Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa
YEAR in year out, the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) conducts elections into various offices in Nigeria, either
through the main general election, the by-elections or other
supplementary elections. INEC has been involved in the conduct of
elections for an unbroken period of 20 years on, from 1999 to 2019.
It would seem, however, that there is still a lot to be done to get
the electoral umpire moving. For sure, INEC is the only statutory
body authorised to organise or conduct elections in Nigeria, in
respect of certain offices created by the Constitution.
INEC is one of the federal agencies established under Section
153(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, with its functions
stated in paragraph 15 of the Third Schedule of the said
Constitution. Under and by virtue of Paragraph 14 of the said Third
Schedule, the chairman of INEC should be at least 40 years old, he
must be non-partisan, he must not be a member of a political party
and he must be a person of unquestionable integrity. By law, the
major functions of INEC are to: “organise, undertake and supervise
all elections into major positions of national importance as stated
in the Constitution; register political parties; monitor the
organisation and operation of the political parties, including
their finances, conventions, congresses and party primaries;
arrange and conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote
and prepare, maintain and revise the register of voters for the
purpose of any election; monitor political campaigns and provide
rules and regulations which shall govern the political parties.
From all the above, INEC is the alpha and omega of major
elections in Nigeria. This is further confirmed by Section 158 (1)
of the Constitution, which states that INEC shall not be subject to
the direction or control of any other authority or person. In plain
language, therefore, the Constitution has set out to establish an
electoral body that is truly independent, given the unique roles
that INEC has to play in the emergence of leaders across the land.
Statutorily and financially, therefore, the goal is to make INEC a
self-accounting body, in order to guaranty its independence and
impartiality. But this has not been the case at all, over the
years.
Now let us relate all these with the recent presidential and
National Assembly election that finally took place on February 23,
2019, after the initial postponement at dawn. There were too many
challenges associated with the registration of voters and issuance
and collection of the permanent voter’s cards, which indeed should
be the foundation of any electoral success. Without any doubt
whatsoever, there was some form of disconnect between INEC and the
voters, in terms of voter education and information, especially in
relation to the collection of the voter cards. The procedure was
unduly bureaucratic, unwieldy and frustrating. You just had to keep
going and going, at times for many days on end. With the resources
committed to this exercise, there is no reason any voter should
have been denied this entitlement at all.
Then comes the main election. The first thing to note is that
INEC could not boast of adequate personnel to handle its very
sensitive matters. For sure, the Constitution has stated clearly
that its personnel must be impartial and non-partisan. For crying
out loud, how do you recruit youth corps members from all over the
country and you don’t expect them to be partisan? When they have
parents and relations, all of who may be actively involved in
politics? And some of the youth corps members themselves are active
politicians! There is just no way anyone can expect loyalty from a
youth whose father, mother, brother or uncle is contesting election
on the platform of a major political party, no matter the
jurisdiction of his posting, as loyalty for the presidential
election for instance, is to the party, not the individual.
Then comes the returning officers, who are mostly members of the
academic community, recruited on temporary contracts to assist in
the collation and announcement of the election results. These are
very elderly men and women, mostly in their late fifties or early
sixties, who have risen in rank through the system, to become
Vice-Chancellors, over many years. The Supreme Court has recently
ruled that civil servants are not exempted from participating in
politics, thus making it possible for these returning officers to
bear allegiance to certain political interests. This is not to
impugn their integrity in any way, but it is possible that in the
process of time, a lecturer may have become influenced by one
political leaning or the other. The issue then is that there is no
way INEC could boast of the impartiality or neutrality of its ad
hoc personnel, not to be biased in one way or the other in favour
of or against a particular political party or interest.
On the day of election itself, we met the unexpected, as there
were cases of locations that were totally neglected by INEC, which
did not benefit from the distribution of election materials,
especially in the difficult terrains of the Niger Delta. In some
other cases, the election materials did not arrive early, whilst
yet in other cases, INEC personnel were simply overwhelmed by
partisan security agencies and thugs, recruited by politicians. It
was a case of general unpreparedness on the part of INEC,
notwithstanding all the time it had to prepare and organise the
elections and the huge funds committed to it. For a fact, INEC got
a whooping N189.2 billion for the 2019 elections, broken down as
follows: Printing of ballot papers – N31.49 billion, just to print
papers; Logistics expenses – N7.4 billion, an overhead which is
indeterminable. And when it is remembered that the elections
earlier scheduled for February 16, 2019 were postponed at the last
minute due to logistics and operational issues, then one cannot but
conclude that INEC spells nothing but bad image for Nigeria;
Logistics for technical officers – N55 million, being a duplication
of logistics expenses above. How does anyone budget a whole N7.4
billion for logistics and then would proceed in the same budget to
allocate another head of N55 million for another separate
logistics, allegedly for its technical officers. It is nothing but
bazaar for INEC.
Procurement of non-sensitive materials got 6.125 billion, most
of which were not delivered to their locations timeously, thus
leading to tension, controversies and even outright cancellation of
election; Feeding of policemen – N6 billion, this is nothing but
fraud, as could not but wonder what kind of food that policemen
would guzzle for just two days, even if INEC were to feed the
entire police force! And these policemen ended up being compromised
by politicians, who enticed them with money, despite this huge
budget for them by INEC.
Election day allowance got N6 billion, when most of the youth
corps members slept in open spaces and on bare floors; deployment
of support staff – N495 million, being a clear duplication of the
N6 billion election day allowance, presumably to be paid to support
staff and ad hoc personnel.
For Campaign finance tracking, N160.7 million was allocated,
being money to be expended upon deployment of technology to monitor
the finances and expenditure of political parties, which in point
of fact, INEC never does; Monitoring of parties, primaries – N630
million, another clear case of duplication. Or how do you monitor
political parties if not to track their funding and finances?;
Supervision and reconnaissance – N286 million, a clear case of
multiple duplications, as the job of monitoring and supervision are
basically the same; Outreach activities – N587 million, which is
supposed to be part of voter education, already covered and
addressed in the same budget; Interface with groups – N125 million,
being a duplication of outreach activities, or else how do you
embark upon an outreach without interfacing with people and
groups?; Advertisement – N149 million, which should have been part
of outreach activities and interface. And pray, what on earth is
the difference between advertisement and outreach?
Voter education got N710 million, when most people were
completely in the dark about the activities of INEC. And still,
INEC budgeted separately for advertisement; Situation room – N730
million, being the most annoying and embarrassing item on the
budget. We all watched the INEC situation room, devoid of any
special decorations or items of value, but just placing chairs,
tables and microphones. Even at that, election results could not be
announced for some locations until about four days after.
There are still many more of these ridiculous items budgeted by
INEC and for which fund was duly released, but no tangible results
were obtained. It should be possible for the National Assembly, as
part of its oversight functions, to do a thorough audit of INEC
finances, especially against the background of the poor outing of
the agency in the last presidential and National Assembly election,
which is nothing but money down the drain.
We must be sufficiently outraged as a people, that an
organisation that has been so empowered statutorily and financially
to usher in a functional transition programme has come out with
such woeful performance, as happened on February 23. We should not
and cannot take this from INEC, as we go into the governorship and
house of assembly election on March 9. Somebody should be answering
questions with the financial intelligence experts and the security
agencies to explain the reasons for the huge embarrassment foisted
upon us since these elections began. It is not right and there is
no other way to put it than that INEC has failed Nigeria.