Executive Director of Centre for Convention on Democratic Integrity (CCDII) and Chief Technical Officer to a foreign mission monitoring the 2023 elections in Kano State, Mr Femi Aduwo, speaks to KUNLE ODEREMI AND DARE ADEKANMBI on a preliminary report on the election.
You have been in Kano State observing the election. What is your preliminary assessment of the voting process, the security and the arrangements that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has put in place?
It’s been very challenging here and for some of us who have been observing the election since 2003, it is worrisome that every four years, INEC raises people’s hope, promising to deliver results. But you go out on the election day and see the same challenges. For example, in Kano, some of the polling units were not properly manned. A poling unit is expected to have up to about 500 voters. But what you have here is more than that. Yet, you have only just two INEC officials in each of the polling units and more so, most of the INEC officials here are partisan. They are not from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). It is very obvious when you interact with them.
And then, talking about security, we heard from the Inspector General of Police saying he was mobilising more than 400,000 personnel for the elections and even army officers and so on are also deployed for the exercise. But as of today Saturday, hardly do you find them. Those policemen and women are as useless as anything. The few that came around here did not carry any arm, which simply means that there is nothing they can do in the event that INEC ad-hoc staff are being attacked.
INEC knows that in some of these mega polling units where you have people more than 500 voters and the people have been transferred or split to vote at several small polling units, there should have been proper information as regards this. But majority of the people here did not even know that they have transferred them to vote at another centre. It was really very annoying to some of the people when they got to the polling unit on Saturday to vote, but suddenly discovered that they have been transferred elsewhere.
But INEC claimed that it has supplied some of the polling unit lists to the parties a long time ago…
Yes, INEC has kept on repeating this. But Festus Okoye and I served at the INEC board in 2009 and 2010. Apart from being an observer, I am an insider with the commission. And that is why I always say that when INEC officials come up and start talking, giving all kinds of promises, people should not trust them. I could remember that it was the same ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that was talking about the Uwais Committee report that it must be implemented. But go and look at the report and see how it said the appointment of INEC officials must be done. So, the problem with INEC started with how they got all these officials, including the Resident Electoral Commission (RECs). Are we not in this country? What happened to some past RECs that have done creditably well like Mike Igini? He finished his terms as REC and they threw him away. And some of the men that did this are still in the commission.
The reports we are getting about this election are very annoying and that is why this INEC can never be independent. The question is: how were the RECs appointed? Majority of them are politicians and it showed in the way they have been deployed. There are some states that INEC materials, having left the local government offices early, could not get to some polling units even up till 11am on Saturday. It happened in some parts of Lagos and some other places in the country. You then begin to wonder what exactly happened. When you consider the fact that money and other necessities were not an issue for the commission as they had all they asked for. But look at some of the things they were reported to have done. For instance, as of 2pm on Saturday, voting materials were yet to get to some polling units in Warri in Delta State. And these are the same challenges we have seen in the past elections in this country. It just becomes worrisome when you consider the amount that has been given to INEC for this exercise. Another complaint we have heard is that people’s names were being changed from one ward to another. But they were not aware. This is really annoying.
But the voters’ register was on display for a while based on the extant laws of the land?
Yes, but it was not placed everywhere. I could remember that in my own ward at Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State, nothing was displayed. In Ilaje Local Government Area too, nothing was displayed. I personally visited these areas. So, when INEC tells you they displayed the voter register, it was only in some places. And again on the registers, some persons’ details like name, phone numbers were not correct. Some were even omitted. So why do we take one step forward and take another one backward? It is very shameful.
But do you think anything can still be done to rectify these?
Just as you know, we are all Nigerians. Take for example, what happened in Osun State, where there was over voting. What did the electoral law say? It says the Presiding Officers should cancel the results. But people are not saying this. All we saw is the party that went to the tribunal to contest this was declared winner of the election. Why hasn’t anyone asked about the PO that oversaw the election in the polling units where there was over voting? No punishment was meted out to the presiding officers. Secondly, the law says if after seven days, INEC discovers that there were some irregularities and over voting in some places, the commission should cancel the election of these places. But what we have seen is a situation where INEC will simply tell all aggrieved parties to go to court instead of analysing their complaints about the election. Concerning the 2023 elections, Nigerians have been expecting the best from INEC, but what we saw on Saturday, especially in Kano, was somehow different from this. Personally, I shed tears when I saw what happened in some areas in the state. Many people complained they couldn’t find their names on the register. Imagine also hearing that the BVAS, which cost huge funds to procure, failed in some parts of the country and could not allow registered voters to vote. It is just to tell you how deep inefficiency has grown in Nigeria. It has been very glaring in the way the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives have been going about arresting people who buy votes. You see the officials moving in their uniforms when they are expected to appear as true secret police. And that is why it is only a few persons they could arrest so far.
Does this suggest that rate of vote-buying was high there?
Yes, I saw the people moving about with their POS devices. It was even reported in the news that in Kano here, one person was caught with a POS loaded with about N300million. You see, this vote-buying can only go gradually as it started a very long time ago. One fact people don’t understand is that you don’t buy votes on the day of election. For instance, in some areas in Kano, some bales of clothes have been distributed to the women two days to the election, which is to tell you that money has changed hands in the wards among the people. Even foodstuff was distributed to the people. So, when the police say they are now arresting people for vote-buying on the election day, you begin to wonder who they want to arrest in places like Kano. The fact has been that after election, nobody prosecutes anybody for electoral offences committed on the voting day.
Has there been any report of underage voting in the state?
That one is common as all political parties engage in it. As an election observer, I saw this on Saturday, but there is nothing you can do because when you ask the person, he or she will tell you he or she is 18 years of age, even when you dispute this. And most people have not been able to cry out when they see this because when they do, the people will attack them. And that is why the bad practice will continue to persist. As I have said before, if you bring the Lord Jesus Christ and add Prophet Mohammed to conduct a Nigerian election, they will never get a good result.
Are you saying that we may likely not get it right at the end of the day through this election?
Well, there is the possibility that a winner will not emerge in the next four to five days as there may be some areas that election will be held today [Sunday] and tomorrow [Monday]. It is possible the election holds in some areas on Tuesday. But I want to say that whoever is later declared the winner of this election should have the courage to audit the account of INEC because nobody has done that. You have a huge amount of money given to INEC for the exercise, but at the end of the day, the commission does not deliver a very efficient result. It is very unfortunate and sad.
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