Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has promised to conduct the best election in Nigeria history in 2023.
Yakubu who was a guest at a media dialogue hosted by the Nigeria Guild of Editors, NGE, at the weekend expressed understanding about worries being expressed by Nigerians over the Commission’s commitment just as he elaborated on its preparations and challenges ahead of the upcoming elections. THISAGE was there and covered the event.
Yakubu sounded optimistic about the Commission’s capacity to deliver a free poll.
“Our view of 2023 election is to conduct one of the best election which is going to be free, fair, transparent and verifiable. People can see the voting online from the comfort of their homes. Once people see voting online, we would have taken a bold step,” he said.
Two primary incidents happened last week that tended to cast doubts in the minds of the public about the Commissions preparedness to conduct a free and fair poll next year.
First was the allegations by the Coalition of United Political Party, that the register of voters for the 2023 polls was inauthentic because fake names have been uploaded in the INCE register. The CUPP alleged that the governing APC was planning to remove the INEC Chairman to pave the way to rig the 2023 polls.
To Prof Yakubu, some of the allegations being made against the Commission as well as fears over the credibility of the 2023 polls are either unprovable or will be met with firm response and resolved when found to be genuine.
Arguing that credible polls in the country will be achieved incrementally, he gave assurances that PVC would be ready for collection in October after the Commission has cleaned up the register of ineligible registrants, publish the updated register for seven days for scrutiny by the public for objections and complaints.
“Finally, it is only after the cleanup and claims and objections have been completed that the final register will be published. For distribution of PVCs we have the emails and phone numbers of voters. For those who live in the villages they will be reached by voice calls or text messages.”
He said the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS, which carries the picture of voters and their finger prints for purposes of authentication will prevent identity theft and ensure transparency in the voting process.
Dismissing the social media clips indicating that PVCs were found dumped in gutters in some states as unfounded as investigation by Commission has found no such thing, he also said allegation of hacking into the Commission’s website were farfetched.
“When I made a statement on hacking into the INEC website, I said so within a context. I said only when the system is consistently attacked that we can say it is threatened. But there are maintenance workers constantly fortifying the system. There were attempts by hackers but they failed. We have conducted 105 off –season elections so far using the website and it is safe.”
During the interactive session, he replied to questions on under age voting, particularly in the North as reported. The INEC boss said the Commission found the allegation baseless after an investigation and urged whomever found such behavior, which violates sections of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, to report to the Commission.
Listing the challenges facing the Commission to include environmental factors like poverty, political culture, communication-social media- and infrastructure like bad roads, he held that “election cannot be better than the environment in which it is conducted”, and blamed the attitude of politicians as a major headache in the successful conduct of election in Nigeria.
He said, “You cannot have a flourishing democracy without democrats. Imagine a situation when some one loses an election and then turns around to say his mandate has been stolen.”
Others areas during the question and answer sessions was the possibility of electronic voting in the future
Responding, Yakubu said, “We have started with the BVAS which has been a great improvement on the card readers, which often malfunctioned and forced us to use incidence form. That is gone now. With biometric accreditation before voting, we would soon move from electronic transmission of results to electronic voting by which time we would have been able to get a biometric register and collapse everything into a portal for electronic voting machine.”
in his welcome address, President of the NGE, Mr Mustapha Isah said the as one of the professions in the country with a long history of struggles to sustain, nurture and sustain democratic governance, “it is in the interest of the media to work with INEC to ensure the sustenance of democratic governance.”
He called on the National Assembly to speed up the passage of the bill on Electoral Offenses Commission before the onset of the coming election to make speedy trial and sentence of anti-democratic conduct like votes buying, intimidation of voters and electoral officers possible.
“INEC should not disappoint Nigerians after its successful performances during Ekiti and Osun polls,” Isah concluded.
