•Says recruitment of RECs, Commissioners makes it susceptible to govt interference •Claims electoral body deployment of technology not transparent

The European Union has expressed concern over the autonomy of the national electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).

Sunday Tribune checks revealed that the lack of “independence of INEC formed part of the observations of the European Union Electoral Observation Mission (EU-EOM) for 2023 general election in Nigeria.

The EU-EOM, which monitored the pre-election and post-election processes in Nigeria from January 11 to April 11, 2023 at the invitation of the electoral umpire, formally unveiled its findings and recommendations last Tuesday, at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

In the document released to newsmen by leader of the team, Barry Andrews and his team, tagged “Nigeria 2023 Final Report,” sighted by Sunday Tribune, the observer team noted that the recruitment process of senior personnel, particularly the commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners, constitute a serious encumbrance on the diligent operation of INEC.

Further checks revealed that the INEC chairman, his commissioners and the RECs are appointed by the sitting president, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The EU-EOM which acknowledged that the recruitment process has an expressed provision that such personnel must not be seen to be partisan, it, however, maintained that “the selection process leaves the electoral institution vulnerable to being viewed as aligned with the government.”

The report recalled that erring RECs could not be reprimanded by the INEC Commissioners as they are “presidentially-appointed officers. This exposes further systemic weakness in the electoral institutional design that obstructs fostering of professionalism and trust.”

The report reads in part:” The constitution provides that all members of INEC are strictly non-partisan. At the same time, there is no legal requirement that their selection be undertaken according to merit and qualification to ensure the independence and efficiency of the institution.

“CSO examination of the selection process signalled that the selection processes of both INEC commissioners and RECs were neither transparent nor in line with the non-partisan requirement.

“The selection of some commissioners also raised concerns about their professional skills and background. The selection process leaves the electoral institution vulnerable to being viewed as aligned with the government.

“Following the federal-level elections, RECs were mandated by INEC to bar all staff found to be negligent from conducting the elections. However, only a few key electoral officials were held accountable, despite the scale of election day failings across the country, as observed by the EU EOM in particular in the South-East, South-South, Kano and Lagos.

“The RECs in Abia and Sokoto were suspended without clear public explanations and their role filled by administrative secretaries. INEC has the power to withdraw powers from the RECs, but cannot legally dismiss them as they too are presidentially-appointed officers.

“This exposes further systemic weakness in the electoral institutional design that obstructs fostering of professionalism and trust,” the report said.

To wean the electoral umpire from the influence of the governing party, the Barry Andrews team further recommended the establishment of “a robust operational framework for the independence, integrity, and efficiency of electoral administration through an inclusive and publicly accountable mechanism for selecting candidates to the posts of INEC commissioners and RECs based on clear criteria of evaluation of merits, qualifications, and verified non-partisanship.”

Amidst the criticisms and subsisting litigation trailing the performance of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV), the EU-EOM restated its stance that the INEC deployment of technology fell short of public expectations.

While it recalled that the leadership of the electoral umpire conducted mock exercise of the technology prior to the conduct of the general election, the EU-EOM also expressed strong reservations about the modalities.

“The election technology used was implemented under serious deficiencies in the transparency of the whole process. Hardware and software specifications of BVAS, test results, audits, basic procurement details, protocols and guidelines for specific operations and functionality were not made public.

“Functionality and specifics of the transmission of the results forms were also unclear, without details publicly available, apart from information found in late published manuals, lessening transparency, trust, and certainty. Interviewed Nigerian IT professionals (outside INEC) were not informed about the basic specifics of the election technology used.

“INEC missed the opportunity to substantively test operational issues connected with its technology before the 25 February election day. On February 4, it conducted an inadequate mock exercise in 436 polling stations testing the functionality of the BVAS.

“EU EOM observers and civil society stakeholders noted that the timing of the mock, the small size of the sample, low voter participation, and unclear written guidelines diminished the practical value of the exercise, while exposing some technical problems with biometric recognition and transmission of results.

“Furthermore, the mock was run only by INEC professional staff and not by election day poll workers. There was delayed recruitment and training of RATECHs, key technical support staff, as well as of polling staff handling BVAS. At the time of the mock exercise only one fifth of RATECHs were trained.”

Going forward, the team recommended that in future elections, the Commission must “ensure transparency and allow for public scrutiny of election technology by mandating in law timely disclosure of test and audit results, together with protocols, guidelines, methodology of implementation, procurement, and functionality details.”

https://tribuneonlineng.com/eu-raises-concern-over-independence-of-inec/

The current lack of INEC's independence will favour me and my family....

Looks like Tinubu's gum body with Macron in France angered the EU, maybe he shouldn't have kissed macron's wife, dem just dey vex release report....

Anyway, their vexation go favour me and my family...

You're reports are in order

Mi

Politicians, President and people in government should stop appointing any one in Inec

Daytonbale:
Politicians, President and people in government should stop appointing any one in Inec

Who should appoint INEC chairman?

According to the EU of Aba. L.

The problem of Nigeria is not the president or any other politician but INEC. If a politician knows that if he fumbles, people will vote him out, he will be serious with the people whom he represents.

Mahmud the criminal must go to jail & made to account for the billions of Naira approved for the Implementation of the fraudulent election

iSense247:
Who should appoint INEC chairman?

go and find out how other countries around the globe appoint their electoral umpire

Daytonbale:
go and find out how other countries around the globe appoint their electoral umpire

Have you found out yourself?

The world know that Tinubu was rigged in by the INEC chairman

Everyone know the elections were rigged

They steal your mandate
They sponsor tribal and religious political narratives
They bribe INEC
They bribe the Judiciary
They call your bluff and capture the state
They take away your fuel subsidy without fighting corruption
They take away your funding for tertiary education
They add VAT to your fuel and diesel
They introduce VAT on your carbonated drinks
The increase your electricity tariff by 40%
They increase their own salaries by 114%
They budget 24B for their HoA Accomodation
They budget SUVs for themselves, generals and service chiefs
They take looting to another level and they tell you to sacrifice
They pay propagandists to distract you from the evil they are inflicting on you in social and news media

You now trek like your life depends on it yet you can’t save anything, life is excruciating
You go to market and you can’t buy anything meaningful, you feel something is wrong with you
Your kids go to bed hungry and you blame yourself
You will withdraw your kids cos you can’t meet the new fees
Your thoughts are overwhelmed with the ways to survive, feeding has become luxury
You are contemplating quiting work because the salary cannot cover transport alone
You are frustrated

This the Truth: your political class are ready to punish you to death as long as they afford their extravagant lifestyle.

Unless you fight back and hold these criminals accountable, they will take away all you’ve got and dance on the grave of you and your loved ones.

You must take your life and your nation back

EU should better focus on what is happening in France and stop wasting their ink on Nigeria.

Since 2003, EU have been writing nonsense reports and by 2027 they will still write another jargons. Na only people wey dey believe their nonsense I pity.

Inec can be manipulated, as far as a sitting president appoints its DG.

Are they independent B4 when source of fund and election material are been approved by the said president who is also on ballot paper.

They should be renamed Dependent National Electoral Commission (DNEC).

Eye neck is an extension of Nigeria's Presidential office jareh

Balablu, e go reach everybody

Allow the rank and file of INEC to become Chairman and Resident Electoral Commissioners If we must get it right. It is only a fool that will expect any man appointed by the president as Chairman of INEC not to do the bidding of his benefactor. Nigeria will never have free fair and credible election until we stop the president from appointing Chairman and Recs of INEC.

It's obvious that Nigeria only has National Electoral Commission NEC. Because how can one man appoint a chairman, finance him & the same chairman won't do his bidding?!

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a cocaine sniffing Gongola

Is this new?

Inec is a scam

EU should raised concern about how they are using Nigerians as slave in their countries , EU is not Nigeria friend, they do not want you a president that will liberate Nigeria and Africans