYSC, they should be allowed to undertake very sensitive field exercise.
May be that is why the commission has put some kind of guarantee in the use of corps members, that their certificates will be withheld in the event that they default. Don’t you think that this will keep the corps on leash?
Let me just say that I have no reason to believe that corpers are per se unreliable. If there are ways that you can improve the guarantees that they will do their work, they will not riot because you have delayed payment or somebody suspects that the amount of money that they are giving them is less than what they should have been given, that some people will not use them etc. If you can guarantee those things, I will be very happy to go along with the consensus that NYSC should do the job. I’m sure that if INEC talks with NYSC management, they will find ways to secure the process. I wish there was an option for INEC.
At a recent meeting with leaders of political parties, there was agitation for INEC to conduct all elections in on day. Opposition politicians kicked against staggered elections, arguing that with improved technology, the commission can conduct all elections in one day. As someone who has been in INEC, do you think that the commission has the capacity to conduct all elections in one day?
There is no election since 1999, when huge demands were not made to conduct all the elections in one day. In 2002 and 2003 we had to even go to court to demand that we should be allowed to have elections on different dates. And we won the case. The reason is not far fetched. It is tempting to make the case to conduct elections in one day.
On the face of it, it is a very good idea because everybody is in one place at the same time. And you use the same materials and the same centres for all five elections and you will minimise rigging and hijacking of materials. The problem however is if we had the electronic voter system, it will be feasible. And I think that one of the greatest pities that threw it out. If we had the system in place, it would have been the simplest thing and the most practical things to do because all a voter needed to do is to punch some buttons and in one minute the votes will be registered. I `m very bitter about this.
We made such a good case for the adoption of an electronic voters register; I was involved in the Uwais report and in its processing all the way to the National Assembly. There is no reason why we didn’t adopt the electronic voting system. One of the problems that we are likely to have if we conduct the elections in one day, is this; 500 voters will come out and vote for all the candidates together. The booklet which you will give to a voter to cast his or her vote is going to be like a text book because it will contain all the candidates in that constituency against all the five strands of elections. And yet we complain about insufficient voter education, we record a high number of voided votes yearly and these voided votes reflect very largely, the insufficiency of voter education. Apart from the cumbersome and very difficult ballot book, not ballot paper, that will be involved if all elections are conducted in one day you also have to consider the issue of timing.
How long will it take for one voter to go into the polling booth and cast his vote, with all these huge candidates? It defies the imagination. From an election management perspective, under the circumstances, it just doesn’t make sense to conduct all elections in one day.
You rightly pointed out that in every election, there is a high incidence of voided votes which is a function of poor voter education and illiteracy. Ironically, you also made a case for electronic voting, which is more difficult to handle.
We have passed that stage. Virtually everyone who was involved in considering options in our electoral system has seen how simple the electronic voting system is. It allows 750 million voters to cast their votes. It is popular in India which has less literacy and higher poverty rate than Nigeria yet the conduct of elections using the electronic voters register. Manny countries are now reverting to it. Even Britain which conducted a sham election recently is contemplating using the electronic voters register. It is the solution of Nigeria’s problems, it is just that typically, we have closed our minds to it.
We use a mobile phone which is 1000 times more complicated than the electronic voters register. I suspect that the resistance against the use of the electronic voters register is coming from politicians who are used to a system that they can rig. Because there is no one who has a clear understanding of the benefits of the electronic voters register, will not recommend that it should be adopted.
I remember when electronic voting was demonstrated at the National Assembly, the process was thwarted by all sorts of hitches; the machines jammed, the votes didn’t record in some instances etc. May be that is why people are still apprehensive about it.
We have gone way beyond that. That was two, three, four years ago. Even the one or two sessions of the National Assembly, when they were considering the constitution amendment, they used the electronic voting system. As Nigerians, we need to open our minds, let’s not become slaves of the past, we need to move beyond this system which is wasteful, dangerous and subversive paper-based elections. Do you know what it takes to conduct elections now? You are going to print hundreds of millions of paper; the printing is anightmare. Up till the moment that I’m talking to you now, there are ballot papers that were printed for the 2007 election still laying in South Africa. I suspected that there are containers that were dumped when I was secretary of INEC, at the Abuja Trade fair complex, containing ballot papers for the 2003 elections.
I wouldn’t exactly say that it was a prophesy; I made some projections on the basis of my experience in election management and two, on the basis of the facts on ground. We had delayed the passing of the electoral Act much longer than it should have been. There were also arguments and otherwise of the conclusiveness of the constitution amendment.
All these were eating into the time that was given to INEC to conduct elections. It is great that we have the people who are now at the helm of affairs and they made decisions but these people are not miracle workers. I had the opportunity when FOMWAN asked me to address the issue of elections and I felt the best thing one could do was to look at the 2011 election against all the odds that were already evident.
And I tried to say that there were a number of problems that were likely to be encountered. That was why I called the lecture Red flags, simply to say that those were flash points that we needed to pay attention to. I wasn’t the only one who raised the issues. Quite a number of people did. May be some of them after my lecture.
I’m glad that we were able to get INEC finally to say that January 2011 was not feasible and I`m happy that the National Assembly and the presidency are moving at some speed to effect the amendment to move the elections beyond January. I think that it was most unfortunate that we found ourselves in this situation.
The time between the appointments of the commission, passing of the electoral act, concluding the amendment of the constitution was too short. That was why in the lecture, I used the word ``stampeding INEC``. It looked like someone somewhere was contriving to give INEC very very little time to conduct the election. When the commission said that the voters register it inherited from Professor Iwu is useless and it was coming up with an entirely new one, the problem was compounded. To create a new electronic voters register is not easy.
The commitment to come up with a new register and with very little time available and the huge array of tasks that INEC needed to do, were basically the issues that I felt represented major problems. And that was why I said, the first red flag has to do with the issue of timing. I made the case that I foresaw that January 2011 was not going to be feasible.
Some people are saying that now that the National Assembly has agreed to grant the time extension, the gerrymandering and the merry go-round of trying to amend the relevant sections of both the electoral Act and the constitution will also “eat” into the extension that INEC is asking for. Do you see this as another red flag?
Absolutely. The longer we delay concluding the amendment to move this election from January to either March or April, the more time we will deprive INEC to conduct credible elections.
All the arguments about what should go into the amendment, how long it should take, whether we should just insert a clause that will activate the amendment after the April elections, or whether we should go through the full blown process of going through the National Assembly, then state Assemblies and back to the National Assembly, is taking a lot of time. And even whether we are going to come back to the harrowing debate about whether it still has to go to the president for assent because it is a constitution amendment.
All these are major issues but I think we need to be very careful. I’m alarmed over the things that I’m beginning to hear, that INEC’s request for time extension is now being used by some people to seek additional issues.
One that I have seen in a report, and I’m praying to God that it is not true, is that there are some initiatives to revisit the issue of political appointees as delegates. Another one that I’m hearing is the possibility of rearranging the order of elections, which if you will recall, in my lecture I said it was wrong. The National Assembly shouldn’t have legislated on it. And as we move on, the more time it takes to conclude this amendment, the more the possibility that someone somewhere will also see an opportunity to achieve some gains.
That will again generate huge arguments. It will delay the process and if we conclude this amendment by the end of October or the middle of November, then I `m sorry to say that the benefits that would have accrued to INEC and the nation in terms of the leverage that they have gained, will be lost. I hope it is not going to happen and I hope that Nigerians will be very vigilant in watching what is going on. I hope the National Assembly, and the presidency and all the parties will see this amendment purely and simply as INEC has asked, moving the elections from January to April.
Nothing, and I repeat, nothing should be allowed to come on board because the amendments to the constitution and Electoral Sct were completed and no one has any reason now to bring another additional issues. If people do this, it will reinforce the perception that somebody has contrived to deprive INEC of time. Even with this additional time, they are depriving INEC of that time and somebody somewhere is not interested in giving Nigerians credible elections. Yes, it is a danger and it is important that we raise it as an issue now. INEC cannot determine when the National Assembly will conclude the amendment, but I hope the political parties, NGOs, CSOs and everybody recognise the fact that the longer we debate this, more issues will be brought up.
In your lecture, you alluded that President Goodluck Jonathan should not contest election if he wants to conduct credible elections. But you were INEC secretary when a sitting president contested elections. Why do you raise this issue now that it is the turn of Jonathan?
Let me correct you. The case I made was that it was important..at the time that I gave that lecture in the first week of August, it was important that the nation knew whether President Jonathan was going to be a candidate because the electoral process needs to be assured about whether he will be a candidate or not. I think that it is trite to say that President Jonathan has the constitutional right to contest; of course there is no arguing that. It is also a fundamental issue that as a president and a member of his party, there is a huge controversy regarding the morality and legality of his candidature.
When a person of no less stature than the president wants to contest elections, you cannot assume that the electoral and political process will be indifferent to that. Yes, in 2003, I was part of the INEC when President Obasanjo contested a second time, but I can tell you that his fall out with his deputy, was a major issue. Not so much for us as election managers, but for the political system. The problem here is that very often, what happens in the political system tends to have a major impact on the electoral process.
That is why the point I made in early August was to say that it was important at that stage, to know whether Jonathan was contesting or not, because the electoral process needs to be sensitive about this and everybody who is involved needs to know. So, that we can expect from the president a level playing field. Because there is a difference between being a candidate and being an unbiased umpire.
That was why I raised the issue at that time and since then, a number of things have come forward that have more than vindicated that position. Today, President Jonathan is an aspirant as the constitution gives him the right to be. The controversy over his aspiration is a party issue, but because it is the PDP, it has become a national issue. I have to say that if the report that we are hearing about the initiative to amend the Electoral Act and the constitution to bring back the issue of political appointees as delegates is coming from the president, this is the kind of thing that one was worrying about.
In plain terms, do you think that the country should expect a free, fair and credible elections in 2011, with the president contesting?
There is no reason why we shouldn’t. If he is willing to respect the oath of his office, if he is willing to comply with the wishes of Nigerians, he should give INEC complete and unfettered freedom, all his actions must be absolutely transparent, he must shield his office from partisan politics. Its a huge challenge but I think it can be done.
I hope that President Jonathan will go down in history as the president who was both president and a candidate and who allowed a free and fair election to take place. But the truth is, there are huge temptations. As we move on, you are likely to see his opponents throwing up alot of issues that compromise him and his office and use them for politicking. Nigerians will exercise their judgement and see whether they are mere political rhetorics or there is some truth about it. The office of the president of Nigeria is a hallowed office; it must never be allowed to be drag into the mud of electioneering.
Because, whether the president himself or his opponent will end up occupying that office. But a president can contest elections and he can do so while allowing the electoral process to operate the way it is. Right now, I don’t know; the extension of time has extended the electioneering and the rhetoric are going to get more bitter and more heated. A lot of mud will be thrown at the president and the president will do the same. The challenges of elections are going to be more demanding. All these affect the performance and the office of the president. Sometimes, it is not the president himself but his people who will see the opportunity of some short term gains they may try and seize it.
My hope is that they should just allow the amendment that INEC sought to take place. And this is going to test the will power of Mr President and the responsibility of the National Assembly.
So far, the searchlight has been on Professor Jega and his INEC as well as Resident Electoral Commissioners. People have been vouching for their integrity and capability to conduct credible elections. However, most of the staff were the ones who conducted the 2007 disputed elections. People are saying that there is little Jega and his team can do if these staff are the ones going to conduct coming elections. As someone who has been there before, do you think that a complete overhaul of the staff is necessary for credible elections to be conducted as people are advocating?
I have to tell you the truth that I feel very sorry for Professor Jega and a lot of his commissioners. I know quite a few of them. They are absolutely first class Nigerians and I will follow any one of these people anywhere.
Their personal integrity and history is beyond reproach and I know that they are taking this assignment with a high sense of responsibility. I think elections are safe in their hands. However, they may not guarantee free and fair elections.
One of the issues that I raised in my lecture was that INEC should look inwards. Take the issue of the so called Iwu’s register. We produced this register with huge amounts of money and up till now, nobody is asking who is going to pay for it. How did it come to be so bad? Who mutilated it? Who destroyed it? Was it Iwu himself alone? Could it have been done with the complicity of a large number of the present staff in INEC?
Could the few people who have been removed now be the only ones who are responsible? Do we have fifth columnists in INEC? INEC is not involved in full scale deployments, I can understand that. If they had say two years or one and half years, the first thing that they would have done was to look at the staffing but they don’t have the time.
But between the National Commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners, they should have done something as a matter of priority about the staff; their integrity, records and complicity in past elections but I don’t think that they were able to do that. One of the things that is happening now, is that we are going to the next elections with the same people who did the 2007 elections.
Hopefully, if there is nothing the present INEC leadership can do about the staff, it is to put the fear of God into them and demand that the very high level of integrity of the National Commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners can be imparted on the staff. It is a major weakness in the chain of INEC.
May be that is why, in my view, INEC wants to use youth corps members for registeration and even election duties because they are still somewhat untainted by the larger society, just coming out of the ivory tower. Why do you disagree with that?
It is basically out of experience. In my public service life, I have witnessed al ot of exercises like voter registration exercise, national ID card project and lots of exercises involving a large number of people in the field.
On quite a number of occasions, NYSC people were disappointing. Like I said in my lecture, they have caused huge levels of restiveness and many of them walked away with equipment and materials if you delay paying them their allowance by one day. I remember we did a lot of activities in compiling the voters register and some of our experiences with NYSC members were not very pleasant.
I`m very reluctant to criticise young Nigerians when we are celebrating 50 years of independence. The NYSC members were the same students in our universities where we see a lot of vices and they don’t become new people just because they have graduated. The advantages of using them is their levels of literacy and they are relatively untainted and are committed to Nigeria. I think that on the face of it, they are available and can be mobilised easily. They can be traced and tracked.
All these are advantages but my conclusion that we should be careful about the NYSC was drawn from an experience and I have reason to believe that things have changed. I worry about keeping track of the people, how many people will surrender laptops that contain vital information and even the cost of it. You are going to move these people into areas that they are not serving in. I hope that INEC has done enough homework to limit some of these abuses of the past. But I still maintain the position that INEC should endeavour to find other Nigerians, they should challenge people like you and I to go out and do election duties.
It really doesn’t take much. If more and more Nigerians who are disgusted that our electoral process has degenerated, it will be easy to mobilise them. You can mix up with some youth corps members and ask for some guarantees but I`m worried about this unquestioning faith, just because they are NYSC, they should be allowed to undertake very sensitive field exercise.
May be that is why the commission has put some kind of guarantee in the use of corps members, that their certificates will be withheld in the event that they default. Don’t you think that this will keep the corps on leash?
Let me just say that I have no reason to believe that corpers are per se unreliable. If there are ways that you can improve the guarantees that they will do their work, they will not riot because you have delayed payment or somebody suspects that the amount of money that they are giving them is less than what they should have been given, that some people will not use them etc. If you can guarantee those things, I will be very happy to go along with the consensus that NYSC should do the job. I’m sure that if INEC talks with NYSC management, they will find ways to secure the process. I wish there was an option for INEC.
At a recent meeting with leaders of political parties, there was agitation for INEC to conduct all elections in on day. Opposition politicians kicked against staggered elections, arguing that with improved technology, the commission can conduct all elections in one day. As someone who has been in INEC, do you think that the commission has the capacity to conduct all elections in one day?
There is no election since 1999, when huge demands were not made to conduct all the elections in one day. In 2002 and 2003 we had to even go to court to demand that we should be allowed to have elections on different dates. And we won the case. The reason is not far fetched. It is tempting to make the case to conduct elections in one day.
On the face of it, it is a very good idea because everybody is in one place at the same time. And you use the same materials and the same centres for all five elections and you will minimise rigging and hijacking of materials. The problem however is if we had the electronic voter system, it will be feasible. And I think that one of the greatest pities that threw it out. If we had the system in place, it would have been the simplest thing and the most practical things to do because all a voter needed to do is to punch some buttons and in one minute the votes will be registered. I `m very bitter about this.
We made such a good case for the adoption of an electronic voters register; I was involved in the Uwais report and in its processing all the way to the National Assembly. There is no reason why we didn’t adopt the electronic voting system. One of the problems that we are likely to have if we conduct the elections in one day, is this; 500 voters will come out and vote for all the candidates together. The booklet which you will give to a voter to cast his or her vote is going to be like a text book because it will contain all the candidates in that constituency against all the five strands of elections. And yet we complain about insufficient voter education, we record a high number of voided votes yearly and these voided votes reflect very largely, the insufficiency of voter education. Apart from the cumbersome and very difficult ballot book, not ballot paper, that will be involved if all elections are conducted in one day you also have to consider the issue of timing.
How long will it take for one voter to go into the polling booth and cast his vote, with all these huge candidates? It defies the imagination. From an election management perspective, under the circumstances, it just doesn’t make sense to conduct all elections in one day.
You rightly pointed out that in every election, there is a high incidence of voided votes which is a function of poor voter education and illiteracy. Ironically, you also made a case for electronic voting, which is more difficult to handle.
We have passed that stage. Virtually everyone who was involved in considering options in our electoral system has seen how simple the electronic voting system is. It allows 750 million voters to cast their votes. It is popular in India which has less literacy and higher poverty rate than Nigeria yet the conduct of elections using the electronic voters register. Manny countries are now reverting to it. Even Britain which conducted a sham election recently is contemplating using the electronic voters register. It is the solution of Nigeria’s problems, it is just that typically, we have closed our minds to it.
We use a mobile phone which is 1000 times more complicated than the electronic voters register. I suspect that the resistance against the use of the electronic voters register is coming from politicians who are used to a system that they can rig. Because there is no one who has a clear understanding of the benefits of the electronic voters register, will not recommend that it should be adopted.
I remember when electronic voting was demonstrated at the National Assembly, the process was thwarted by all sorts of hitches; the machines jammed, the votes didn’t record in some instances etc. May be that is why people are still apprehensive about it.
We have gone way beyond that. That was two, three, four years ago. Even the one or two sessions of the National Assembly, when they were considering the constitution amendment, they used the electronic voting system. As Nigerians, we need to open our minds, let’s not become slaves of the past, we need to move beyond this system which is wasteful, dangerous and subversive paper-based elections. Do you know what it takes to conduct elections now? You are going to print hundreds of millions of paper; the printing is anightmare. Up till the moment that I’m talking to you now, there are ballot papers that were printed for the 2007 election still laying in South Africa. I suspected that there are containers that were dumped when I was secretary of INEC, at the Abuja Trade fair complex, containing ballot papers for the 2003 elections.
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