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| INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu (right) with the United States Under Secretary of State for Civilain Security, Democracy and Human Rights and National Commissioner, Festus Okoye (left) after their meeting at the State Department on Tuesday 11th October 2022 |
... ENSURING CREDIBLE, PEACEFUL, AND INCLUSIVE ELECTIONS
The Chairman, Independence National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has said, his greatest concern about the 2023 general elections is the perennial issue of insecurity in different parts of the country, compounded by the traditional issues of thuggery during elections organized by some of the political actors.
INEC Chairman stated this at an event organized by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) at the NED Headquarters, Washington DC, Unites States of America, on Tuesday 11th October 2022.
Prof Yakubu says, "the dimension of the insecurity in Nigeria is of great concern in the sense that in the past, it was localized or confined to a particular part of the country, that is, the northeastm but now it is more widespread and we are keeping our eyes particularly on the northwest and the southeastern parts of the country".
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| INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu (left) with the President, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Damon Wilson, after the former delivered his keynote address on “Nigeria 2023: Ensuring Credible, Peaceful and Inclusive Elections, at a panel discussion organised by NED and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in Washington DC, United States on Tuesday 11th October 2022. |
He explained that, elections are conducted by human beings but the commission is worried about the security of its officials, voters and the materials to be deployed.
"Without them, we cannot conduct elections. We have spoken to the security agencies, they have assured us that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed. Those who are supposed to secure the environment have assured us that they will secure the environment for us to conduct elections. Our responsibility is to conduct elections", he said.
On the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the INEC Chairman explained that, the commission have basically retired old Smart Card Reader (SCR). The SCR by definition reads the card.
He said, "each biometric card has a chip embedded inside it and in the SCR, you have the sim card. So, there’s a handshake between the sim card and the sim card which enables the SCR to extract the voter’s information from the Permanent Voter Card.
"But what we have done with the BVAS is to domicile the data of registered voters in a polling unit in the BVAS. So yes, the BVAS also reads the card, but there are a variety of ways of reading the card. If you enter the Voter Identification Number (VIN) of the voter, his/her information pops up. But even if you confirm that the voter is registered and his name has been certified by the BVAS, he or she must go through biometric accreditation using the fingerprint and if this fails, the option of facials is used. And this is also guaranteed by law", he explained.
Prof Yakubu while explaining the significance of IReV, said, results are uploaded from the polling units in real time and this has increased transparency in result management. It has helped us to eliminate the falsification of results at polling unit level to the collation centres. Sometimes, as the results move from the polling unit level where the election is conducted to the collation centres, some of the figures changed. But now everybody sees the results from the polling unit level and some of the political parties that have their own situation rooms actually know the outcome of the elections even before we make an official declaration. But they still have to wait for our official declaration anyway.
"We have deployed the IReV in 105 off-cycle and bye-elections. We believe that the system is robust and we are taking additional measures to safeguard and fortify our web resources generally against threats of attack", he stressed.
On inclusivity, the INEC Chairman reinstated that the commission has created a new Department of Gender and Inclusivity in the Commission and within the limits of available resources.
"We have provided Assistive Devices for Persons with Disabilities, such as Braille Ballot Guide and Magnifying Glasses for the vision impaired and those living with Albinism. This was specifically recommended by the Albino Foundation. We work with the Albino Foundation to provide Magnifying Glasses and we work with Inclusive Friends to provide the Braille Jacket, which has the acronyms of political parties in Braille. The person who needs it inserts the ballot paper in the jacket and such person can vote unassisted. But for those who don’t read braille, they can still bring trusted relations on election day", he noted.
"We have posters for individuals who are hard of hearing because they also complained that “INEC provided Braille Jackets and Magnifying Glasses, what about us? We can see, but we can’t hear, what do we do?” So, the Commission created posters for them which they can read on election day and we’ll continue to give more to ensure inclusivity.
Professor Yakubu pointed out that about 71% of registered voters are are young people between the ages of 18 and 34. So, we are excited just as they are excited. The more we introduce technology, the more they get excited.
He noted that, INEC does not support censorship of social media because it has been a force for good. "We believe that the antidote to fake news is greater transparency and openness and we have been demonstrating greater transparency and openness.
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| INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu (right) with the United States Under Secretary of State for Civilain Security, Democracy and Human Rights Uzra Zeya after their meeting at the State Department on Tuesday 11th October 2022 |
In addition, the INEC Chairman in his keynote address stressed that the 2023 General elections is significant because the incumbent President is not eligible to run, this being his second and final term.
He said, there are 18 political parties in the race to produce the next President to be elected by 95 million voters. We had over 84 million registered voters in 2019. But with last Continuous Registration of Voters (CVR), we are going to add at least 10 million Nigerians and that will take the Register of Voters to 95 million.
"In West Africa, there are 15 countries including Nigeria. But the total number of registered voters in the 14 countries combined is 73 million. In Nigeria, it’s going to be 95 million. So, there will be 22 million more voters in Nigeria than the whole of West Africa put together. Each time Nigerian goes to the polls, it’s like the whole of West Africa voting. And these 95 million citizens will vote in 176, 846 polling units.
"Beyond the presidential election, governorship elections will also hold in 28 out of the 36 states of the country. In eight states, elections are held off season but there will also be elections for all 109 Senatorial districts in the country, 360 federal constituencies, 993 state constituencies and the Presidential, making a total of 1,491 constituencies for which 18 political parties are sponsoring 12,163 candidates. Their names, ages, disability status, academic qualifications, the party they are representing, the constituency they are contesting in are all on our website for both the national and state elections.
For the first time in the history of voter registration in Nigeria, citizens were given the opportunity to commence their registration online, book an appointment at their convenience to complete the registration physically at designated centres by going there to capture their facial and fingerprint biometrics. Those who don’t have access to the internet have the option of completing their registration physically at the designated centres. The online option was introduced on the recommendation of many stakeholders, particularly young persons. Some of them approached the Commission and said that “if you can introduce something online so that we don’t have to go the physical centres, it will be very helpful.”
Many citizens seized the opportunity of the online registration during the period of one year between June 2021 and June 2022 when that option lasted. Similarly, the physical registration continued simultaneously with the online pre-registration for a period of one year including a one-month extension in response to appeal by citizens. At the end of the exercise, 12, 298, 944 citizens completed their registration. This is more than the entire voter population in the Republic of Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde. We are such a huge country of great potentials.
We have completed the cleaning up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) that combines the fingerprint and the facial authentication of registered voters. Those who registered twice, those who are underage or those who had no reason to register as provided by law have been weeded out. The exercise was completed a few days ago. We have not even shared the information with Nigerians, but we have 2.7 million invalid registrants and they have been weeded out. We’ll continue to take steps necessary to protect the integrity of the Register of Voters because it is fundamental to the conduct of elections. There can’t be credible elections without a credible register of voters.
