INEC Decries Inadequate Constitutional Requirements for Registration of Political Parties

* Says supplementary election not alien to electoral
process

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has decried
inadequate constitutional requirements for the registration of
political parties, saying accommodating over a hundred political
parties in the electoral process has become cumbersome.

The electoral body noted that it was also becoming difficult
husbanding and protecting result sheets from the polling units to
the collation centers as armed gangs are getting more vicious when
targeting result sheets of the Commission.

The National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter
Education, Barr. Festus Okoye, disclosed this at the weekend, while
presenting Certificates to the Governor and Deputy Governor-elect
of Benue State and the members-elect of the State Assembly.

He stated: “INEC believes that the Nigerian people need a
national conversation on the regime of political parties and their
administration. The Nigerian people must on their own, through
elected representatives determine whether we need, and can
accommodate over a hundred political parties in our electoral
process.

“We must decide whether the constitutional conditions for the
registration of political parties are adequate to make for the
registration of political parties that genuinely sponsor candidates
and have something new to offer to the Nigerian people.

“The ballot papers are getting more complicated for the Nigerian
people. Sorting, counting and entering the scores of candidates in
Form EC8A series is becoming more cumbersome.

“Polls are closing late on account of the number of parties and
ad-hoc staff of the Commission in remote areas and difficult
terrains are exposed to danger.

“It is also becoming difficult husbanding and protecting result
sheets from the polling units to the collation centers as armed
gangs are getting more vicious when targeting result sheets of the
Commission.

“It is therefore imperative that Nigerians hold a national
conversation on the number of political parties and the
requirements for their registration.

“While the Commission can deregister parties that fail to meet
the constitutional threshold embedded in the 4th Alteration to the
Constitution, it takes deregistered parties 30 days to make a
comeback as a registered political party can reapply and get
registered on the liberal conditions in the constitution. It is
also imperative for the Commission to proceed and implement the
duality of manual and electronic collation and transmission,” he
added.

Okoye noted that the media should focus their attention on the
political parties in Nigeria and the various means and tactics they
use in undermining the electoral process, stressing that political
parties have constantly shifted the blame for their electoral
malfeasance to INEC.

On supplementary elections, the National Commissioner said that
the country must not as a people and as a nation retreat or
surrender its sovereign constitutional right of having good
elections on the basis of contrived roadblocks deliberately erected
to disenfranchise the Nigerian people and create an atmosphere of
fear, anxiety and instability.

Okoye explained that the concept of supplementary elections and
the application of the margin of lead principle in the electoral
process are not alien to the country’s electoral process.

He added: “It is a constitutional provision that gives life and
meaning to the vote and the sovereign right of the people to decide
who governs them.

“The Commission is of the firm opinion that it is
unconstitutional and illegal to disenfranchise a whole community
based on its inability to deploy materials and personnel on account
of logistic challenges.

“It will be unjust and inequitable to disenfranchise a people
based on a vicious determination by political opponent to reduce
the votes from targeted communities through contrived mayhem and
insecurity.

“The voice and votes of the people will be meaningless if the
Commission is forced to retreat from conducting elections in
certain communities. It will be inequitable to deprive the people
of the power of the vote despite natural disasters or other
emergencies that prevented them from exercising their mandate.”

Okoye stressed that it was against the law to reward people who
deliberately undermine the use of the Smart Card Reader in the
electoral process.

According to him, “The concept of margin of lead and the
organisation of supplementary elections are constitutional and
electoral safeguards deliberately inserted in our laws and
constitution to give meaningful meaning to the concept of the vote
and prevent serial electoral violators from undermining the
electoral process.”

Okoye explained that what the Nigerian people needed was a
robust, honest, professional and ethical security architecture that
secures the electoral environment and gives the vote the requisite
voice.

“While constitutional and electoral reforms are inevitable, we
must not become addicted to electoral and constitutional reforms at
the slightest sight of contrived challenges and roadblock,” he
added.