By Chinwe Ogbuka
With the successful conduct of the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, INEC will in the next few days, begin the conduct of series of rerun elections across the country as ordered by the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal had in electoral petition judgments nullified over 82 States and National Assembly seats won in the 2015 general elections and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct rerun elections within 60 and 90 days respectively from the date of the judgments.
In line with the Court’s order, and in strict compliance with the time frame given for the conduct of the rerun elections, INEC has commenced preparations in earnest, beginning with series of consultative meetings with stakeholders.
The meetings, in particular, reviewed the conduct of Kogi and Bayelsa States governorship elections, assessed the performances of the political parties and other stakeholders involved in elections and series of measures to be put in place to ensure hitch-free rerun elections across the country were robustly discussed.
The consultative meetings with the Resident Electoral Commissioners reviewed the challenges encountered by INEC and stakeholders in the previous elections with a view to minimizing incidences that could militate against the smooth conduct of the rerun elections.
The meeting began with detailed consideration of the situations in the States where the tenures of the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) had elapsed and those to expire in few months. Administrative Secretaries of the states where RECs have left the Commission attended the meeting.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, in that first official meeting with the RECs and the new Commissioners said that there were a number of issues arising from the conduct of the Governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states and the aftermath of the last general elections which needed to be addressed urgently.
Of great concern to the Commission is the number of elections nullified by the courts and re-runs ordered, while other elections were upturned and INEC was directed to issue Certificates of Return to actual winners of the polls.
Worried by the high rate of election nullifications by the courts and determined to retool the processes, Prof. Yakubu charged the RECs to up their game. “We have seen the nullified elections, we need to put heads together to see how to conduct these elections. So the first quarter of this year will be like mini General Elections and I felt we should review the situation and work out strategies on how to carry out the mandate of the Commission,” the INEC Chairman said at the meeting.
Separate meetings were held with the political parties, the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the media to discuss the same issues. These groups no doubt, play very vital roles in the electoral process. In addition to a review of the conduct of the rerun elections, the meeting considered a number of issues critical to improvement of electoral system.
Such issues include:electoral offences; inconclusiveness of election; spate of nullification of elections; improvement and development of new technology in election; management of voting process; logistics; communication and spate of violence in election among others. The INEC Chairman challenged the RECs to advise the Commission based on their field experiences and to take a holistic look at the guidelines for the conduct of the elections to see how to make election conclusive without violating the law.
One of the technological innovations by the Commission that was believed to have impacted greatly on the successful conduct of the 2015 general elections is the Smart Card Reader (SCR). Though the SCR contributed immensely in the reduction of electoral fraud, there were some observed challenges with the use of the machine, which the Commission is working hard to rectify before the rerun elections.
As the Chairman observed that the Commission will be conducting ‘mini general election’ in the first quarter of the year, the rerun elections commenced on January 27 with the Akko Federal and State Constituencies of Gombe State.
According to the timetable for the rerun elections in 80 constituencies and senatorial districts approved by the Commission, from Saturday February 13 to March 19, 2016 elections will be conducted in fifteen states across the country. The nullified elections to be conducted range from Senatorial, Federal Constituencies, House of Representatives to State Assembly and the number vary from state to state. Statistics available shows that there will be 10 rerun elections for Senatorial Districts; 17 for Federal House of Representatives; and 53 for State Houses of Assembly.
Meanwhile, the Commission met on February 1st, considered and approved dates for the rerun elections beginning on Saturday, February 13th in Adamawa State. On February 20th eight states namely Kaduna, Plateau, Niger, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Taraba and Imo will have their elections. Abia, Anambra and Bayelsa will hold their elections on March 5th, AkwaIbom and Cross River states’ election holds on March 12 while Rivers election will hold on March 19th.
To ensure a hitch-free election devoid of observed lapses in previous elections, the Commission directed RECs/AS of the affected states to commence full preparations for the rerun elections.They are to, among other things, make adequate arrangement for non-sensitive and ICT based materials, voter register, sourcing of ad-hoc staff and polling officials, sourcing of collation officers in line with the guidelines and timelines, and planning for logistics and security.
The ICT department has since commenced preparations for the rerun elections in the affected states. The Smart Card Readers (SCRs) to be deployed have been configured. According to information made available by ICT department, the SCRs for Demsa/Numan/Lamurde Federal Constituency election in Adamawa State are ready for deployment in the Local Government Areas where election will hold on Saturday. Over 14,000 SCRs to be used for the election have been prepared and charged by the Commission.
The department will be deploying staff to all the Registration Areas (RAs) to use the electronic Collation (e-Collation) and electronic TRAC (e-TRAC) systems to capture the election results for all the affected polling units.
The Chairman had earlier said during the Consultative meetings that e-Collation and e-TRAC systems would be used in the elections to enhance the transparency of the election results.
According to the ICT department, over 1,100 Laptops that would be used for e-Collation have been sorted out and prepared for use at the RAs. Equally 210 Laptops have also been identified for deployment for the e-TRAC systems. In addition, mouse scanners meant for scanning of polling units election results have also been identified.
The Officers to man these machines have been identified and training has been scheduled to take place at the state offices or designated venues few days to each election. From every indication, the Commission is fully ready to conduct the rerun elections beginning from Saturday February 13 in Adamawa State.
•Ogbuka is Assistant Director Publicity, INEC
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