By Jude Opara
CERTAINLY, the exit from office of the
immediate past Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof.
Attahiru Jega, last month, marks the end of
an era, which many analysts say the electoral
body recorded a mileage in the conduct of
credible elections.
It was the first time an INEC chairman
conducted two general elections (2011 and
2015), widely considered as credible.
Before the advent of Jega in 2010, the public
image of INEC was at a very low ebb given
the controversies that trailed the conduct of
the 2007 general elections by the professor
Maurice Iwu-led commission. The poor
conduct of the 2007 election overshadowed
the innovations that Iwu initiated.
Ahead the 2011 general polls, it was very
evident that any electoral umpire that worked
hard to strengthen the process would be
highly revered. Many Nigerians over the years
had linked some of the seeming intractable
challenges facing the country to the nation’s
faulty electoral system, arguing that if power
really comes from the people, any elected
officer will work hard to improve on the living
standard of the people.
The game changer
Jega began by cleaning up the voters’
register, which hitherto had contained names
of even well known foreigners as part of the
Nigerian electorate, a clear underlining of the
fact that elections in Nigeria could have been
anything but free and fair. But due to the
short time before the 2011 general elections,
the register was only cleaned-up with the
removal of some multiple registrants as well
as names of well known foreign celebrities.
The 2011 elections were adjudged as one of
the best conducted elections in the history of
the country.
The next line of action was the registration of
voters for the 2015 elections through what
was known as Continuous Voter Registration
(CVR) exercise. At the end of the exercise,
68.8 million voters were registered.
Most of the seeming innovations for which
INEC under Prof. Jega thrived like the use of
the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines for
the registration of voters were initiated by
his predecessor, Prof. Iwu.
However, Jega introduced what politicians
now referred to as the ‘game changer.’ The
Smart Card Reader (SCR) machine which
worked alongside the Permanent Voters Card
(PVC) was what many analysts believe
reduced to a significant level the incidence of
electoral fraud in the 2015 general elections.
It is a well known fact that most politicians
loathed the introduction of the Card Reader
especially when it became clear that it was
going to take care of multiple voting and
ballot stuffing which used to be major
features of our electoral system.
The short-comings: However, the device
either by omission or commission did not
checkmate the incidence of child-voters. In
some parts of the country, the rate at which
children who were clearly under the
constitutional voting age of 18 participated
in the last general elections was very
alarming.
Many of those who believed that it was not
really Uhuru with Jega argued that it was
either the former chief electoral umpire was
biased to have allowed that to go unhindered
or that he was incompetent because the
children had a smooth ride through all the
stages of the election- registration of
voters,verification, collection of PVCs,
accreditation to vote and actual voting on
Election Day.
One area many people especially the staff of
the commission believe that their former boss
performed very poorly is in the area of staff
welfare. Apart from the fact that it took a lot
of time for allowances and other sundry
claims to be paid, there was no form of salary
enhancement.
“Let me tell you that the only thing I can say
despite the fact that Jega himself was always
bragging with it, is that he managed to
sustain the hazards allowances which Prof.
Iwu approved for every staff during elections.
Staff welfare was rather poor under Jega and
this is probably due to the fact that he came
with a negative mindset that INEC was
corrupt,” an INEC staff told Vanguard.
The issue of staff welfare especially the junior
ones which used to be a cardinal policy of
INEC under Iwu was jettisoned by Jega even
as at today. The Commission had in 2008
commenced the construction of staff
quarters for the junior and inter-mediate
staff at Aco Estate, along the Abuja Airport
Road but till now nobody has added another
block on that project.
Allegations of favouritism
The last -minute directorate promotion
exercise which Jega carried out on the eve of
his departure from the commission is still
causing ripples among the concerned staff. A
reliable source at the Commission alleged
that Jega who left office on Tuesday June 30
had on Friday June 26 approved the
promotion of some staff without due regard
to the existing Federal Character principle
and even guidelines he issued himself.
According to the source, the Commission had
came up with a policy that for anybody to be
promoted to the directorate cadre, such a
person must have passed the promotion
examination which was conducted many
times. However, after the exercise most of
the people who did well were denied
promotion while other criteria that were not
specified were used to promote some of
those who were elevated.
“They told us that due to the fact that there
were limited openings for promotions that
the examination would be used as a criterion
to promote people. We were informed that if
there was a vacancy in your state or zone that
the person who scored the highest mark shall
be promoted but curiously all these were not
observed. In fact I can say that except for one
or two states, the guideline was observed in
breach and that is already causing a lot of
disaffection in the Commission.
Denial of promotion
“For example, I know of a Deputy Director
who scored 75 per cent in his state but the
person that was promoted had 66 per cent.
Also in another North Central state, the
person who came first with 76 per cent was
denied promotion while someone who scored
59 per cent was promoted. In fact, this
approach has left some deputy directors in
the same position for over 10 years. It is very
wrong for people to be stagnated because of
favouritism.”
The former INEC boss who has since returned
to the classroom at the Bayero University
Kano (BUK) was further alleged to have
favoured some staff from certain parts of the
country to the detriment of those from other
parts.
“They are promoting some people using
criteria that are different from some others.
For example from the North-East and North-
West, somebody with even less than 50 per
cent will be promoted whereas those from
the South-East and North-Central will not be
promoted even with 70 per cent and then you
will now be answerable to a man who is
inferior to you intellectually because of where
he comes from. This certainly is breeding bad
blood because it is daylight assault, many
people are hurting,” source lamented.
Urgent tasks before Amina

Consequently, staff welfare and addressing
the injustice arising from Jega’s last-minute
promotions constitute the first major tasks
before the INEC’s Acting Chairperson, Mrs
Amina Bala Zakari. From information
available to us it is evident that if nothing
was done urgently to address this issue, many
of the staff will be working half-heartedly
and this will never be in the overall interest
of the commission and the country. People
must be seen to have been fairly and justly
treated no matter the part of the country
they come from.
Sources at the Commission have further
revealed that with the recent trend, some
states of the federation may not have space
for promotion in the next 10 years while
many staff may retire on account of either
age or year of service before they get to even
level 15.

Mrs Zakari could consider expanding the top
a little to create opportunities and also
encourage efficiency and effectiveness. For
instance, some of the departments that were
merged by Jega could be separated because
time has shown that they did better the way
they were before.

A classical example is the Voter Education,
Publicity, Gender and Civil Societies
department which used to have two separate
departments. In the past, there used to be
the Public Affairs Department headed by a
director as well as the Voter education and
Civil Societies unit headed by another
director.
Doing this will equally encourage
professionalism as thorough bred
professionals would be detailed to head these
departments and units

Mrs Zakari, the first woman to head the
electoral umpire in the country must take
staff welfare very seriously as anything to the
contrary may encourage truancy and INEC
being a sensible agency may not be able to
manage the after-effect of disgruntled staff
divulging vital information to unauthorized
people in exchange for money. The staff
must be allowed to form a Workers Union as
the continuous insistence on stopping them
may not augur well for the commission.


www.vanguardngr.com/2015/07/inec-jegas-legacies-and-re-jigging-tasks-before-amina

I hope her achievement surpass dt of Jega

Ok

.

Ok

I BELIEVE HE IS CAPABLE THAT'S WHY HE IS THERE...

I WISH HIM WELL.

It is wrong to have a fulani president and a fulani inec chief at the same time. Especially when there is nothing pointedly remarkable about the skills of the said INEC cheif. This Amina should be releived of her duties at INEC immediately. Btw, I thought these appointments are subject to the approval of the legislature. . Ditto the massive withdrawals from the countrys accounts by one buhari. Why are people not up in arms to these events as was the case during jonathans regime? Is Nigeria being run by a sole administrator or by a president?

too many stories ds days

owobokiri:
It is wrong to have a fulani president and a fulani inec chief at the same time. Especially when there is nothing pointedly remarkable about the skills of the said INEC cheif. This Amina should be releived of her duties at INEC immediately. Btw, I thought these appointments are subject to the approval of the legislature. . Ditto the massive withdrawals from the countrys accounts by one buhari. Why are people not up in arms to these events as was the case during jonathans regime? Is Nigeria being run by a sole administrator or by a president?

We all know where the funds are going to unlike during the tenure of ur god who looted us blind!

MyMouth:

We all know where the funds are going to unlike during the tenure of ur god who looted us blind!

You don't know anything. You just think you know, but you don't know. You are just sheepishly tagging along, following what you have been told. You are just "HOPE"! Nothing else.

owobokiri:


You don't know anything. You just think you know, but you don't know. You are just sheepishly tagging along, following what you have been told. You are just "HOPE"! Nothing else.

And its good to "hope".