By Olasupo Abideen
The months that followed the conduct of the 2023 General elections are no doubt rollercoaster with contrasting emotions about the outcome of the elections and most recently with the outcome of the Presidential Election Petition and other tribunals across the country. No matter what part of the political divide you belong to and how optimistic you tend to be, you will agree that the general elections delivered less than it promised, taking the quality of the process into cognisance. A good understanding of citizens’ sentiments about Nigeria’s election can easily be seen under any social media posts that mentions preparatory activities of the election management body, towards the upcoming off-circle elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa states.
A brief sentiment analysis no doubt shows that the Independent National Electoral Commission has a herculean task of rebuilding the citizens’ confidence in Nigeria’s electoral democracy as we go into a crucial round of off-circle elections. Thus the threshold to measure the quality of these elections will even be higher but the first job at hand is to convince potential voters of the sanctity of their votes. Already there are major concerns about the over 241 thousand uncollected Permanent Voters Card with just a little over a month to the elections proper.
The reason is not far-fetched as it seems once again, politicians seem to have found a way albeit with support of the judiciary to once again circumvent the laws to manipulate process. This despite the enactment of an electoral law that permits the deployment of technological devices like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV). Similarly, the judiciary also pounced on these loopholes during tribunals across the nations while INEC were left seemingly helpless largely because they also could not fulfill their parts of the promises to Nigerians during the polls.
According to Fact Check elections, the Electoral Commission consistently assured Nigerians that election results would be transmitted electronically via its result viewing portal in near real time. This is expected to enable citizens to follow polling unit-level results on the INEC Result Viewing IReV portal and real-time on Election Day. As a matter of fact, manual results from polling units were expected to be checked against those uploaded on the IREV before being admitted. While the BVAS may have done its job of proper accreditation of voters, election results were not uploaded in real time, particularly for the Presidential elections where only 45% of results were on the portal three days after the elections citing technical glitches.
In this vein, the commission needs to take intentional steps in prosecuting electoral offenders including its own staff who contributed to the violation of the electoral act during the 2023 general election. This may to some extent encourage participation as the commission will be seen to be at least making effort to fish out the bad eggs within its ranks.
Beyond this, we have a huge responsibility to prove to Nigerians that BVAS remains a game changer especially for the accreditation of voters as this device has consistently alleviated the manipulation of accreditation figures. Also the commission needs to also convince Nigerians that it has not just the capacity but the will and sincerity to upload the people’s results in the glaring eyes of the public. The upcoming elections also provides opportunity for the commission, civil society organisations and other electoral stakeholders to debunk misinformation that may be circulating as regards the role of BVAS and IREV in the elections.
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The efforts to rebuild citizens’ confidence to participate in the forthcoming elections is definitely without prejudice to other perennial challenges that have characterized Nigeria’s elections over the years. The problem of security, logistics, technological and knowledge gaps must be seen to be addressed during and after the mock accreditations ahead of the polls.
Experts remain optimistic that while the existing electoral law has its loopholes, the framework is sufficient enough to deliver an acceptable election only if implemented to the latter. However, passage of the electoral offenses commission will further provide a standard framework that will ensure electoral offenders are sternly and adequately punished to deter others.
Olasupo Abideen is a good governance, youth investment, and public policy enthusiast. Abideen serves as the Kwara State coordinator of the NotTooYoungToRun movement and Global Director, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative.
Please send comments and feedback to abideenolasupo@gmail.com
He tweets @opegoogle
