The Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Amina Zakari, has called for the review of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), to address lacunas and improve the effectiveness of the commission.
She said this in Abuja on Monday when a delegation of military attachés of accredited foreign missions in Nigeria, led by the Assistant Director, Attaché Management Defence Intelligence Agency, Col. Everest Okoro, paid a courtesy visit to the commission.
Zakari however refused to speak on whether the composition of the INEC’s management could impair negatively on decisions taken so far by the commission.
The commission, which is made up of 13 national commissioners, currently has just two as 11 commissioners had completed their tenure.
She said, “We need some review on the Electoral Act because during the course of our assignment, we noticed some lapses and lacunas in some of the clauses.
“We are working with the National Assembly and have recommended certain reviews.
“We also remind the current National Assembly of the need to look at these aspects of the Electoral Act so that we can improve our processes and also improve our elections.”
While explaining the composition and the functions of the commission to the military attaches, the INEC boss highlighted some of the challenges encountered in the course of conducting the 2011 and 2015 general elections.
She listed some of the challenges to include lack of internal party democracy and challenges in the control and monitoring of parties’ finances and expenditures.
She explained that the commission had however been building capacity internally and had commenced a pilot model for monitoring of campaign finances.
Another challenge, according to her, is election-related violence. She said the deployment of Election Risk Management Tool , with the support of the African Union and other international agencies, assisted to map out risks ahead of the elections and deploy security appropriately, especially with the constitution of the Inter Agency Committee on Election Security.
Zakari noted that reaching out to the public was daunting due to the vast expanse of the country.
She, however, said, “We have been improving through the implementation of our communication strategy which was evident in the 2015 elections.”
Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Okoro, had congratulated the commission for the success recorded in the 2015 general election.
He said, “Considering the very important role that your commission plays in our nation building, particularly in building the blocks of democracy, our agency has considered it very important to organise this trip for our Defence Foreign Mission Attachés and Advisers.”
He added, “The agency has decided to conduct this visit to the commission to avail our members of foreign attachés and advisers the opportunity to have an in-depth insight of the workings of the commission.”
Meanwhile, Zakari has inaugurated three special committees to consolidate and improve on the gains of previous elections and to aid the implementation of the 2015 Election Retreat Report.
The committees include the Committee on INEC/NYSC Relations and other Ad-hoc Staff Matters, headed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Lagos State, Akinyemi Orebiyi; and the Committee on INEC/NURTW Memorandum of Understanding (for enhanced logistical capability), headed by the REC of Niger State, Nasir Ayilara.
The other committee is Modalities for Continuous Voter Registration, charged with the responsibility of establishing a more robust and sustainable process, is chaired by the REC of Benue State, Prof. Istifanus Dafwang.
At the inauguration, Zakari explained that there was an immediate need to commence early implementation of the recommendations of the INEC Post-Election Retreat Report, the 2015 Election Report, the NYSC 2015 Report as well as Observer Reports.
She outlined some key areas of focus which would guide the commission as it moved to improve on the electoral process. They include voter education, use of technology, continuous voter registration, human resource deployment, logistics and transportation and legal reviews.
The committees were given one month to submit their reports and were charged by the Acting Chairman to bring to bear their expertise in election management in executing this important assignment.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: editor@punchng.com
SOURCE -: http://ift.tt/1XgevMJ
0 comments:
Post a Comment