PVCs: It’s mischievous to say INEC is partial in distribution -Commissioner
Would you admit top INEC officials are currently under any pressure?We are currently facing the pressure of integrity, like the pressure of having to explain to people why we postponed the elections, and the pressure of distributing the Permanent Voter’s Card to as many people as possible. So, how are you managing the pressure?We have […]
Would you admit top INEC officials are currently under any pressure?
We are currently facing the pressure of integrity, like the pressure of having to explain to people why we postponed the elections, and the pressure of distributing the Permanent Voter’s Card to as many people as possible.
So, how are you managing the pressure?
We have been doing our best in terms of distributing the PVCs. Most of the cards are out there in the field but the collection rate is not as high in some areas as desired. The phases I and II collection rates have gone past 60, 70 per cent. Some states, cutting across the country, have recorded 80 per cent collection rate in the two phases.
The pressure we have is from the phase III states that had to do their continuous voters registration and their collection in November and December. About 10 states are affected and the biggest pressure we have is from big states like Lagos, Kano, Imo, Ogun and Oyo. Rivers State had some challenges in the beginning but it has gone past the 60 per cent mark. Niger and Kaduna states also have gone past the 60 per cent mark; they are at over 70 per cent collection rate now.
Some people hold that INEC was ill-prepared for the elections despite having four years between the last general elections and this one to prepare for it. How would you react to this?
They are saying INEC has had four years, but they are not asking what we have been doing in these four years. We have been cleaning up the register. Our machines have been running 24 hours, cleaning up all the registers that we used in 2011, removing duplicates, removing people that didn’t have fingerprints in their registration, removing people that didn’t have good pictures in their registration, removing the under-aged.
Our machines have been running 24 hours, and that is the reason why these large states came in at the third phase because they had many more registered voters. To cross-match fingers of 5 million voters is different from cross-matching fingers of one million voters in the smaller states. For the smaller states, we were able to remove duplicates early enough and that was why they got their PVCs earlier.
But the larger states took longer to cross-match and to get the data to the production base and that is why we are having this supposed crisis in distribution in larger states.
Critics say, ‘what has INEC been doing in four years?’ But this is the first INEC administration that conducted voters register afresh, and after conducting general elections in 2011, conducted about nine governorship elections aside from the normal by-elections – arising from deaths, resignations and court orders – in the Senate, House of Representatives and House of Assembly.
So this Commission has not been sleeping in four years. We have been working very hard. Now, we are confronted with another major general elections that we intend to do with innovations that include the PVC and the card reader. It is not a child’s play.
What is your take on the criticism in some quarters that the PVC distribution exercise is a mess and it would have been a disaster to go into the elections with over 20 million voters disenfranchised?
It is not a mess. I am from INEC and we know what we have put in. It cannot be a mess. In the beginning, we did a three-day push to enable as many people as possible collect their PVCs at the polling unit. Then we moved to the local government and it would be interesting to know that most of the states in phases I and II, within those three days clocked 50 per cent distribution rate.
It is only in areas like the FCT where people were busy in their offices and they couldn’t come out or couldn’t get the news that the exercise was on that the rate was low. News spread faster in a rural community than in a larger cosmopolitan community. If you look at the places we had crises, they are the cosmopolitan communities like the FCT, Lagos and Kano where there are too many people. But it worked well in Sokoto where I was monitoring; by the second day we had had over 50 per cent. Even in Ekiti it worked well; by the third day there we had had about 50 per cent.
By last Tuesday, we had distributed 71 per cent. The statistics I am mentioning are important because the large states may appear to have a lower level of distribution, but if you look at the number of, say Lagos, which has distributed 3 million PVCs and some other states which have distributed one million, making up to 80 per cent, you will realise the number is still large.
So if you look at things statistically, you would know that we have done a lot of work in terms of distribution. The situation may be misrepresented because of the population of these large states; you see pictures of people shouting trying to collect their cards because there are many people in those states. Then there is the fact that Nigerians can be disorderly and collection becomes rowdy. Is it INEC causing the rowdiness so that the distribution cannot go smoothly? If only people would calm down, wait for their turn, collect their cards and go. It is very tasking even for our staff. They are put under tremendous pressure because a hundred and one people would want to collect their cards at the same time. How does it work that way?
Why has INEC not been able to do 100 per cent distribution?
If you want to distribute 100 per cent in a rush, you run the risk of distributing to the wrong people. There will be people who have died, who have moved, etc. What is 100 per cent? Do you mean there would be no PVC left in INEC’s office? It is not possible.
Many students in a university in Sokoto, for example, who had graduated and had moved may not want to come to Sokoto to collect their cards; they might have transferred their votes. When people are saying 20 million people have not collected their cards, these 20 million people may happen to be from phases I and phase II where collection has reached 70 per cent and has peaked, so nobody is collecting cards again in thoses phase I and II states
The bulk of the problem is the phase III states and even in those states, it is 10 million continuous voters registration cards that we were awaiting as at three weeks ago. All cards are in the country already. We had to subject the 10 million cards for continuous registration to register-cleaning again. We had to de-duplicate them; in fact, we found a lot of people registered twice in the continuous voters registration exercise.
Nobody comes to ask INEC what is going on, but so many people are experts on INEC.
Is it true some INEC top officials vowed to resign if the INEC chairman was forced to do anything untoward?
We took some talks as rumours, until the rumours became reality, then we took a decision. We knew we, including the chairman, were working. Even the day he was said to have resigned, he was in the office; we were meeting.
What was your experience during that hour of decision on whether to postpone the elections or not?
The experience was to remove ourselves from the noise outside. We are not politicians, we are not political parties. We are a responsible institution, so we took our responsibility and did what was needed. We held meetings with our stakeholders and took a decision. By the time the public, the media and the social media were deciding for us, we were just doing what we needed to do and we had not taken a decision. We didn’t go into that meeting with anything in mind, we just wanted to find out the reality of the situation.
But how was it knowing the world was waiting for you to take the decision?
There is one thing about taking responsibility; once you are responsible for something, Allah in His infinite mercy will give you the strength to bear it, so we just believed and trusted in God and that was how we delivered our verdict.
How united are the INEC Commissioners?
Well, we took a decision together and if we were not united one of us would have come to the press to say he didn’t believe in the decision. The 12 of us were together from morning till that midnight and we took the decision together.
There is the impression that the INEC chairman Professor Jega is too stiff to bend. How true is it?
I don’t know about that. If he has confidence in what he is doing and takes a principled stand, some people may see it as rigid. This job requires that its leaders are focused. Maybe that is the misconception about Jega being rigid.
APC-governed states are said to have more PVCs than the PDP-governed ones. Is that true?
What percentage has been distributed in each state? Take each state separately and analyse. As at two weeks ago, the state that had less distribution were Lagos, Imo, Kano, Ogun and Oyo. If you say North distributed more than the South, what is the population of the north and what is the population of registered voters in the south?
Analyse the whole indices of the percentage collected in which state, then you will know whether INEC distributed deliberately or not and how much cards are distributed in each state and how much are in INEC’s hands. If you have distributed 3 million cards and only one million have been collected, is it INEC that has withheld your cards?
In those phase III states, the distribution rate was slow. But even in the phase III states of Kaduna, Niger and Rivers, they have done very well. So it is a factor of the people in the state, and factors of availability and time. In Lagos, for example, the people are so busy it is difficult for them to leave their jobs. The same thing obtains in the FCT and possibly in Ogun where many people work in Lagos and live in Ogun. By the time they come back from Lagos in the evening, the time is gone. We need to look at all the factors before we start shouting ‘INEC is this, INEC is that.’
But in rural states where the people are largely farmers, it is not rainy season and they are less busy so they have been collecting their cards. If we did it during the rainy season, the rate would not be high. After the rainy season, they don’t always have nothing much to do, they will only be waiting for the next rainy season.
What stage are you in the training of ad hoc staffers?
We have trained all our ad hoc staffers. By last Monday, we had completed the exercise. We normally train them the last week before election so that they don’t forget what they are taught. We are on course.
Is it true as alleged that modalities being used by INEC in the South are different from those being used in the north?
All the procedures are the same, as are all the rules. Even the ad hoc staffers were taught the same procedures. We punished people we found did not distribute their cards. In some cases, people gave out cards to the wrong people. And we have punished them.
When we started the distribution of PVCs, some parties had not even been formed, so how do we cheat? People should be fair to INEC in their analysis of the situation.
You talked about those who gave cards to the wrong people. Were there many of such cases?
No, it was only in one local government in one state. We found out that they allowed the cards to be given to some community leaders.
How have you distributed the card readers?
Every state has enough card readers with spares. The distribution is based on the number of polling units.
There is the allegation that INEC imported fake ink…
We don’t import materials; we contract out the importation. If a contractor brings the wrong materials, we don’t accept them. He has to bring the right materials. There are checks and balances in all we do.
But did any contractor bring in fake ink?
I don’t know. At the Commission, we don’t use the ink. Maybe what he brought was not the correct specification and he was asked to return it.
At what stage are you in the printing of ballot papers?
All ballot papers are in the country, including those for the governorship election that was to hold two weeks later. All our ballot papers have been in the country.
How financially comfortable is INEC to conduct the elections?
INEC was financially comfortable to have held the elections on February 14.
What are INEC’s plans in case of litigations, now that you have 30 days after election for inauguration?
We try to conduct good elections so that we don’t have to go through litigation. If you can do your statistics, you would realise legal cases in 2011 were less than half of the litigation we had after 2007. We had more pre-election litigation which is a factor of the parties not doing the correct primaries; they had more litigation within and among themselves than between INEC and the parties after election and we only had one governorship election reversed against four or five that were reversed after 2007. Even the governorship election that was reversed was based on technicalities and not on procedural.
What do you think should have been done differently?
I don’t think anything should have been done differently. The only thing is that we need to explain more to the people what we are doing. We need more publicity on what INEC is doing and what INEC intends to do. We have done our best and we could have conducted these elections except there were certain things beyond our control. Whatever was within our control, we have been able to achieve it as best as possible.
What message do you have for the electorate?
I believe the general public should be asking questions. We have an open organisation. If anybody needs any clarification, we would give it. It is very sad to see commentators all assuming the role of INEC. We keep giving information but people seem to be deaf to the information we give out, they choose the information they want to talk about.
We wish these commentators would do their research before saying their opinions in public. We also wish the press would do their research before publishing certain things about INEC. Anytime people make inquries, we are willing to answer.
How has been your experience as an INEC commissioner?
Well, the job is enormous. It is a multi-tasking organisation with a lot of challenges. But then personally, I like challenges.
I have worked in Afriprojects and have been able to understand the Nigerian terrain through that work. I have done a lot of work for the MDGs, which also requires one to know much about the states. So working with INEC is like an improvement on those other jobs I had done. It is highly challenging but it is very fulfilling.