*Logistic challenges emerge
*Jega’s plan for free, fair polls in trouble
*960,000 election-day staff needed
Facts emerged, yesterday, suggesting that
Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, was grappling with
problems which may have compelled it to
postpone the February 14, 2015, presidential
election, had the National Security Adviser,
NSA, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, not publicly
called on the electoral body to consider the
option of postponement.
This is authoritative.
Sunday Vanguard was made to understand in
the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, that
the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega,
had summoned an emergency meeting of
Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs,
penultimate week, to review the Commission’s
preparedness for the election, as well as look
into areas requiring urgent attention.
FILE PHOTO: INEC official displays an empty
ballot box
Conscious of legal latitude, INEC was said to
have called an emergency meeting to review
its operations on Monday, January 26, 2015,
with the notice sent out a week earlier, based
on the executive assessment of readiness for
the election by its Board. The assessment by
INEC’s Board had identified some challenges
with meeting deadlines and was going to
share it with the wider body of policy
implementers who also had their concerns
based on their field assessment on the level of
preparedness. Given this background, all the
Commission’s stakeholders were shocked to
hear the NSA make reference to possible
postponement without consulting with the
electoral body.
And whereas an INEC insider disclosed to
Sunday Vanguard that “but for the statement
of the NSA which they claimed gave a
colouration of politics to the issue, INEC was
possibly going to make its own independent
adjustment to the time-table, to avert a
repeat of the postponement of election after
already deploying personnel and materials as
was the case in 2011 when there was a shift
from 2 April till Thursday the 4th and again
shifted to the 9th of April – that
postponement was necessitated by the failure
of contractors to meet supply schedules”,
another source within the Commission made
Sunday Vanguard to understand that indeed
the NSA may have been doing his job
innocently, “the Commission Chairman was
already adamant just as was the case in 2011
when the nation was sent on a wild goose
chase only to return to the path of sanity by
eventually postponing the election”.
The latter source further insisted that the NSA
with his bird’s-eye view of the security
situation in the country may have just
attempted to try to try to shield the
Commission from public opprobrium regarding
the laxity to effectively distribute PVCs since
last year by pre-empting the issue of
postponement.
Sunday Vanguard was made to understand
that that issue is still one of the key
challenges identified by the INEC Board
assessment.
Another technical problem that is emerging
include the fact that although the electoral
body, on its part, has placed orders for the
production of ballot papers, it was restrained
by the legal window which was tied to the
outcome of the party primaries and the
window for substitution of candidates which
only terminated on December 30, 2014. After
the primaries and substitution were done, the
Commission had to compile the outcomes and
confirm with the parties, as indicated by
development of January 26, 2015, which saw
INEC, through a press release, dropping some
parties candidates for not meeting the legal
requirements of Section 187 of the
constitution, with reference to nomination of
running mates for the gubernatorial election.
By that development, it was clear that the
Commission’s final list of parties involved in
the election and their candidates was only just
being finalised, and therefore “the Commission
could not have ordered for definitive ballot
papers without such crucial information”.
“Taking the latter development into account”,
the usually dependable INEC source
continued, “it means that the production of
the ballot papers was only just ordered. This
is a process which is outside the full
scheduling control of INEC. Caught between
legal constraints from the Electoral Act and
Constitution, as well as the technical
challenges from contractors engaged with the
production of ballot papers, result sheets,
electoral forms and envelopes that are
currently being customized, to enhance the
fidelity of the process, and the inability of
politicians to move them from one polling area
to another, INEC is currently faced with a
heavy burden to meet the February 14 date,
without organizing a shambolic election”.
According to the very server INEC official,
“Professor Jega is bent on organizing a free,
fair and credible election but his hands are
currently being tied by the politicians who are
playing games with the integrity and fidelity of
the process”.
Had those been the only challenges
confronting INEC, opinion would still have
been divided.
Worse to come is the fact that the
Commission, the source continued, “is yet to
commence training of election-day personnel
for the polling unit activities. This is more
serious when it is considered that a new
technology – the electronic card reader
authentication – is being introduced to the
process.
“This means that thousands of NYSC, post-
NYSC and federal civil servants as well as
lecturers have less than 15days to be
recruited, indoctrinated and technically trained
to handle these devices and possible
contingencies that may arise if there are
technical failures when using this innovative
devices.”
Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.)
Stemming from that, the source disclosed, “is
the number of ad-hoc personnel that are
required due to the need to create more
accreditation points or voting points. This
arose because many polling units now have
1,000 to 2,000 voters, which require being
broken into more points of accreditation which
insiders call voting points.
“As a result of this”, Sunday Vanguard was
told, “each polling unit may now require not
less than eight personnel instead of four that
were previously needed.
“When this is multiplied by 120,000 existing
polling units, it means that the Commission
may need to recruit about 960,000 ad-hoc
personnel nationwide within the next two
weeks and train them on normal electoral
processes and the added technical challenges
related to the card reader that have been
highlighted above.
“In addition to the requirement to train this
massive number of people, INEC personnel
also have to be committed to the ongoing
distribution of PVCs, particularly to those who
were registered in the Continuous Voters
Registration exercise expected to be delivered
to the country this week, just a week to the
election – these will need to be received,
sorted out, before distribution nationwide to
appropriate registration areas in 120,000
places, and the problems arising from the
distribution simultaneously addressed”.
Due to these diverse challenges, Sunday
Vanguard discovered that the Commission
was already considering what to do to address
then, before the NSA compounded the issues,
that appears to have now barred INEC from
taking such decision for postponement
independently only because it may not want
to be seen as being dictated to by the
government through the NSA.
As things stand, the source declared, “this
may now result in the Commission being
stampeded into going ahead with the
presidential election despite the worries by
many electoral Commissioners nationwide.
Most are yet to receive critical materials
required for the election. The Commission may
be braving the risk of a fatally flawed election.
The source then warned:“if it goes ahead
despite these lapses, politicians may now take
advantage of the lapses. It is quite possible
that the Commission may have actually fallen
into a grand trap which was intended to force
it to stick to the time-table, so that the plans
to strengthen the process cannot be
perfected”.
One of the main issues INEC had to worry
about is the constraint of meeting the legal
requirement with regard to the time-frame for
conducting the election. In this connection,
unlike 2011 when it had to go to the National
Assembly, the Commission had some time
within which adjustments to the time-table
can be accommodated in line with Sections
76, 132 and 178 of the Constitution, which are
to the effect that “the Independent National
Electoral Commission shall have the power to
conduct election, not earlier than 150days and
not later than 30days before the expiration of
the term of office of the last holder of the that
office”. Under this time-frame-the Commission
had the 28th of April, 2015 as its maximum
time bar, which means it has enough time
within its own allowable time-frame under the
Constitution without reference to the National
Assembly.

Whatever is worth doing,is worth doing well. If INEC needs to adjust the time table to do a better job,they should do that instead of going ahead with it now,wasting resources,and at the end giving us a flawed election.