INEC, judiciary and 2019 elections

ONE crucial issue in the polity is the claim by Registration Area Technicians (RATECHs) used by the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) during the 2019 elections about how they were recruited and trained to use electronic tablets. These revelations have given cause for public concern about the credibility of INEC as an electoral umpire.  For a start, INEC does not manufacture Z-Pads, the equipment which the RATECHs were trained to use to transmit election results electronically. INEC procured this technology using public funds. It did the procurement through registered vendors the fact of which is in the public domain. It paid members of the public to train to use the Z-Pad for its purpose. These are serious issues for INEC and the judiciary because however the presidential dispute is decided, there are bound to be future issues around the server, the procurement processes and the narratives of over three thousand Nigerian citizens trained and deployed on Election day to act as RATECHs. INEC officials and the judicial decisions must be able to stand the future scrutiny of all the Nigerians who say that they are bearers and witnesses to the facts of what the RATECHs were taught to do and how they carried out those instructions. The future careers of INEC and judicial officers and the institutions they represent therefore rests on what the truth is and how it will be tested not just today but at all times in future.

Furthermore, INEC’S own electoral institute produced manuals used for training those it recruited to use these electronic tablets. The training was sponsored by International bodies such as IFES (the International Foundation for Electoral Systems) that are highly reputed for keeping monitoring and evaluation records of their activities. It is therefore a very groundless assertion for INEC to attempt to shroud all these activities by claiming it had no server, except INEC officials can maintain without any loss of credibility before such international bodies, that its refutation is credible. The Judiciary must therefore weigh this matter or sink with INEC if such institutions have alternative facts. Another matter of concern for INEC and the judiciary to deal with without compounding the disbelief of the discerning public is the claim by the Chief of Staff to the President that he had collected the Ordinary Level certificate of the president from the Cambridge examination entity on 19th July 2019, over eight months after such document was supposed to have been submitted as documentary proof along with INEC’s forms when parties presented their candidates. The second was the claim of another witness that the Nigerian Army never demanded any original certificates from recruits into the Army. Both witnesses provided information that the political and election monitoring section of INEC could have sought and obtained if the commission had done the necessary due diligence required in the vetting of candidates nominated by parties for elections.

Are the revelations in the nature of facts emerging an indication that INEC waived this process for some candidates? This legal issue is made even more problematic given that in previous elections the same APC candidate is said not to have attached any evidentiary proof of the same qualification, but rather an affidavit claiming that the same document was domiciled at the Military Secretary’s archives. Under these circumstances, how will history re-tell the decision of the judiciary in resolving this issue, particularly given that a foreign entity will expect the judicial process to follow legally and ethically accepted processes of proving that an individual obtained the necessary certification he or she claims?

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In a sane society, it is expected that when an individual makes a false or doubtful claim of academic qualification to national institutions such as an election management body, the courts are expected to provide the citizens of the country with an authoritative clarification of the facts. Whatever the court decides on this matter must stand the test of time and not fall in the face of refutations from entities such as the Cambridge examination archives that will surely be an interested party in this matter. Their decision will have full implications first for the reputation of the judiciary as an institution that the Nigerians would either look up to for the sustenance of rule of law and democracy in Nigeria or forever be seen as a captured arm of the executive.

Secondly, the prospect of a credible 2023 elections will be destroyed because all that the politicians need do in the next election is to simply consolidate on the 2019 methods of electoral victory if they were flawed and the judiciary failed to point out the errors, weighed against judicial benchmarks in the practices of democracy. Finally, failure by the courts as a final bastion of refuge to do electoral justice will destroy the image of the electoral umpire. Whereas INEC accepted a major candidate in four elections without clarity on the issue of certificates, the judiciary has now been agiven a say in the matter and should therefore not dent its credibility. If judicial intervention fails, then an erring electoral body will be incorrigible. Already, the provisional reports released by election observer missions have not been complementary. There are serious allegations that the server refuted by INEC had foreign aid in the capacity building as well as monitoring and evaluation processes to check the effectiveness of processes related to the use of the server.

In particular, there are foreign observers who claim to have pictures and possibly videos of INEC election monitoring centers and some with data analysis of field reports monitored in real time based on technologies that rely on the use of the INEC server. Clearly, how far Nigeria would make progress on the trajectory of democracy through credible election will depend on the outcome of the judiciary’s interventions.

• Dr. Longe, a development analyst, writes in from Ibadan.