Rotimi Oyekanmi, Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in this interview with TAIWO AMODU, speaks on the preparations and concerns of the commission ahead of Saturday’s off-season elections.
Can we have an update in terms of logistics for the off-season elections holding this weekend?
The commission has made adequate logistical arrangements for the three off-cycle governorship elections scheduled for November 11, in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. Further checks are currently ongoing to ascertain the implementation of the various activities expected to take place before, during and after the elections. We are satisfied with what we are seeing. Things are looking good. For instance, we have since delivered all the non-sensitive materials. Sensitive materials started arriving in the States from Monday, November 6 and will first be stored at the Central Bank in the respective states from where they will be dispatched to the various local government areas. If you check the timetable and schedule of activities for the elections which was released a year ago, 13 activities were listed, out of which we have far carried out 11. The 12th activity, which is the last day for campaigns, will fall due on November 9, while the final activity – the 13th – is the date for the election. We have made Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) available for collection and I am pleased to say that between 94 and 95 percent of voters across the three states have collected their PVCs. For instance, out of the 1,017,613 registered voters in Bayelsa State, only 39,249 have not collected their PVCs. In Imo State, we have 101, 003 uncollected PVCs out of 2,318,919 registered voters. And in Kogi State, where we have 1,833,160 registered voters, only 99,494 PVCs are uncollected. We will be deploying over 46,000 regular and ad-hoc staff for the elections. Several trainings have already taken place, and more are ongoing. There are 10,510 Polling Units across the three states, but voting will not take place in 38 polling units in Imo State and two polling units in Bayelsa State because they don’t have any registered voter.
We have made adequate arrangements to deploy enough and extra Bimodal Voter Accreditation Systems (BVAS) to cover all PUs. We will also deploy adequate number of technical personnel to respond immediately in the unlikely event of any complaints over the functionality of the BVAS at any polling unit on election day. In mid-October, we conducted mock accreditation in the three States to test the functionality of the BVAS and the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal and the overall result was positive. Polling Unit Results will be uploaded to the IReV from the individual PUs after the close of polls. As you are aware, voters must present their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) with which they will be authenticated and accredited using the BVAS. No PVC, no voting. So far, we have accredited 137,934 Polling Units and Collation agents for the 18 political parties fielding candidates for the elections. In the same vein, 94 media organisations and their 1,255 personnel as well as 126 national and international organisations and their 11,000 observers have been accredited.
As a follow up, I recall that the INEC recently expressed concern over the leadership tussle in the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) which it noted could disrupt its plan for logistic. May we know if the commission will now be dealing with individual owners of commercial vehicles?
For these off-season governorship elections, we are collaborating with the NURTW at the state level and of course, the individual vehicle and boat owners for forward and reverse logistics. We are paying the vehicle and boat owner directly and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) containing the terms and rules of engagement have been signed and sealed. Threat of violence remains biggest challenge. Political parties and candidates will sign peace accord this week.
Aside moral lobby, is INEC considering sanction of candidates who make incendiary remarks or do anything to disrupt seamless conduct of elections. Nigerians are anxious to see the commission, in conjunction with security agents, make scapegoats of desperate politicians to serve as deterrence.
The commission has made it very clear to political parties and their candidates that incendiary remarks, as well as violent acts that threaten the peace or other candidates in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states will not be tolerated. However, we rely on members of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to provide adequate security before, during and after the elections in the three states. Remember, the commission is constrained by the lack of constitutional powers to arrest and investigate offenders, yet these two critical steps are pre-requisite to achieving successful prosecution of offenders. So, even if we receive any report of an infraction in any of the states, we cannot move in immediately to arrest the perpetrators. We can only inform the police to take the necessary action in that regard. It’s the job of the Nigeria Police to arrest and investigate offenders, and we have been working very closely with them and other security agencies to anticipate, examine and deal with the various threats of violence in the three States, especially Kogi and Imo. For this election, the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, at the ICCES meeting held at the National Security Adviser’s (NSA) office in Abuja on October 27, urged the security chiefs to take decisive action against all perpetrators of electoral violence in the three states. We were happy with the assurances given by the NSA, Inspector General of Police, Chief of Defence Staff and other security chiefs at that meeting.
We are wary of Kogi and Imo. What is the assurance you are giving the voters and your staff who will be deployed?
We have relayed the assurances of adequate security given by ICCES members at both the national and state levels to our staff and voters. From all indications, the deployment of security men to the three states has already started.
May we know the states adjudged as likely to be volatile by security agents and efforts to check those plotting to instigate violence?
The three states are not easy entities to conduct elections. That’s why their elections are held off-season in the first place. However, Kogi and Imo constitute more threats than Bayelsa according to various assessments, but the threat level could change.
Aside from security challenge is the issue of vote buying. INEC has been silent on the matter in recent times, in its interactions with stakeholders. Has the commission surrendered itself to masterminds of this menace?
We have not been silent. Remember that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was invited to join the ICCESS specifically because of the phenomenon of vote buying and Nigerians can see that some perpetrators were arrested in some of the last elections that we conducted. So, vote buying remains an electoral offence and anyone that engages in it on Election Day will be arrested.
Can stakeholders go to sleep that BVAS will work and offloading of results through IReV will be done, seamlessly?
The BVAS has always performed optimally, and all political parties know this, despite the unfounded criticisms and lies that some of them peddle. In the last general election, especially presidential election, the BVAS performed as expected in authenticating PVCs and accrediting voters through either fingerprints or facial means. It was the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal that suffered a glitch for some hours during the presidential election. However, there’s nothing strange about that. Even your handset can suffer a glitch at any time. Popular platforms and tech giants like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram have all suffered glitches at one time or the other. The truth is that elections are won and lost at the polling units, therefore, any serious political party should have its agents stationed at the individual polling units to witness all the activities taking place there. In mid-October, we conducted mock accreditation of actual voters in the three states, and we tested the functionality of the BVAS and IReV. The overall report was positive. Right now, we have improved on and upgraded the IReV to look for certain security features on our Polling Unit Result Sheets before accepting them. Specifically, when our Presiding Officers attempt to upload the Form EC8As from their polling units to the IReV, the portal now possesses the protocols to scan the forms for certain security features. If these security features are missing, the IReV will reject that particular Form EC8A or Polling Unit Result Sheet. This is to ensure that only our legitimate PU result sheets are uploaded to our IReV.
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