Yakubu’s one year as INEC chairman

The successful conclusion of the Ondo State governorship election on November 26 after eight months of intensive preparations, was particularly special and an icing on the cake for the hardworking National Commissioners and staff members of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). There is a reason. The month of November is significant because it was in the same month, last year, that Professor Mahmood Yakubu was appointed to head the Commission. It’s been one eventful year,  within which the highest numbers of elections in the Commission’s history were conducted – 141 – and 120 of which were concluded at first ballot.

The remaining ones could not be concluded due to violence and other forms of electoral crimes. In the case of Rivers for instance, elections were not concluded because of violence. In March this year when the Rivers elections were first held, violence was widespread and the exercise had to be suspended. Some individuals lost their lives, including a National Youth Corps member who was serving as an ad-hoc staff. Sadly, the killers are yet to be found or accounted for.

Indeed, many of re-run elections conducted so far were ordered by the courts, resulting from various disputes generated by the 2015 general election. But it is important to note that no court has so far nullified any of the elections conducted by the Yakubu-led INEC. Elections are also conducted in strict adherence to the provisions of the Electoral Law and INEC Guidelines. The success recorded in Ondo on November 28 is coming on the heels of a similar feat achieved in Edo on September 26th, when the governorship election ended on a good note. Both cases thus underscored one fact: when the atmosphere is conducive and stakeholders play by the rules, INEC will and can successfully conduct and conclude any election.

When he faced the Senate last year, Yakubu made it clear that he was not going to engage in any form experimentation at the Commission. As far as he was concerned, the time between November 2015 and the 2019 General Elections is so short for any form of experimentation. Whatever worked well during the 2015 polls should be adopted while what did not work well should be examined in totality.

But he was firm on one thing: in all elections that would be conducted by the Commission under his watch, every vote must count. To him, only the electorate, through their votes, will determine who rules them. Any other way would not be acceptable. Yakubu has not looked back ever since. His approach has been to act only within the electoral law and INEC guidelines. The rule of law must be obeyed.

When he resumed in November last year, there were only 29 political parties. Today, there are 40 registered political parties and the Commission is already considering the applications from 60 other political associations seeking registration. Once they meet the criteria, they will be registered.

The INEC chairman also believes in the application of technology to the electoral process. Some technological innovations have now been added to the existing ones. First on the list is simultaneous accreditation and voting, which enables the voter to visit the polling station only once instead of twice, get accredited and vote afterwards. This saves time and has also improved the efficiency of the Smart Card Readers (SCRs)

Although the SCRs contributed immensely to the success of the 2015 General Elections, but there were some attendant challenges. To that extent, the present Commission has taken the improvement of the SCRs as a top priority. Research into the fingerprint-matching algorithm is underway while the development of more robust Voter Authentication software has commenced.

The electronic collation system, which picks all Polling Unit (PU) results, collates them up to the required level and also takes a photograph of PU results signed by the Presiding Officers, has also been used for all re-run and by-elections conducted since the inception of the current commission. The system works side by side with the manual method but it has helped in checkmating fraud in the collating system. The commission has also commenced the process of migrating the National Voter Registration Database from the existing stand-alone servers to a centralized server at the National Data Centre (NDC) in Abuja. Already phase one of the project, which entailed procurement of Servers in 12 states and the NDC has been concluded. Yakubu has also followed the rule of law in managing the affairs of the Commission. Since his appointment, court orders have been consistently obeyed. To the INEC Chairman, court orders/judgments should not be subjected to rational arguments.

There is another thing. To show his deep respect for the National Assembly, Prof Yakubu personally leads a strong team from the commission to honour all invitations from both the House of Representatives and Senate to clarify any knotty issue. The relationship between the Commission and the National Assembly has indeed been cordial. The Senate is already holding debates on the proposed amendment of the Electoral Law to aid the Commission in its work.

To give Nigerians living abroad the opportunity to exercise their franchise, the Commission is currently giving serious consideration to diaspora voting. It is cooperating with the National Assembly to facilitate the process. Besides, the right of prisoners to vote, to the extent allowed by the constitution, is also receiving attention.

• Oyekanmi is Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman.