MORE than two weeks after the presidential and National Assembly elections were conducted in the country, issues concerning the exercise still take pre-eminence in public discourse. Key actors in the poll, as well as other major stakeholders in the Nigerian project engaging in highly emotional claims and counter-claims on critical matters relating to the outcome of the election, some of which have constituted a recurring decimal in the history of elections in the country, despite the series of reforms the electoral system has undergone since Nigeria returned to civil rule on May 29, 2019.
However, the major issue in contention regarding the February poll borders on the integrity of the process and the eventual result of the exercise. There are posers in some quarters on whether or not the election indeed passed integrity test, based on global standard practices and bolstered voters’ confidence.
According to a book entitled; Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy, published by The National Academies Press, there are a number of factors affecting the integrity of an election through manipulation of the process. “Election results may be improperly tallied or reported. Inaccuracies may be introduced by human error or because of a lack of proper oversight. Vote counts can be affected if fraudulent voting, e.g. multiple voting, illegal voting, etc., occurs. Election tallies and reporting may also be affected by malicious actors. Malicious actors can affect vote counts by introducing inaccuracies in the recording, maintenance, and tallying of votes; and/or altering or destroying evidence necessary to audit and verify the correct reporting of election results.”
In the final phase of preparations for the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the creation of a total of 53, 023 polling points to accommodate large number of voters, aside the existing 119, 973 ones across the country, while results would be collated in 8,809 wards. With the hindsight of history, it was generally assumed that INEC had plugged all loopholes that constitute potential causes of election-related violence such as faulty card readers, incompetent ad-hoc staff and late arrival of materials, among others.
But from most of the observations and recommendations of the stream of observer teams that monitored the election, the authorities involved in the election appeared to have learnt little from the past. Majority of the challenges that characterised the electoral system over the years still reportedly manifested in the election. These observations necessitated a near regurgitation of all the recommendations made in the past by those election monitors and observers to block those obvious lapses. The initial vote of confidence expressed by some Election Observer Missions (EOMs), while the process was ongoing, appears to pale into insignificance following the avalanche of irregularities contained in their report.
In fact, some pundits have accused most of the election monitors, especially foreign observers, of doublespeak over the conduct of the poll, while in the same breadth, acknowledging the multifaceted ‘challenges’ that dogged the exercise.
Immediate-past president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was the head of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS)-EOM. Its 200 accredited observers were divided into two categories, with 170 of them ascribed the status of short-term observers and the other 30, a long-term observers’ status. They were deployed to 31 states across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). In its report, the team noted, inter alia, that the “smooth flow of the process was disrupted by malfunctioning of the Smartcard Readers (SCRs) in a number of polling units. In some cases, this situation caused agitation among the voters who had been waiting in queues for long hours, forcing some polling officials to resort to manual accreditation.”
There were seven other EOMs accredited by the INEC for the purpose of the poll. They included the African Union Election Observation Mission; Commonwealth Observer Group; European Union Election Mission; National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute Election Observation Mission, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa Election Observation Mission and the United Nations Special Representative to the Secretary General for West Africa and the Sahel.
Each team highlighted what it considered as among the blights of the election. For example, the Commonwealth Group of Observers noted election-related violence that characterised the exercise in some states, with the attendant loss of lives. Other international observers in the elections, comprising the International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and African Union Observation Mission (AU-EOM) equally said the election was marred by violence in some parts of Rivers, Lagos, Delta, Osun, Nasarawa and Enugu states, just as the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM) expressed disgust over serious operational shortcomings during the elections, which it said put undue burden on the electorate.
According to the chairperson of the Commonwealth Group of Observers, Dr. Jakaya Kikwete, who is a former president of Tanzania, the team deployed its members in such cities as Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt and the FCT. He listed some of the main problems as failure of SCRs, delay in the distribution of materials resulting in late opening of polling units, adding that “in some places, the layout of polling units, including the positioning of voting booths, potentially compromised the secrecy of the ballot. Incorrect labeling and failure to seal the ballot boxes correctly were also noted. Lack of signage within polling units also caused some confusion.”
The observation of the EU-EOM was relatively damning as it said the obvious operational lapses to a larger extent impugned on transparency of the process. The chief observer, Maria Arena, gave a background to the verdict: “On Saturday (February 23), EU observers visited 261 polling units and 94 collation centres across 31 states and the FCT. Important polling procedures were not always followed and in 14 per cent of some essential materials were missing. Party agents were present in most of the polling units observed. Positively, in most of the counts observed, party agents received copies of the results forms. However, there were problems in filling out results forms and they were not displayed in half the units observed, weakening transparency.”
Preliminary reports of AUEOM, IRI and NDI also contained some critical observations on the election, especially on what they regarded as serious operational shortcomings that subjected voters to undue pressure. Accordingly, in their reports, AUEOM, led by former Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn; and former vice-president of Gambia, Mrs. Fatoumata Tambajang, who led the Joint International Observer team of IRI/NDI, proffered how the country could get out of the seeming electoral quagmire. Desalegn called on INEC to tackle issues of proper planning and execution of election logistics and operations, as well as strengthen the capacity of polling staff through training on assisting voters, counting and other electoral procedures.
Beyond making a similar recommendation, the NDI/IRI mission, on its part, in its suggestion delivered by President, IRI, US, Daniel Twining, asked the government to, immediately after the elections, pursue a comprehensive and inclusive electoral reform process, based on the recommendations of the Mohammadu Uwais-led Commission and the Ken Nnamani-led Committee. He said the polling staff exhibited lack of sufficient knowledge and competence in the application of the opening procedures; while late opening of voting, incidents of violence and snatching of ballot materials at some polling units blighted the election.
Another group of election observers, under the aegis of Independent Foreign Observers, decried the level of perceived irregularities during the election. The team leader, Dr. Stuart Young, an academic and diplomat, who made presentation of preliminary report of the team, canvassed a number of measures. He said though the 2019 general election “appeared to be free, fair and credible at this juncture, using our international set parameters and the feedback gathered from the over 200 observers deployed to the various states, there are a few areas that need to be looked into in the conduct of elections in the future. The functionality of card readers must be fully tested and properly calibrated before deployment to the polling units, before the elections, to reduce the use of manual voting which takes time and might be exploited. Improvement is needed in the areas of logistics and training of electoral officials.”
He added: “For example a digital voting system, perhaps, using mobile phones, tablets and/or voting cards embedded with codes that can be swiped to register a voter’s choice, should be explored. A stronger effort to start voting on time would make the process more comfortable and healthy for voters, as well as improve voter turnout. Continuing voter education beyond the election period should focus on efforts to identify and weed out fake news in order not to mislead the public. Nigerians should be able to vote in their current places of residence, provided they have lived there for a designated minimum amount of time. A mechanism should be put in place to cancel their registration in their home state, when they register in their new home area.”
The report of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room), which reportedly covered more than 8,000 of its deployed observers and networks across the country, was similarly alarming. It observed that the Civil Society Organisations (CSO) were “disappointed by the serious lapses observed with the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday, February 23, 2019. Despite the elections being conducted against a background of an earlier postponement on February 16, 2019, on grounds of logistics challenges, it still suffered from major logistic lapses. Additionally, the election was marred by violence, security lapses and instances of overreach.
“Other challenges include compromised INEC officials as well as partisan security operatives. Conduct of major political parties was disappointing.”
In its recommendation, the CSOs called for an independent inquiry into the poor management of the electoral process by INEC with a view to determining the following: The underlining causes for logistics lapses with a view of itemising operational deficiency that led to the initial postponement of elections on the February 16 and logistical challenges with the rescheduled elections on February 23. In addition to this, INEC is expected to inquire into the activities of its staff with respect to late arrival to polling stations; lack of understanding of processes by ad-hoc staff; the allegations of collusion between staff and politicians; and failure of the SCRs in identified polling units should be interrogated with a special audit of the results of polling units where five per cent card reader incidence was recorded.”
It also called on “INEC and security agencies to ensure accountability for acts inimical to the integrity and credibility of the polls, especially individuals’ complicit in the burning of INEC offices, election materials, snatching of ballot boxes and other electoral offences.”
Domestic observers
The reports of domestic observers on the election also raised issues bordering on the process and the overall result. While some queried alleged discrepancies between the numbers of registered voters announced before the election and during collation, others, like Connected Development (CODE), urged INEC to decentralise its activities to avoid logistics and operational challenges. The Head of Mission, Election Observation Team, Hamzat Lawal, said: “In order to enhance confidence in the election process, INEC’s complete autonomy must be strengthened to ensure it provides more effective and objective electoral process. We seek to see an INEC that is decentralised to avoid issues of logistics and operational issues.”
National chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Supo Shonibare, who is also a legal luminary, expressed doubts that any of the elections conducted since 1999 passed the integrity test. He said the February poll was no exception. He listed a number of reasons the trend had persisted, one of which, according to him, was the absence of institutions and the existing defective federal structure in the country. He said the standard had continued to decline sharply in every successive election conducted in Nigeria, because of impunity with state organs and leaders subverting the system at will.
“Our moral and sense of propriety keep on being subjected to diminishing standards in successive elections in our country. We tend to devise new tools to circumvent the process of enabling free and fair elections. The presidential elections in our country, since 1999, have not been conducted in a manner that one can say qualifies the exercises to be commended as having passed the integrity test. We must commend the late President Umaru Yar’Ardua for acknowledging this in 2007,” he said.