What is the value of INEC’s voter’s card?

According to media reports, it took the group only two months to do so by installing the 700 card printer’s facility in Abuja. Apart from claiming that its facility was capable of producing more than a million cards daily, the group also said that it trained 300 INEC staff. Is this Datacard story part of […]

According to media reports, it took the group only two months to do so by installing the 700 card printer’s facility in Abuja. Apart from claiming that its facility was capable of producing more than a million cards daily, the group also said that it trained 300 INEC staff. Is this Datacard story part of what INEC is talking about now or is the Jega story a new and different effort?

Nigerians ought to know why INEC has opted to produce 40 million cards this year and 30 million next year when a world acclaimed technical group reportedly installed at her request, 5 years ago, a facility that can do the job in 70days only.  It is rather simplistic to expect Nigerians to know the advantages of instalmental production of the cards if any. It is similarly simplistic to assume that with the making of permanent voters’ cards, the problems of Nigerian elections would drastically reduce. This is because; many of our election problems have little to do with whether the voters’ cards are temporary or permanent.   One recurring problem in our electoral process is the sale of voters’ cards. During the July 2012 Edo governorship election the state government had to issue a statement to condemn those who were buying voters’ cards on the governor.  In fact, the Police who are usually on top of every matter reportedly arrested six members of a particular political party for allegedly ‘buying’ voters’ cards but no one was arrested for selling to them. All things remaining the same therefore, there is nothing to suggest that because voters’ cards are now permanent, they cannot be sold. For the same reason, under-aged voters would still receive the permanent cards in place of the old ones with which they voted before. Oh yes, too many under- aged voters illegally participate in every election in Nigeria. In 2011, the practice was widely observed by election monitors in many polling units in Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba states. It has also happened in the last set of elections in Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Bayelsa and Edo states.  In some places, voting by children according to election monitors, did not elicit any adverse reaction from many adults and eligible voters thereby giving the phenomenon a stamp of acceptability.

There are recurring problems attributable to the administrative lethargy of INEC that cannot be solved simply because voters’ cards are now permanent. The late arrival of election personnel and materials, disappearance of some names from the register of voters and non-adherence of officials to the guidelines approved by INEC for elections are just a few of them. It is difficult to name any election in Nigeria that has begun on schedule in the last decade. The Jega administration had its own baptism when due to late arrival of materials; it had to postpone the Senatorial election slated for April 2nd 2011. Since then, till the latest election- the governorship contest in Edo State, there has been no change. Indeed, the incumbent governor in Edo had to publicly condemn the late start of the election on July 14, 2012. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) also reported that because of some challenges experienced during the election, voting stretched into the evening in some parts of Edo South Senatorial District.  Many voters also alleged that their names were missing in the register of voters available in the same polling booths where they voted in the immediate past election.  Media reports also showed that guidelines approved by INEC were not adhered to in some centres. For example, the accreditation of voters and voting went on simultaneously at Egbele Primary School, Uromi, as many people in the two units had allegedly not been accredited at the time voting started.

The location of some polling units is another problem that permanent voters’ cards cannot  solve. Many of the booths are located in front of or too close to people’s houses despite the availability of public schools and public places near such houses. As noted by observers during the Adamawa and Bayelsa elections of 2012, polling units were located in people’s houses, mechanics workshops, and street corners making it difficult to attain independent electoral action by voters. What this suggests is that whether the voters’ cards are permanent or not, Nigeria will continue to have malpractices like incredible voter turn-out figures. During the Bayelsa election, the media were unanimous that the event was characterized by voters’ apathy. Yet, official results showed that many places recorded as high as 90% turn-out which was stoutly disputed by all the election monitoring groups.

For the Adamawa governorship election, INEC distributed 200 instead of 1000 ballot boxes in Thukudou/Sukufu/Zar wards of the state comprising 14 polling units. At the end of the day, there were results from the 1, 000 ballot boxes inclusive of those not distributed!  One politician was actually caught with 6 ballot boxes inside his house.  What would stop such ghost boxes from having permanent voters’ cards?  More than two years earlier, a Senator had allegedly engaged 36 thugs on voting day in Oye Ekiti, during the Ekiti governorship re-run election to massively thumb- ballot papers, in his house. This has been swept under the carpet. Similarly, the nation has forgotten the revelation of the famous electoral commissioner, Ayoka Adebayo that a bribe of N250 million was collected by some INEC officials during the rerun gubernatorial election in Ekiti State.  If these are among the several issues that the issuance of permanent voters’ cards cannot redress, what then is the real value of the new card?  We can only applaud INEC if it evolves a device that nullifies a card used by anyone who is not its rightful owner.