Anambra election: What signals for 2015?

INEC, Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

JOHN ALECHENU takes a look at some of the challenges encountered during the inconclusive Anambra governorship  election  and concludes that the Independent National Electoral Commission, is still grappling with logistics problem

If news coming  from various interest groups and  stakeholders who took part in the Anambra State governorship election held on Saturday, November 17, 2013 is anything to go by, it will require “a miracle” for the 2015 elections to meet basic requirements of credibility, said one observer.

The election, which stretched into Sunday in some parts of the state, was expected to showcase the level of preparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission for 2015 polls.

This is even more so as the nation approaches 2015 which most analysts describe as Nigeria’s moment of truth.

Reports of real or contrived challenges, which led to a lot of voters being disenfranchised, attracted the attention of voters as well as local and international observers.

Some of the cases were those of eligible voters having voter cards but not being able to vote because their names were not on the register; the late arrival or non-arrival of electoral materials and in some cases electoral officers.

Other identified challenges included INEC ad hoc staff going on strike over the non-payment of statutory allowances and voter apathy in some instances.

A coalition of several election monitoring civil society groups under the aegis of the Nigeria Civil Society Election Situation Room, chided the election management body – INEC – over what it termed “shoddy logistics arrangements.”

The case of Idimili North local government area was instructive. Elections did not hold in about 65 polling units across the area.

In its final report on the election, the Election Situation Room said INEC had repeated too many common mistakes that the expectation of Anambra election serving as a litmus test for 2015 general election had not been fully realised.

It said, “It is our overall impression that the conduct of the elections leaves a lot to be desired and reflected the lack of competence on the part of INEC in the conduct of elections.”

The group also said, “The several failings of past elections identified in previous observer reports seem to have repeated themselves…”

The group, a platform of civil society organisations working on election observation, managed by Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, said INEC has no justifiable explanation for the late distribution of election materials as observed at several polling units.

The Situation Room also said it was concerned that INEC was still not able to deal with the perennial challenge of late distribution of election materials and commencement of accreditation and voting.

The group decried the “gross incompetence” of INEC officials charged with distributing election materials. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, it was the same failure of logistics that led to the decision to postpone the April 2, 2011 parliamentary election.

INEC was unable to deliver voting materials to polling stations across the country. To make matters worse, in several states, it sent ballot papers meant for the governorship election scheduled for April 16.

At that time, the INEC boss described the situation as an unanticipated emergency which was occasioned by the late arrival of result sheets in many parts of the country.

He said, “The result sheets are central to the elections and their integrity. Accordingly, in many places, our officials have not reported at the polling units, making it now difficult to implement the Modified Open Ballot Procedure that we have adopted.

“Not only do we have to enter the results in the sheets, the number of accredited voters is also to be entered in the result sheet.”

The INEC chairman noted that while the commission could have proceeded with the elections in a few states where all the materials were available, it could not do so in order to maintain the integrity of the elections and retain effective overall control of the process. This, he said led to the decision to postpone the election.

For all it is worth, Jega should be given credit for once again admitting that there are lapses.  He explained (like he did in 2011), that steps were being taken to remedy the situation.

According to him, as part of INEC’s preparations, he and his colleagues decentralised the process of the distribution of materials to enhance effectiveness.

Jega however said, “Unfortunately and regrettably, we are humans. We can do all the preparations, but if people are determined to subvert the process, one way or another they will subvert it.

“So, they used our staff. I think we should be very careful when we have  staff of about 12,000 in INEC, when one person has committed an offence and then you use it to generalise or condemn everybody in INEC.

“Our electoral officer in charge of Idemili North Local Government, for inexplicable reasons, messed up the distribution of ballot box papers and result sheets. That was the cause of the delay in the distribution of materials in Idemili.

“All materials were to have been distributed by Friday evening, but for some odd reasons, they made sure that they held onto some of the result sheets, and they also gave wrong result sheets to different polling units.

“For Anambra election, as we did in Edo and Ondo, every polling unit has a unique result sheet. So, you cannot take one result sheet to a different place, because it will not work.”

The INEC boss said he earlier assured stakeholders at a meeting in Awka that materials must get to the polling units before commencement of election.

He could however not deliver on his promise because he suspected foul play when he tried but failed to get in touch with the electoral officer in charge of Idimili at about 1:00 am after the discovery that the materials were mixed up.

Jega was not done; he announced that the commission had handed over the unnamed INEC officer to the police because his action was clearly an act of sabotage.

The Executive Director, Civil Societies Legislative and Advocacy Centre, Auwual Musa-Rafsanjani was obviously unimpressed by the turn of events.

He described the governorship election as a bad advertisement for INEC’s preparations for the 2015 general elections.

According to him, it was sad that more than one decade after INEC began conducting elections, it was still grappling with problems of logistics such as late arrival or non arrival of staff and voting materials.

Musa-Rafsanjani said, “This election shows clearly that 2015 is not going to be any different from previous elections. In fact, the gains recorded in the 2011 elections have been eroded because the ruling party practically had its way in circumventing the process in connivance with some INEC officials.”

In a similar vein, a preliminary report by the Transition Monitoring Group,  said the INEC has yet to overcome chronic problems plaguing our elections.

The TMG is a coalition of over 400 civic organisations which have been involved in election monitoring in Nigeria since 1998.

The  Chairman of the Transition Monitoring Group, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, released the preliminary findings to the media  in Abuja.

He explained that based on reports from its 633 individual observers deployed across the three senatorial districts and all 21 LGAs, the TMG found that while many elements of the Election Day process were adequate, there were serious shortcomings.

Zikirullahi listed some of the shortcomings to include but not limited to: “Late arrival of election materials at polling units-as of 7:30am, observers reported that only 39 per cent of polling units across the state had their election materials, and by 9:00am only 43 per cent of polling units were able to open.

“No election took place in five wards of Idinmili North LGA-Abatete, Npor I, Npok II, Obosi and Ogidi I.”

Recalling the unfortunate situation in Idemili North for example, TMG noted that these shortcomings which have become a sort of albatross for INEC, undermine public confidence in the electoral process.

This, he said, was even more so when many of these issues are not new and have plagued past elections.

As was the case with all previous elections since 1999, politicians who took part in the election have shown no sign that they are willing to turn a new leaf in the interest of the democratic process.

Although cases of violence were reduced to the barest minimum, this time around, the level of desperation among politicians to subvert the system has been on the increase. There are yet to be verified reports of officially sanctioned rigging in favour of the ruling party.

Laws guiding the election proper were subverted with impunity with polling units mounted directly under a campaign billboard of one of the candidates.

Three days after the conduct of the election in question, no clear winner has emerged leading to several speculations.

Observers contend that this worrying trend if left unchecked has the capacity to undermine the 2015 general election.www.mannastores.com