₦airaland Forum

NIGERIA ELECTIONS: INEC, AN INCOMPETENT UMPIRE

For a body whose primary responsibility is to conduct free and fair elections in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has consistently been underwhelming in delivering on its mandate. From its inception in 1998, an ever burgeoning budget has not yielded commensurate improvements in its ability to conduct credible elections that participants and observers can collectively accept as being free and fair.

Several issues come to fore when considering areas that INEC must improve on in its operations, which continues to impact negatively on voter participation, with voter apathy hitting an all-time low of 34.75% in the 2019 general elections.

EVER RISING COST OF ELECTIONS

When in 1998 the Nigerian electoral umpire gained more autonomy from its days as National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON), it conducted the 1999 general elections with a budget of N1.5 billion. While the cumulative cost of all previous general elections from 1999 to 2015 is about N274.8 billion, the cost of the 2019 elections alone was N236.7. In fact, it is of note that only on one occasion was there a drop in INEC’s budget from one general election cycle to the next, and that was between 2010 (N111b) and 2014 (N87.8b). A humongous sum of N305 billion has already been earmarked for the forthcoming 2023 elections.

Although INEC has attempted to justify this meteoric rise in election cost on inflation and purchase of technologies meant to improve on the sanctity of the people’s votes, Nigerians have not witnessed any significant improvement in the conduct of elections, but rather seem to be losing more faith in the electoral process.

UNBRIDLED CAMPAIGN SPENDING

As INEC continues to increase its spending, so do our politicians who seem to go into any election cycle with a limitless war chest. In 2015, it was alleged that the total cost incurred by INEC and the different political players came down to a whopping N1 trillion. For context, that was about 20% of the federal government’s budget for the same year.

Yet, INEC, like our law enforcement agencies, remain either toothless or in cahoots with politicians who continue to overshoot the campaign spending limit of N1 billion by immorally unjustifiable amounts.

LITANY OF UNRELIABLE TECHNOLOGIES

The undignifying sight of an incumbent’s inability to have his Personal Voter’s Card (PVC) details captured in the crucial and keenly contested 2015 presidential election was a very poignant encapsulation of INEC’s failures as an election umpire. Going to his polling unit, seeking a second term, Goodluck Jonathan, like millions of Nigerians, had been assured of the integrity and functionality of the Smart Card Readers which were to be used for voter accreditation. But that was not to be.

Again, just last month, after countless assurances, the high expectations that the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu led-INEC had heaped on its present Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) had met serious challenges during the Abuja council polls, with the election boss promising to have it resolved before subsequent elections.

Sadly for INEC, it has always been a case of expensive but unreliable technologies and unfulfilled promises. Yet, millions of Nigerians remain optimistic that 2023 will be different. It is a shame that for twenty-three years, INEC has not been able to adopt and adapt a voting system from those available in other climes that would not require an overhaul every four to eight years.

UNCHECKED MALAISE OF UNDERAGE VOTING

Another area INEC has repeatedly failed to improve on is the elimination of underage voting. Every general election, it has become the norm to see pictures and videos of voters in their early teens flooding electronic and digital media. This year, addressing Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in its first quarterly meeting, the INEC chairman disclosed that the body was undertaking a comprehensive cleanup of its register and that records of underage voters would be expunged. We hope this does not come down to mere rhetoric.

ELECTORAL OFFENDERS GOING SCOT FREE

For as long as our laws remain lax and there is hardly any deterrent for offenders, we will continue to grapple with increasing cases of people flouting electoral laws before and during elections. From the politicians, to the voters, law enforcement officers or INEC officials, we have a well-oiled circle of people having a field day perpetrating election offences.

As in other issues, INEC has hinged their inability to punish election malfeasance on the paucity of funds to institute legal action against the hundreds or thousands of Nigerians who continue to shortchange the democratic process. A serious-minded umpire would be less impulsive in offering excuses but rather seek a means of assuring the polity that such offences will not go unpunished, even if it means successfully prosecuting just a fraction of reported cases as a deterrent.

VOTER INDUCEMENT AND VOTE BUYING

As deplorable as the act of vote buying and voter inducement is, the government of the day has been accused of legitimizing it. Besides that fact that recent elections have witnessed party agents ostensibly distributing cash gifts to voters in polling units, even under the glare of election and law enforcement agents, the APC has now grown a penchant for executing mass empowerment schemes days or weeks before elections. Most notorious of this is the ‘TraderMoni’ scheme which sees the government doling out public funds to artisans and petty traders, and collecting their biodata in a bid to monitor how they eventually cast their votes on election day.

It is no longer just a case of stomach infrastructure or ‘Ghana must go’, now it’s about bullion vans and ‘TraderMoni’; such a pitiable trajectory.

CONCLUSION

It must be stated that all the ills of our electioneering system do not lie at the feet of INEC as the government as well as politicians are all key stakeholders in this inefficiently run mechanism. In the furtherance of the cause of a thriving democracy in Nigeria, Nigerians have a right to credible, free and fair elections.

When the referee blows the whistle for a football match to commence, players, club officials, fans and viewers expect a fair deal on the pitch; erring players are warned and recalcitrant players sanctioned; both teams field an equal number of players, and the goal post is never adjusted during the 90 minutes (and some) that the game lasts. Granted, the dynamics of an election, especially in a very complex society like Nigeria differ on a much larger scale, there are expectations that must be met, and the competence of the election umpire is one that is non-negotiable.

Too true. INEC had proven over the time that they're highly incompetent.

Imagine the just concluded area council election that took place in Abuja the Federal capital territory, plenty of incompetencies.

Don't blame INEC, blame the political class, they have been in sincere and don't want any thing right to be done because it won't benefit them.

janedonez:
Don't blame INEC, blame the political class, they have been in sincere and don't want any thing right to be done because it won't benefit them.

True, but politicians playing dirty is more or less expected. The onus is on INEC to protect the integrity of elections by punishing the insincere politicians