Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mike Igini, who was recently deployed from Cross River State, talks on the INEC’s readiness to conduct the forthcoming polls. Special Correspondent, TITUS OISE, captures the discussion.
Mission in Edo
My colleague and predecessor and the staff here did a good job. I am building on what they did through another strategy, mainly anchored on information dissemination and dissuading those who snatch Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) to stop doing so because it would be useless and unhelpful. Such action, apart from being criminal under the laws, is also redundant given that the PVCs will be useless without the presence of the owners of the cards when used with the proposed card readers.
Card readers for the elections as game changer
It would be the game changer in the elections because the system puts the electorate at the centre of the voting system using their biometrics. It is the new voting sheriff for the forthcoming elections. One card reader is configured for each of the 120,000 polling units nationwide. A card reader means that only the owner of the PVC can use the voter card, and he/she can only do so at the assigned polling unit for that voter, at or nearest to the place where he/she registered or transferred his/her registration. Also, by doing biometric-driven card reader authentication, the process will leave a more reliable audit trail of who and how many people actually were accredited, rejected and voted, in digital format which is easier to store and reproduce.
This makes the question of altering the results as they are from the polling units problematic. This will be in addition to the customization of the ballot papers and result sheets to each polling unit, making ballot snatching or the use of result sheets or ballot papers from one polling unit impossible at any other polling unit.
The battery for the card reader will last for about 14 hours. Once you come with your PVC, your face and everything about you will show on it. It will authenticate whether the face corresponds with the person that has the thump print. There is a speaker in it that will announce that everything about you is okay before you are given a ballot. As a matter of fact, at the end of the day, we can print a new register with this. So, it is useless for anybody being in possession of the PVC of another person.
We have a total of 120,000 polling units in Nigeria. We have received a total of 137,000. We must have some redundancies in case anything goes wrong. So we actually placed order for 137,000 of the card readers. The real challenge now, of course, in Edo is for people to collect their PVCs.
INEC’s readiness for the polls
Yes the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is putting finishing touches to our overall preparations in line with the time table issued on January 24, 2014. We published the register on January 13, in line with Section 20 of the Act requiring INEC to do so 30 days to the election.
Preparations are in top gear and work is in good progress. Though l know that there are always anxieties that people express because of the stakes involved, we are no longer new to this process. We are preparing for those things we can rationally plan for and we will adapt adequately to emergent ones.
Challenges so far by way of pressure from politicians
The pressure should be on politicians not me.
I have no pressure. My only focus is meeting the expectations of voters in terms of the professionalism of INEC, its integrity and impartiality.
Politicians should be more concerned about the electorate, worry less about me and I will have less to worry about them. This election is not about those of us who will count the votes but about the electorate who would cast the votes that must be taken into account.
What I have observed over time is that the enthusiasm and anxiety of the followers of politicians are often worse than what you see from politicians themselves. So I have learnt to be more wary of the politicians’ aides and followers than the politicians themselves.
Fears by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) that INEC is being controlled by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
It is preposterous and l do not think we should spend valuable time on such debate. I find it laughable having regard to the kind of local government elections conducted by state electoral bodies under the control of these two parties, where all elections are won by the governments controlled by these parties. INEC is the only electoral body that enjoys full autonomy, but the same is often denied the States Independent Electoral Commission (SIECs) that conduct elections that reflect our multiparty democracy at the grassroots. We have some of the finest Nigerian administrators at the SIECs who could do even more than we are doing, but regrettably do not have the kind of freedom we experience in INEC. If the elections are to be conducted by the government of these parties, you would have known who would win all the elections, but can anyone tell for certain who will win the forthcoming election to be conducted by INEC? That uncertainty underpins the integrity of the electoral process and helps to keep leaders accountable to voters.
Conducting election that Nigerians will adjudge credible
That is pretty straight forward. All it requires is for us to put everything in place at the proper time, allow the voters to cast their votes, eliminate fraud and minimise malpractices as a result of administrative lapses and ensure that the results reflect the votes as the ballots were cast. It doesn’t sound like rocket science; to me it is simple, stay impartial and respect the voters.
INEC guaranteeing impartial election in the face of the struggle for power between the North and South
This current leadership of Prof. Attahiru Jega has given Nigerians since 2011 and subsequent elections much of what is great and eternal if sustained to ensure that our democracy endures, and that should be acknowledged. Today, unlike in 2003 and 2007, we no longer talk of the criminal acts of some officials of the electoral management body colluding with politicians to engage in pre-writing of election results a day before elections, ballot boxes and paper snatching that were thumb printed to make returns. Additionally, state gubernatorial elections are no longer announced in faraway Abuja, but where the elections were conducted. This chairman has reinvigorated the engine of integrity and should be acknowledged and encouraged. Impartiality is the core professional vocation of INEC.
In any election which allows for the contest between Nigerians several contestants must come from a particular region or state of the country. Learning how to accommodate and contain such competition within the ambits of decorum, peace and progress should be one of the key lessons we must learn in the course of our nation building. The carryover of these regional mindsets will not persist if all elected leaders learn to make power beneficial to everyone rather than the region or place from where the elected person originates because it has never happened that any contender received zero votes from any section of the country. Therefore, wherever a leader comes from he should at least respect the votes he/she received from everywhere by responding to the needs of all.
Sustaining the no-violence accord by presidential candidates
They should abide by the pact in words and conduct. And more importantly they should restrain their followers from pre-emptive expectations. In every election, voters vote for both sides and no matter who wins, there will be people who will compete again at the next election. If you kill yourself or get killed, no one will be mourning you by the next election. So don’t let us get to that point where anyone believes that the way he or she feels about this election is sufficient to kill or die for.