INEC and underage voters

THERE is growing concern about the critical challenge of citizens under the age of 18 voting in elections in the country. Electoral umpires and politicians in many jurisdictions are usually accused of orchestrating a litany of irregularities during and/or after elections. But an irregularity that borders on underage voting like the one that happened during the recent local council election in Kano State is a patently premeditated one that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be hard put to wash its hands off.  INEC is the author of the voter register and the custodian of the certified electorate, which means that no one who does not have prior certification by the electoral body should be able to vote in any elections. In other words, voting by children in any election can only arise from prior compromise of the fidelity of the voter register, wittingly or even coercively. This is a shame because the situation/circumstance that gives rise to a faulty foundation will ultimately result in the collapse of whatever superstructure that is put on it. This is a critical issue that INEC will need to address very comprehensively preferably in the off-season of elections.

The February 10 local council election in Kano State that once again brought the malaise of underage voters into national focus has come and gone. The election has been lost and purportedly won but the national outrage triggered by the alleged open participation of child voters in the elections has yet to abate. Perhaps, the preponderance of condemnation that attended the shameful and embarrassing electoral irregularity did not stem from the quest for a credible  local government election in Kano State alone, but largely from the fear of underage voting in the 2019 general election. After all, it is a well established pattern in the country that results of local council elections usually go the way of the ruling parties in the states, irrespective of their popularity among the populace in terms of the delivery of the dividends of democracy. Thus, judging by the unenviable standard in the land, there is nothing unusual in the outcome of the council election in Kano State.

What is untoward and of great concern is the obvious ineligibility by reason of age of some of the electorate that allegedly helped the ruling party to achieve its landslide victory, especially because of its implications for the 2019 general election. This is a veritable apprehension since no State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) can conduct any election using a voter register other than the one supplied to it by INEC. Yes, INEC has dissociated itself from the underage voting in Kano State on the grounds that it did not conduct the election but only supplied the voter register. INEC may wash its hands off any other form of malpractice in that election but it definitely has questions to answer on the issue of underage voting because its voter register was used. It is, nonetheless, heartening that the electoral umpire has reportedly shifted ground and finally taken steps to launch an inquiry into the alleged irregularity, rather than papering over it like it did during and after the 2015 general election.

During the 2015 general election, the nation was treated to a similarly embarrassing spectacle, not only on the social media but also on national television,  of children queuing up to vote in some states, especially in the North-West. Unfortunately, the incident failed to attract universal denunciation as the one at issue, and INEC maintained stoic silence while the feeble protestations of the then ruling party was drowned by the vociferous support of those who were poised to benefit from the infamy. And since INEC has failed or neglected to purge its voter register of this dirt after the 2015 election, the recent Kano State episode is an indication that the chickens have come home to roost.

INEC needs to up its game and becomes more vigilant. The excuse that underage voters were registered because of threats to the lives of registration officers is untenable. The electoral body should have ensured that its officials were posted to areas they were familiar with and not an unfamiliar terrain where they risked being threatened and even killed for not compromising on their duties. If INEC officials were indeed railroaded into accommodating patently ineligible persons in the voter register, then there is a question mark on the fidelity of the register.  And we ask the questions as to what INEC has been doing about the registration of such underage voters and why it has kept silent on this grave matter before now.

The unscrupulous politicians and political parties that are the beneficiaries of the deficient and compromised system should not be expected to speak up against the anomaly they orchestrated in the first place. It is INEC that should brace up and design creative strategies to obviate the impairment of its constitutional responsibilities by those who are unwilling to operate within the ambit of the electoral law.

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