Jega, RECs tackle flaws amid fears over exposed materials

[TGD]

 INTENSE preparations for the rescheduled National Assembly's elections continued yesterday at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at Abuja. A series of meetings were held by key officials of the commission and with other major stakeholders on the current transition process.

Top INEC officials said the meetings were a continuation of the consultations, which the chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega started last Sunday.

The meeting will continue today with all the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and Administrative Secretaries from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), who have been summoned to Abuja by Jega. The forum, it was learnt, will tackle all the rough edges thrown up by the cancelled National Assembly's polls last Saturday.

Earlier yesterday, Jega met with a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) where he explained the circumstances surrounding the botched elections.

Also addressing some of the issues, Jega's Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kayode Idowu in a chat with reporters, said today's meeting would address some of the challenges that were identified during the botched elections. He said if the commission had gone ahead with the exercise without the result sheets, it would have rendered the desire by INEC to give Nigerians free and fair polls a nullity.

Idowu assured that all the materials that were dolled out for the botched elections would be accounted for.

He said: "Don't forget that the commission doesn't just give out materials, some people signed for the materials and they signed for serially-numbered items and when they are making returns, they are returned by the same manner and if there is any of them missing, they will be accounted for.

"It is like soldiers who take out bullets whenever they are going on patrol and when they come back, they account for what they took out. That is the normal procedure. The commission did not give out the ballot papers to the parties because they were samples, but there were some that were given out for the purpose of voter education. They are sensitive materials not to be exposed, given that inevitably and unfortunately some have been exposed.

"But the question now is, for whatever reason these materials have been exposed, how would that be factored into the process? That is the question the commission should address. Assuming for whatever reason somebody clones the ballot papers, how will they bring them in to be counted? There will be accreditation and counting of the voters. The people at the polling booths will know how many were accredited and as they line up to cast their vote, this number must match the figure accredited."

The Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Mr. Clement Nwankwo, who led the CSOs' team to meet with Jega told journalists that the INEC boss assured them that the commission would not use the exposed ballot papers.

According to Nwankwo, "Jega first explained why it was necessary to postpone the election. In the first place, the vendor with the material for North Central, South-South and South-East was supposed to have delivered materials to Abuja on Friday, April 1, 2011 but kept postponing the delivery time and finally delivered the materials in Lagos at 9.00 a.m. of April 2, 2011, which already compromised the exercise given that they then had to be moved to Abuja before being sent to the states.

"In the second place, there were problems with the accreditors in the field, all of whom had been trained but some of whom never turned up. Again, at some polling stations, there were more people than anticipated, over 1,000 in some cases. Finally, and most importantly of all, was the widespread absence of results' sheets, which rendered the whole exercise redundant."

Nwankwo claimed that Jega also explained that his initial thought was that the postponed elections should have held on Monday, April 4 in order not to leave too much time between the initial exercise and the rescheduled one given that sensitive materials were already in the field but this turned out to be unfeasible.   "Political parties, security agencies and election observers all objected to the new timetable, with the result that it was imperative for him to postpone the elections till April 9, the presidential election to April 16 and the gubernatorial, state Houses of Assembly elections to April 26 (April 25 being Easter Monday).

"Regarding the sensitive materials already used, he assured that because of the in-built security features there was no way unscrupulous persons would be able to make use of them to carry out their nefarious activities," Nwankwo said.

On the issue of inaccurate or missing party logos, Nwankwo quoted Jega as saying that part of the problem was caused by the incessant changes of candidates following court judgments but that some of the problems were caused by INEC not supervising the process sufficiently.

Commenting on RECs carrying on with the election after the announcement of the postponement was made, Jega allegedly said although they were informed about the action one hour before it was made public, they were pressured by the electorate to continue with the exercise and in most cases had little choice in the matter."

On the issue of possible sabotage within INEC, Nwankwo stated: "Jega said he needed hard evidence before he could act. He also cautioned that such allegations might in some cases be levelled to cause distraction."

INEC, he said had decided to give all authority to the zonal commanders in order to instill discipline following the lapses that occurred during the registration exercise.

Reacting to the issue of the electorate monitoring the exercise by staying back at the voting centres and taking photos, Nwankwo quoted Jega as saying that INEC was clear on the matter, as it had encouraged people to do so.

Jega allegedly commended the role of the security agencies, in particular the Army and Navy, but promised to look into the report that soldiers beat up observers in Nasarawa State.

The INEC also assured that the commission would be more pro-active in keeping observers informed of developments and would beef up its public relations.

Nwankwo urged Nigerians to give INEC another chance, especially in the light of past experiences, adding that the commission must demonstrate that it is in control of the situation.

"Finally, we believe that there has been a failure on the part of the election management body, for which the responsible officials in INEC should be accountable."



Source: Jega, RECs tackle flaws amid fears over exposed materials