***To issue Certificates of Return to NASS Members next week
By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Apparently to remedy whatever misconceptions Nigerians and international community are having over the outcome of the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections as it regards to its inability to upload polling units results to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Results Viewing Portals (iREV), the Commission on Saturday promised to upload the March 11 Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election results realtime.
This is even as the INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu has read the riots act to the management, demanding that all
hands must be on desk to ensure all the issues of Logistics, technologies deployed, generators that will powers Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS), and the attitudinal behaviours of some Ad hoc staff among other things did not repeat itself again.
Yakubu said this at a Performance Review Meeting convened with all the 36 States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), at INEC Headquarters in Abuja, stressing that the Commission has to be alive to its responsibilities to avoid the repeat of mistakes or problems that emanated from the Presidential election last week.
The inability of INEC to upload the polling units results for the political parties to view it realtime has led to the two main opposition parties, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) to go to court to challenge the outcome of the February 25 Presidential election in which the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared the winner by Yakubu. They criticised the process of arriving at the point of making a declaration of the winner.
But the INEC boss seems to have recognised that there are issues and stated much in the meeting which he chaired on Saturday, saying that “Arising from last week’s election, the Commission has received reports from our State offices as well as complaints and petitions from political parties and candidates. Where infractions of any kind are proven, there will be redress. I must add that any action taken by the Commission is without prejudice to the rights of parties and candidates to seek further remedy as provided by law”.
Speaking further he said: “On Election Day technology, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will once again be deployed for voter accreditation and result management. The deployment of BVAS has gone a long way to sanitise voter accreditation as can be seen from the result of recent elections.
“Since last week, the Commission has intensified the review of the technology to ensure that glitches experienced, particularly with the upload of results are rectified. We are confident that going forward the system will run optimally”.
Part of of his remarks read: “This is our 3rd meeting in less than two months. Like the last two meetings, the purpose is to discuss the conduct of the 2023 General Election. Arising from the Presidential and National Assembly elections held a week ago, and with the Governorship and State Assembly elections holding next week, it is imperative to review performance and assess preparations.
“No doubt, last week’s national elections raised a number of issues that require immediate, medium, and long-term solutions. The planning for the election was painstakingly done. However, its implementation came with challenges, some of them unforeseen.
“The issues of logistics, election technology, behaviour of some election personnel at different levels, attitude of some party agents and supporters added to the extremely challenging environment in which elections are usually held in Nigeria.
“We appreciate the sacrifice and doggedness of Nigerians and the dignity and maturity displayed by political leaders even in the context of divergent views about the election.
“A lot of lessons have been learnt. Of immediate concern to the Commission is how the identified challenges can be addressed as we approach the concluding phase of the General Election involving the largest number of constituencies i.e. 28 State Governorship elections and 993 State Houses of Assembly seats.
“In last Saturday’s elections, winners have also been declared for 423 national legislative seats while supplementary elections will be held in 46 constituencies.
“In the Senate, 98 out of 109 seats have been declared. So far, seven political parties have won senatorial seats while in the House of Representatives, 325 out of 360 seats have been won by eight political parties.
In terms of party representation, this is the most diverse national assembly since 1999 as can be seen from the tabular summary below”.
Meanwhile, Yakubu has said that “Certificates of Return will be presented to Senators-elect on Tuesday 7th March 2023 at 11.00am at the National Collation Centre (the International Conference Centre), Abuja, while Members of the House of Representatives-elect will receive theirs the following day, Wednesday 8th March 2023, at 11.00am at the same venue.
“However, for effective crowd management, each Senator/Member-elect should be accompanied by a maximum of two guests. The comprehensive list of all members-elect will be uploaded to the Commission’s website shortly.
“As we approach the Governorship and State Assembly elections, we must work harder to overcome the challenges experienced in the last election. Nothing else will be acceptable to Nigerians.
“All staff found to be negligent, whether they are regular or ad hoc officials, including Collation and Returning Officers, must not be involved in forthcoming elections.
RECs must also immediately initiate disciplinary action where prima facie evidence of wrongdoing has been established.
“Election Day logistics must be finalised days before the election and handled by the Electoral Officers (EOs) at Local Government level.
“This has been our standard practice. Centralising the process as was done in some States resulted in delayed deployment of personnel and materials and late commencement of polls. RECs will be held responsible for any tardy arrangement or the failure to deploy electric power generators to collation centres or polling units where such facilities are needed.
“The Commission has enough facilities in all the States of the Federation. Failure to deploy them is simply inexcusable.
“Refresher training must be conducted for ad hoc staff that participated in the last election. Where they are replaced for good reason, they must be properly trained so that processes are not delayed or compromised at any stage”.
