BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
With the incessant and unwarranted attacks on offices and facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission across the country, a group of Concerned Nigerians in support of the deployment of technology in the conduct of the forthcoming 2023 general election has called on the federal government to wade in and stop the ugly trend.
The latest attack which happened last week, saw the INEC office in Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State on Thursday, vandalised and partially set ablaze by some unknown people. National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, on Friday indicated in a statement that it would be the fourth attack on Local Government INEC offices within the space of three weeks, following attacks in Ogun, Osun and Ebonyi states.
For the record, the building was undergoing extensive renovation after it was earlier set ablaze in 2020. According to the statement, three out of seven construction workers were abducted but later released. The statement read, “The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Imo State, Professor Sylvia Uchenna Agu, reported that our office in Orlu Local Government Area was attacked. The incident occurred yesterday Thursday, December 1, 2022.
“The building, which is undergoing extensive renovation following an earlier attack, was vandalised and partially set ablaze. Three out of seven construction workers were abducted but later released.
The damage would have been more extensive but for the quick response of the Nigeria Police which has deployed its personnel to the site.
“This is one attack too many. The Commission once again expresses its concern over the spate of attacks on its facilities and the negative consequences on our preparations for the 2023 General Election,” Okoye said.
Leader of the group which goes by the name Support for A Credible Election, Chris Onyemere, described the various attacks on INEC’s facilities as barbaric, saying those perpetrating the dastardly acts are working tirelessly to sabotage the efforts of the electoral body to conduct elections that will be the pride of Nigeria and Africa.
Onyemere argued that the acts of arson unleashed on INEC facilities and assassination of its staff and opposing party’s members is only a confirmation that Nigerian politicians are afraid of contests and that they solely depend on rigging and other manipulations to emerge victorious in elections.
He equally claimed that those politicians who are so sure that they cannot win the forthcoming elections because of the introduction of BVAS and IReV are the ones sponsoring the hoodlums to carry out the nefarious acts and added that the federal government has all it takes to arrest them and bring them and their sponsors to book.
“This is a terrible wave of politics. We have not seen it like this before. Almost every day, if we are not fed with the news of burning of one INEC facility or another, we will hear of an assassination of one top politician, whether man or woman. This is unacceptable. We have seen too much blood wasted and no right thinking Nigerian would want this to continue.
“INEC should employ the services of private security organisations to complement the security agencies in safeguarding their facilities. These facilities are in communities and the best INEC can do now is to recruit youths from those communities through the traditional rulers to watch over these facilities”
“With 82 days left, their choices of words at campaign grounds are inciting and provocative. Imagine the type of words from the presidential candidates. If they are not abusing one another, they are inciting their religious and tribal people against a candidate from another tribe and of different religion. They must be stopped from proceeding if we must have elections devoid of blood bath.”
Onyemere insists that the federal government is capable of calling the perpetrators to order. He maintained that the security chiefs have warned them enough and now is the right time to act.
“I have a very strong belief that President Muhammadu Buhari and his security operatives can put an end to this menace and ensure we have chaos free polls. He did it in the Osun State off season election. So, he can still do it in the general election. Nigerians are looking up to him for a memorable parting gift and anything short of midwifing a free, fair, transparent and credible election that will ensure Nigerians’ votes count will be devastating to our political history.”
US based political scientist, Patty Ndudiri said the main reason behind the attacks on INEC’s facilities was to distract the electoral body from focusing on the great job it is doing.
He further said that the politicians know there is no way they can have it their own way in 2023 because of the technology INEC will deploy, so they resolved to embark on distracting the Commission by destroying the PBC, BVAS and other essential materials but unknown to them, the processes have gone beyond that.
“We in the Diaspora are watching keenly and the international communities are equally watching the happenings in Nigeria because of the 2023 general election. All the attacks on INEC facilities and its staff are geared towards making sure that INEC fails to conduct free, fair, transparent, credible and inclusive polls next year. But you know what, those sponsoring these acts will be disappointed because there is no way they can stop the BVAS and other technologies introduced by INEC to make the coming election a global standard.
“This is the right time for our President to issue an Executive Order on attack on INEC. He is the Commander-in-Chief and has the constitutional power to order the security agencies to confront those criminals camouflaging as politicians and put them where they should be. Those INEC facilities are not razed by spirits. Human beings are burning them in states governed by a human being too. So, he should give the police chief an Order to fish the culprits out within two weeks and you will see what will happen. The only snag to the matter is that the President seems not to be interested. If he is as the global leaders are, concerning the Nigerian election next year, these attacks will stop.”
Ndudiri further suggested that the INEC should employ the services of private security organisations to secure their facilities since they are the targets.
“INEC should employ the services of private security organisations to complement the security agencies in safeguarding their facilities. These facilities are in communities and the best INEC can do now is to recruit youth from those communities through the traditional rulers to watch over these facilities. If the governors or Commissioners of Police in any state opposes this, then it is confirmed that the attacks are state sponsored and Nigerians will know who to hold responsible. And if they don’t, then any community attack THAT happens again with the indigenes watching over the facilities, the traditional rulers will be held responsible. I believe this method will help INEC to secure its facilities.”
From the Commission’s information desk, the BVAS has eliminated multiple accreditations that were observed in previous elections. Now, you are absolutely sure that the person who is accredited is actually the voter and the bearer of the card.
It has increased public confidence in the outcome of elections as shown in the recent off cycle elections. People tend to be more confident now with the protection of the process of accreditation using technology.
It has eliminated the use of the Incident Form. For those who have been following elections for a long time, when the Card Reader was introduced, the machine would read the card, but it may not read the biometrics. So, when it fails to read the biometrics, they then say – give the voter the Incident Form. And through that, many people voted using identity theft. INEC has now eliminated the Incident Form. So, every registered voter must go through the biometric and the facial, and according to INEC, the only way the two processes can fail, particularly the facial, is when the voter forgets his or her face at home during the election.
Besides the BVAS, another innovation INEC introduced is the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal. Speaking on the innovation, the INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu said, “We are perhaps one of the few countries in the world that transmits polling unit level results in real time on Election Day. Proudly, I can say we are the first to introduce it in Africa. I was in Nairobi in August and they did so, but I told my friend, Wafula Chebukati, the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya, that he must have borrowed the idea from Nigeria. In 2017, they tried to transmit raw data. But in Nigeria, we say don’t transmit raw data, but transmit scanned images of the polling unit level results which is safer and less susceptible to hacking than transmitting raw figures.
“The introduction of the IReV has given Nigerians who are desirous to have their leaders emerge from free, fair, transparent and credible elections there is confidence that votes will count. INEC has consistently assured that, since results are uploaded from the polling units in real time and this has increased transparency in result management. Some of you here may recall that the Observers’ Reports from 2019 harped on the need for the Commission to ensure transparency in result management. This is our response to the request for greater transparency in result management.
“IReV has helped to eliminate the falsification of results at polling unit level to the collation centres. Sometimes, as the results move from the polling unit level where the election is conducted to the collation centres, some of the figures change. But with IReV, now everybody sees the results from the polling unit level and some of the political parties that have their own situation rooms actually know the outcome of the elections even before INEC makes an official declaration. But they still have to wait for the Commission’s official declaration.”
Recently, a national chairman of a political party clearly expressed concern over the use of BVAS and IReV in the conduct of the forthcoming elections. Even though the said sentiment was later denied, other chieftains of the party have not hidden their outright rejection of technology, particularly BVAS and IReV, in different fora. Some are allegedly pressurising the Commission to return to the era of Incidence Form which has been declared dead and buried by the Commission. However, with the innovations put to test in few off season elections and given the legal provisions in the Electoral Act 2022, the deployment and use of BVAS and IReV in subsequent elections in the country, according to Professor Mahmood Yakubu, national chairman of INEC, “has come to stay and there is no going back.”
