By Ishaya Ibrahim
A webinar hosted by Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has recommended modalities for improving elections in Nigeria.
The event, held on Tuesday via Zoom, featured speakers with backgrounds in election monitoring in Nigeria.
CAPPA’s executive director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said the 2023 elections recorded both significant progress and some drawbacks.
On the upside, he said the signing of the Electoral Act 2022, the introduction of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and the Results Viewing, also known as IReV, set a new benchmark for the country’s electoral process.
He, however, noted that the violence that characterized the election in some parts of the country, voter suppression and the inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload results of the presidential election on IRev in real-time, combined to undermine the credibility of the election.
Executive director of the International Press Centre (IPC), Lanre Arogundade, commended INEC for procuring sensitive materials locally, saying it strengthens the case that Nigeria does not have any business importing so much of the stuff shipped into the country, including toothpicks.
He also said INEC scored very high in voter education, saying the impact was that voters were able to vote for their preferred candidates across the different political parties.
Arogundade also advocated for the conduct of all the elections in one day, saying all that is required are two extra ballot boxes.
He recommended the unbundling of INEC, especially as it concerns the arrest and prosecution of electoral offenders.
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He said: “We need a commission like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that has its uniform and equipped to investigate, arrest and prosecute electoral offenders.”
He also advised INEC against relying on transportation unions for the distribution of election materials.
Arogundade, whose organization was one of the partners involved in engagement with INEC during the election, said some of the transport unions suddenly jerked up fares unreasonably at the last minute, thereby holding INEC to ransom.
He also said in some instances, like Lagos, the involvement of the transport union created the problem of partisanship as the leader of the union was a well-known member of the ruling party.
Arogundade advised INEC to take charge of the distribution of election materials by procuring its own vehicles.
He said the vehicles could be given out to other departments and agencies of government like the police which is always in dire need of transport vehicles.
The Lead Research at Dataphyte, Oluseyi Olufemi, spoke on the role of technology in enhancing electoral integrity.
He said INEC must give equal rights to all Nigerians, including rural dwellers, people with disability, women and other Nigerians to vote. He said the feat can only be achieved with the expansion of technological infrastructure.
For Nnamdi Elekwachi of Youth and Students Advocates for Development Initiative, despite signing the Not Too Young to Run law and the Disability Act which requires 5 per cent slot reserved for persons with disability, political parties observed all those in the breach. He said they sold their nomination forms beyond the financial reach of these categories.