New Electoral Act not enough to solve our problems —Oyo REC

In this interview with WALE AKINSELURE, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Oyo State, Dr Mutiu Agboke speaks on the relevance of the new Electoral Act to the nation’s electoral process and his observations supervising the Ogoja/Yala federal constituency election.

Give us an overview of the preparatory activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead the 2023 election.

The attitude of INEC is that anytime we conclude one election, the preparation for the next election will commence. That was why after the 2019, the commission started the full preparation towards 2023. People always assume that after election, the INEC does not do anything again. That is not correct. One of the things that is statutory that we do, as provided by law, is the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), and we must ensure we do it before the next election. The work of INEC is continuous before the next election. We started with the issue of CVR; we are on the third quarter of the CVR and that will come to an end this month. So, people have been enjoined to register. In allowing more people to register, we have created a portal for people to do registration online and afterwards do biometrics. Also, after the 2019 election and towards 2023 election, a major exercise we did was an audit of our polling units. We have various voting points during election. We harvested all of them; we looked at the location of these polling units. Some of them were wrongly located like in shrines, palaces, churches, mosques and the likes. So, we moved them and we now have these pooling units at appropriate, designated centres. We have upgraded some of these voting points to polling unites. In Oyo State, we have 107 additional polling units. Hitherto, we had 4, 783, now we now have 6,390 polling units. As regards registration in Oyo state, a total of 254,897 people have visited our portal while a total of 122,988 people who have completed registration. While we allow people to register, we also allow them to collect their Permanent Voter Card (PVC). In Oyo State, we have over 700,000 PVCs still uncollected. Also, as part of preparation towards 2023 election is having a clear cut legal framework for INEC and that was why shortly after 2019 election, the commission with major stakeholders  have been canvassing for us to have laws that will be all-embracing for our electioneering process. To God be the glory, we now have Electoral Act 2022. In this Act, we have series of provisions that have been made to assist the commission in ensuring that we have a better electoral process. In addition, you will see that most of the things we do are purely electronic. Recruitment of staff, especially the members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is now electronic; submission of name of candidates is now online; submission of names of observers is also online; submission of names of Civil Societies Organisations (CSOs) that want to observe is now online. Before now, our offices will be jampacked with kilograms of papers but it is now all online. Also, there has been training and retraining of staff.

When you do evaluation after every election, one believes that you observe lapses. To what extent will the new Electoral Act address the lapses from the 2019 election?

It will to the extent that those things that were happening were not in the law but are now in the law. It is to the extent that we needed to change some of the provisions in the law and bring the law in tandem with the various happenings that we see on an election day. The law is in order but I am not in a school of thought that because we have a new law, there will be an automatic change of everything in our electoral process. If the players, stakeholders, politicians, security, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) still do what they did before the law came, you cannot see any change in our electioneering process. For example, a section of the Electoral Act provides that if you are liable for vote-buying, you will be arrested, prosecuted and liable to two years imprisonment or N500,000 fine or both. The law will be there but what is the attitude of people on an election day?

Were the issues the Electoral Act attempts to tackle still visible in the recently conducted Ogoja/Yala federal constituency election that you supervised in Cross River State?

Yes, I still saw people carrying raw cash around our polling units. People were there; security agencies were also there. Unfortunately, our security agencies are the ones at polling units without arms and the people who are coming to attack them at the polling units carry arms and ammunition. How do we reconcile that? Which law will regulate that? So, all of us must change our idiosyncrasies, attitudes, world views about election. In the election, our corps members were attacked; some of them fainted and we needed to revive them. Who harassed them? Who intimidated them? The politicians; and all of them are only after the interest they are pursuing. They do not care about the life of any Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). The national commissioner and RECs that supervised the election were moving around like soldiers. Each of us was going about with not less than 10 policemen because there were threats everywhere. The law is there but will not talk. In legal jurisprudence, we say that a very good law is the one that we call both one propounded by the functional school of law and sociological school of law. This means that a good law is the one that you can see in operation. A good law is not the one in the booklet. A good law is the one that knows that people are stealing, identifies the antidote to stealing, provides for it and you apply it and it has effect. With the new law, any of the INEC staff is in trouble because if you are found to have concealed your identity or affiliation with a political party, you are liable to two years imprisonment or a fine of N5 million or both. If INEC staff should be found culpable in this regard and the commission looks elsewhere, it means that the law will be there, the flouting of the law continues. Politicians, INEC, security and the media are key stakeholders in the election. Journalists focus more on INEC. But, is INEC the one to secure my electoral officer, to secure the presiding officer, to secure the REC? We have a situation where someone that should protect me, as REC, was the one harassing me in my office. If security is not facing its job on an election day but all they do is harass INEC official, harass our observers. For example, observers were arrested on an election day. Who should a commissioner of Police take instruction from on an election day? We have a good law but that is not enough if INEC, security agencies, politicians are still doing things the same way. Don’t just hear the security agencies say that it is deploying thousands to places of election. Journalists should know the efficacy of these bogus numbers of these security agents on an election day. If we still have pockets of violence, we should ask what is responsible.

Going by what you experienced in Cross River, would it suffice to say that notwithstanding the new Electoral Act, the attitude of various stakeholders to election might not change in the 2023 election?

They will continue to act that way because they know that the law is there in the books. Look at the concerted efforts of INEC and the National Assembly before we had this law. The effort of the CSOs must also be commended because they put the National Assembly on its toes. All of us must change our attitudes. INEC is opening the electoral space for the use of technology to deepen the electoral process so that we can reduce the various tendencies of manipulations, fabrications of results. If INEC is thinking in that line, why don’t we have other stakeholders think in that same line? Why can’t political parties be fair in their primaries? Why can’t they allow less friction for INEC before the election? Why should the courts be the last resort for them before a candidate can be picked? Today, they have all seen that our Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) is the game changer. We have phased out Smart Card Reader. BVAS, with the accredited number of voters, solves our problems. We know that when our stakeholders see that we are making progress 100 miles, they are also taking 1,000 miles to surpass, circumvent INEC. So, the law is not enough to solve our electoral problem; stakeholders’ attitude is very important. If stakeholders’ attitude is zero and we have one law upon another, we may not have the desired law.

The Electoral Act provides for electronic transmission of results. Will it be too much of a progression if we also try out electronic voting?

Before now, the campaign has always been the use of technology in all its ramifications. But, journalists zeroed it down to electronic transmission of results. What we are saying is that INEC can use technology in all its ramifications, including electronic voting. But, for 2023 election, INEC is not saying there will be electronic voting. But, we now have a legal framework that has accommodated us, so it is an ongoing thing. Perhaps after the 2023 election, the commission can look inwards and look at the modality for electronic voting. With this law, we have a good standing for us to have electronic voting.

Upon the signing of the Electoral Act by President Muhammadu Buhari, INEC modified the election timetable. The new election timetable constrained the time that would have been available to political parties to present their candidates. Don’t you think that with the new timetable, INEC has put political parties under a lot of pressure?

We are all Nigerians. We were all following the trend of events. We were thinking the law would have come earlier than now. As the National Assembly was doing its work, INEC was also planning, so every other political party ought to have been planning. Was it the following day we started doing the timetable? We had everything on ground; we just adjusted everything to suit the current law. The law states for the commission to release notice of election, it must be 360 days before election. At that time the President signed the law, the days were shorter to what we required so we needed to have few days before we can get 360 days. For the one week that we added, it gave us 363 days. So, it shouldn’t be a complaint. Every stakeholder should adjust according to the law because once the law has come to force; we have to ensure that we abide by it.

Going by the timetable, is there still any space for some form of extension, if need be?

There is no extension. INEC has given timetable. We are not going to extend. If we ask political parties to submit candidates at a stipulated time, once you submit a minute beyond the time we asked you to, you are out. The political parties understand that INEC must be listened to. The Zamfara State experience is still fresh. Stakeholders cannot risk INEC’s hammer. Look at a particular party in Ekiti State. As at the time they were supposed to conduct the primary, no primary was conducted. By the time we released the number of parties that will contest in Ekiti State, that party was out and there was no complaint.

What do you think is missing in our party system to better the nation’s electoral process?

What is missing and continues to be missed is the fact that stakeholders do not understand what a party system is. Party system is different from a political party. Party system is an arrangement, a political philosophy of knowing that you are a member of a political party and you serve that party with all your resources. In a party system, no individual dictates the pace for the party. In a party system, you don’t have godfatherism. In party system, parties determine the primaries; candidates emerge from the primaries by the party and for the party. But, what we have today is that moneybags control the party. I read somewhere where somebody was telling the party in the state that it is either you listen to him or leave the office. One of the traditional rulers I visited before the 2019 elections told me that his father was a member of a political party, in those days. He said if he checks his wardrobe, he will still find the subscription card; that they were paying money into the purse of the party. Ask each party what is the source of their funding now. They will tell you, ask who is doing it, not how we are doing it. If that is still missing, you cannot see quality membership, quality executives. As a nation, we need a strong party that will operate as a party and everybody will be willing to belong. Today, a professor will deny being a politician, whereas the well-educated people will be proud to associate with their political party.

Also, INEC is campaigning for use of technology to deepen our electioneering process. Let our State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) also use technology to conduct local government election. A state organised election using technology, and one way or the other, the opposition won in that state and heavens did not fall. Let states used technology and then we will begin to have sanity in our electoral process. We should attack the process not personality.