2019: Military won’t be involved in election duties, says INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission has said the
military will not be involved in election duties in 2019.

The INEC boss said this in an interview with a monthly magazine,
The Interview.

Yakubu said the police would be the lead agency while the
military would ‘form the outer core.’

He said, “The lead agency in election security is the Nigeria
Police. But the Nigeria Police is also empowered where it deems it
necessary a call on the support of other security agencies. So, we
are operating on a concentric cycle sort of mechanism.

“We have the inner core around the polling units, where you have
unarmed policemen. You have the central ring where you have armed
policemen that can be called in to assist in the polling units when
the need arises.

“And then you have the military in the outer cordon. I think
that has been the mechanism that has worked. I have had no problem
with that and will retain that. But the military will never be
involved in election duty similar to what happened in elections
before 2015.”

Yakubu also said that the commission could not hold the
continuous voter registration at the polling unit levels because it
would cost N1.2bn per day, the total amount approved for the entire
exercise.

He regretted that N1.2bn was what was approved for INEC in the
2017 Budget for the entire exercise for a year.

He explained that due to financial constraints, the commission
decided to move the registration of voters to the local government
level, which slowed down the process of registration and caused
queues at the centres nationwide.

Yakubu said, “At what level can we best register citizens? We
said the polling units because these are the closest points to the
voters. They are literally at the doorsteps of citizens. With
120,000 polling units nationwide and on the basis of the four
officials we deploy to each registration centre, we came to the
conclusion that we required 620, 000 ad hoc workers.

“Can we engage 620, 000 ad hoc workers all year round? Assuming
that each one of them is paid N1, 500 for transportation and
feeding, that will cost the nation N1.2bn everyday in ad hoc
workers’ allowances alone. By the time you add cost of the Direct
Data Capture machines, your security, the generators and the
fuelling and servicing of the generators, the consumables from ink
to paper, the cost for the take-off of the exercise came to
N131bn.”

Yakubu said when the registration was brought to the local
government level, many people complained about the pace of
registration.

Yakubu also attributed the rush at the registration centres
partly to the rumour on the social media that INEC would soon
suspend registration.

The Independent National Electoral Commission has said the
military will not be involved in election duties in 2019.

The INEC boss said this in an interview with a monthly magazine,
The Interview.

Yakubu said the police would be the lead agency while the
military would ‘form the outer core.’

He said, “The lead agency in election security is the Nigeria
Police. But the Nigeria Police is also empowered where it deems it
necessary a call on the support of other security agencies. So, we
are operating on a concentric cycle sort of mechanism.

“We have the inner core around the polling units, where you have
unarmed policemen. You have the central ring where you have armed
policemen that can be called in to assist in the polling units when
the need arises.

“And then you have the military in the outer cordon. I think
that has been the mechanism that has worked. I have had no problem
with that and will retain that. But the military will never be
involved in election duty similar to what happened in elections
before 2015.”

Yakubu also said that the commission could not hold the
continuous voter registration at the polling unit levels because it
would cost N1.2bn per day, the total amount approved for the entire
exercise.

He regretted that N1.2bn was what was approved for INEC in the
2017 Budget for the entire exercise for a year.

He explained that due to financial constraints, the commission
decided to move the registration of voters to the local government
level, which slowed down the process of registration and caused
queues at the centres nationwide.

Yakubu said, “At what level can we best register citizens? We
said the polling units because these are the closest points to the
voters. They are literally at the doorsteps of citizens. With
120,000 polling units nationwide and on the basis of the four
officials we deploy to each registration centre, we came to the
conclusion that we required 620, 000 ad hoc workers.

“Can we engage 620, 000 ad hoc workers all year round? Assuming
that each one of them is paid N1, 500 for transportation and
feeding, that will cost the nation N1.2bn everyday in ad hoc
workers’ allowances alone. By the time you add cost of the Direct
Data Capture machines, your security, the generators and the
fuelling and servicing of the generators, the consumables from ink
to paper, the cost for the take-off of the exercise came to
N131bn.”

Yakubu said when the registration was brought to the local
government level, many people complained about the pace of
registration.

Yakubu also attributed the rush at the registration centres
partly to the rumour on the social media that INEC would soon
suspend registration.