Elections’ll hold in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa in 2015 – INEC

 

INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission has   formally assured Nigerians that elections will hold in all parts of the country, including Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states which are currently under emergency rule.

There had been fears that elections might not hold in the three states because of insecurity caused by Boko Haram insurgents.

But  INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, at a media session organised by INEC and the United Nations Democratic Programme’s (UNDP) Democratic Governance for Democracy

Project in Abuja on Monday, said the commission would do its “best and conduct elections in every part of the country in 2015.”

Jega, who  also said that one million Nigerians would be prosecuted for double registration, however admitted that insecurity  constituted a serious challenge to the commission.

He said, “Insecurity is a serious challenge to the commission and the entire electoral process. But we are ready to conduct election in any situation.  Security challenges are enormous, be it Boko Haram, kidnapping or even armed robbery.

“Elections can be conducted under situations of emergency rule. But all we are saying is that elections will be free and fair where there are minimal security challenges. Under a situation of emergency, many things are likely to happen, either people will be scared of coming out or they will come out and run into security cordons and be molested by security agents.

“Our hope is that by 2015 we will be able to conduct elections in all parts of the country. We are ready to conduct the elections everywhere in this country in 2015. We hope that security challenges will be minimal for us to conduct elections in 2015 and when we get to the bridge, we will cross it.”

Jega also disclosed that INEC had   commenced the screening of its electoral officers with a view to checking electoral malpractices in 2015.

He said, “As I speak with you, we are finalising screening of our electoral officers to ascertain who and who should be retained for the 2015 general elections. In INEC, we have a few bad eggs. “Statistically, they are insignificant. Almost the same number of people who conducted the 2007 election which was said to be the worst were the same people who conducted the 2011 election which is believed to be the best.

“Many of them were coerced. When we came in 2010, we told them that we won’t break the law and quietly we have retired, removed and dismissed people. We did structural reorganisation of INEC. We have restructured INEC, reduced the number of directorates, and put round pegs in round holes. We have confidence that the 2015 general elections will be   better than 2011 despite the challenges.”

Jega said that INEC prosecuted “over 200 electoral offenders between 2011 and now,” adding that over one million others are to face prosecution for double registration alone.

But he admitted that prosecuting the suspects had been difficult and time-consuming for the commission, adding that INEC had proposed the establishment of an electoral tribunal to reduce the burden.

“We have made a request to the National Assembly for the creation of an electoral tribunal to unbundle the commission,” Jega said.

He also justified the use of members of the National Youth Service Corps for elections.

“At any election year, we use about 300,000 NYSC members, but their use didn’t totally eliminate election fraud which usually arise through inducement by politicians and other forms of electoral fraud,” the INEC chief said.

“People don’t know that there were ‘corpers’ that had been jailed. Some were reported by us and the NYSC authorities sanctioned them. But those who perpetrate this are insignificant,” he stressed.

He also ruled out the possibility of conducting all elections in one day, saying the challenges were enormous.

Jega said, “We are hesitant to do all elections in one day in 2015 because logistics of doing so are much.The   challenges of lack of proper voter education are there. It could be later years but definitely not in 2015.

“Asking us to conduct all elections in one day is going to create more challenges for us. In Ghana and Kenya which people cite as examples, the infrastructure are better than what we have in Nigeria. The countries which conducted all elections in one day say if given the opportunity, they will not do it. We did well in 2011 and let’s not bite more than we can chew. As for now, I am sorry to say that we in INEC won’t do all elections in one day. We will be wasting our time and energy on doing elections in one day.”

The INEC chairman also raised the alarm that “if politicians continued to have the attitude of winner takes all or do or die, then there would be problems.”

He said, “Nigerian politicians capitalise on the weakness of voting between 7 am and 7 pm. That led to the Modified Open Ballot System which prevented the possibility of people moving from one place to the other. That was an important reform measure that we adopted.”

Jega   accused political parties of breaching the provisions of party guidelines in conducting primary elections and alleged there had also been breaches of the Electoral Act in respect of campaign by political parties.

“There have been breaches in terms of campaign in accordance with the guidelines but we will see how we can prosecute them,” he said.

He announced that the commission would soon come up with new guidelines on campaign, saying that there was the need to fine-tune the guidelines.

Jega also regretted that some vital components of the report of the electoral committee which was headed by a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammadu Uwais (retd.),  were not taken into consideration.

According to him, in 2010, “we realised that a lot needed to be done for a free and fair election to take place. We had a constitutional amendment within eight months and this is historical. But simple things that are taken seriously in other countries are taken for granted in Nigeria.”