Another litmus test for INEC’s credibility in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi elections

Barely three days to the unseasoned Governorship elections in Nigeria three states Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reassured Nigerians of their well equipped strategy to conduct a free, fair, and credible elections in these States. The Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu while speaking on their level of preparation stressed that the polling unit results of Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states governorship elections will be uploaded on its Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

The INEC Chairperson said the uploading is a matter of legal provision, but did not promise how prompt the polling unit results would be uploaded onto IReV According to him a total of 5,409,438 registered voters will be heading to 10,510 polling units spread across 649 electoral wards in 56 local government areas to cast their ballots in electing the governors of Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa states on November 11, 2023. The off-cycle governorship elections are crucial because they are coming after the conduct of the controversial 2023 general elections with Bayelsa and Imo governors seeking re-election, and the Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, seeking to install a successor.

This is the first time that the commission will be conducting three off-cycle governorship elections simultaneously across different geo-political zones. This is made possible by the coincidence of the end of tenure of the current holders of the offices which fall within the constitutional timeframe of not earlier than 150 days or later than 30 days before the expiration of their terms of office as enshrined in Section 178(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended). The commission has delivered all non-sensitive election materials to the three states. The training of various categories of ad hoc staff has been perfected. INEC has conducted the mock accreditation of voters and the upload of results to its INEC Results Viewing Portal, using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System. INEC’s state offices have concluded the readiness assessment of its facilities as well as the movement of critical facilities to its 56 local government offices across the three states. However, Mr Yakubu could have taken his cue from the last presidential election when the failure to promptly upload polling unit results to IReV as earlier promised by the commission triggered tremendous criticism from opposition candidates and caused a major blow to the credibility of the poll.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu said the commission would deploy 46,084 staff for the polls. Despite expressing confidence in the ability of its personnel to conduct credible elections, he is concerned about the wave of insecurity and election-related violence in the three states. The commission is concerned about the spate of insecurity and violence, including clashes among supporters of political parties and candidates in the forthcoming elections. INEC earnestly appeals to all political parties and candidates to avoid utterances and acts that may heat up the polity. “The commission will continue to closely monitor the situation and sustain its engagement with security agencies and stakeholders to ensure peaceful conduct of elections in the three states,” said Sam Olumekun, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee.

The Off-cycle elections are held outside the general elections schedule due to circumstances such as death, resignation, impeachment, annulment of elections by courts, and many more In Bayelsa, off-cycle elections began in 2007, after Ebitimi Amgbare, candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) challenged the victory of Timipre Sylva of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who was declared winner of the state’s governorship election by INEC. Though Amgbare lost at the tribunal, he proceeded to the Court of Appeal where a fresh election was ordered in 2008. Interestingly, Sylva won again and was sworn into office.

After Ibrahim Idris of the PDP won his second term election as Kogi governor in 2007, Abubakar Audu of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) petitioned the tribunal that his name was wrongfully excluded from the list of candidates that contested at the election.

The appellate court nullified the election and ordered INEC to reconduct a governorship poll in the state. Again, Idris won the election and returned to his seat as the governor of Kogi State on March 29, 2008. Since then, the state has had its off-cycle polls in 2012, 2016, and 2020. Imo is, however, the latest state on the off-cycle election pattern. After Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP won the governorship election of the state in 2019, Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenged the victory at the tribunal. To the surprise of many, the Supreme Court on Jan. 14, 2020 declared him the duly elected governor of the state, and was immediately sworn in. So, on Nov. 11, the state would participate in its first ever off-cycle election.

Equally, political parties and candidates have commenced full electioneering in what is expected to be keenly contested governorship elections in the three states With the approved N305bn for the conduct of the 2023 general elections and several assurances by INEC for credible, free, and fair elections, the electoral process could not be delivered without a hitch.

During elections, polls were scheduled to open at 8:30am and close at 2:30pm, the same day. However, a report released by Yiaga Africa showed that election officials had arrived at only 27 per cent of polling units by 7:30am.

Also, a think tank, the Centre for Democracy and Development, observed the late arrival of election officials in most of the polling units its observers visited.

Also, in some parts of the country, issues relating to logistics delayed the arrival of election materials and officials, which marred the voting exercise. Some voters lamented that INEC officials brought the wrong BVAS to their polling units.

INEC received backlash from political parties, observers, individuals, and various interest groups for failing to immediately upload polling unit results to the portal prior to the collation. Notably, Paragraph 38 of the INEC regulations and guidelines for the 2023 elections makes electronic transmission of results and their upload to IReV mandatory.

The paragraph requires that when voting and announcement of results have been completed at a polling unit, the Presiding Officer “(1) must electronically transmit the result of the polling unit to INEC’s collation system; (2) must use the BVAs to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A result sheet to the INEC Result Viewing Portal; and (3) [must thereafter] take the BVAS and the original copies of all forms in a tamper-evident envelope to the RA/Ward Collation Officer in the presence of security agents. Polling agents may accompany the PO to the registration areas or ward collation centres.”

Again, INEC claimed that technical challenges with its system were responsible for the delay in uploading the election results. The delay caused opposing parties to reject the electoral process that made the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, the President-Elect, as declared by INEC.

Some political parties and individuals relied on the glitch to demand the cancellation of the results. The INEC Chairman admitted after a review of performances with his Resident Electoral Commissioners from the February 25 elections that there were hitches. He noted that the elections were painstakingly done, but they came with issues ranging from technology to delays by election officials to the attitudes of the agents of political parties, among others. Yakubu stated that a lot of lessons had been learnt from the presidential elections ahead of the governorship and state Assembly elections

On Tuesday, the INEC Chairman spelt out that each political party is expected to nominate polling agents for all the polling units as well as 649 Ward, 56 LGA and three State collation centres. “However, at the close of the deadline for uploading the list of agents to the INEC dedicated portal by political parties, 34,704 agents were uploaded for Bayelsa State, 65,274 for Imo State and 37,995 for Kogi State, making a total of 137,973 polling and collation agents for the three states.

“However, the detailed breakdown shows that not all the parties nominated agents for the polling and collation centres across the States. Indeed, some political parties have no polling unit or collation agents in some States despite having candidates in the election.”

According to the INEC 34,704 agents were uploaded for Bayelsa State, 65,274 for Imo State and 37,995 for Kogi State.

The statement read, “Sixteen political parties are sponsoring candidates for the election in Bayelsa State and 18 in both Imo and Kogi states. The elections will be held in 10,470 polling units (excluding the 40 polling units without registered voters).”

Historically, since Nigeria gained independence, the electoral processes in the country have been marred with different forms of violence and malpractices. The recent general elections conducted in February and March respectively were characterised by various criminal activities such as arson, assassinations, ballot box snatching, forceful disruption, kidnapping, hate speech-induced crises, shooting, thuggery, and so on.

The reasons for these repeated challenges, however, include weak governance, ineffectiveness of security forces, poverty, unemployment, abuse of power, and the proliferation of arms. Already, ongoing campaigns in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi suggest that the off-cycle elections would be characterised by armed violence like previous elections.

This may lead to heavy militarisation, a development that shrinks Nigeria’s democratic values and undermines the military personnel’s ability to fulfill their task of protecting the nation’s borders against external forces.

The election umpire should in the coming elections provide a lasting proof that the election was conducted in a credible manner without political interference from any of the major parties. And the security personnel deployed to man the elections must play their professional roles in giving equal opportunities for all the parties candidates during the elections and to ensure crime free exercises in the three states of the Federation.