Attacks, Intimidation Won’t Stop Credible Elections, INEC Vows
The Independent National Electoral Commission says no amount of attacks or intimidation will deter it from leveraging the Electoral Act 2022 to conduct a free, fair and credible exercise.
It lamented what it called the poor understanding of the Electoral Act and the deliberate action by key political actors and stakeholders to mislead voters.
INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, spoke on Saturday in Abuja at a media/civil society organisations’ engagement with INEC on identifying and mitigating flashpoints of electoral misinformation and disinformation.
The programme was organised by the International Press Centre, supported by the European Union.
In his keynote address titled, ‘Issues, perspectives and flashpoints of electoral misinformation and disinformation’ Okoye said as the commission prepares for the elections, there were issues, processes and procedures of the commission that had been skewed to confuse Nigerians or delegitimise the commission and the electoral process.
He added, “Some of the critical stakeholders in the electoral process have not made the transition from the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) to the Electoral Act, 2022. Some of them are still quoting sections of the law that have been repealed or amended.
“Furthermore, some of the stakeholders are not comfortable with some of the provisions aimed at strengthening the electoral regime and will prefer a return to the old act. The reality is that the commission must conduct the 2023 general election based on the Electoral Act, 2022. Attacking the commission based on its resolve to conduct a law-based election will not change its resolve to organise, undertake and supervise elections in Nigeria.”
He said the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act, 2022 empowered the commission to make subsidiary legislation but that sometimes, “there is deliberate injection of confusion in our processes when some persons start circulating information that registered voters do not need their permanent voter cards to vote in any election.”
Okoye also said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System could work offline and does not require a network for voter verification and authentication.
He added, “BVAS has come to stay and shall be used and deployed for the conduct of the 2023 general elections. Section 47(2) of the Electoral Act makes the use of the BVAS for voter authentication and verification mandatory and the commission is not vested with the discretionary authority to use or not to use the device.”
“Also, those with double and multiple PVCs are now unable to use them. Those that are masters in the use of Incident Forms have been taken out of business and they want to return to the old ways of conducting elections. Some of them are claiming that the BVAS uses a network and there is no network in their localities.”
Meanwhile, the National Commissioner pointed out that the introduction of electronic transmission of results had been a game-changer in the electoral process, noting it had reduced the incidents of hijacking and hacking of results on the way to the collation centres.
“Sections 50 and 64 of the Electoral Act make the electronic transmission of polling unit level results mandatory. The commission will continue to improve on its processes but will not be drawn into a debate on settled issues,” he added.
On the pronouncement by the commission that it was prepared for a rerun should there be a need for it, Okoye said the commission had largely been misinterpreted, adding, “Some people even challenged the commission, saying, ‘why are you preparing for a rerun when we have already won.’” The comment drew laughter from the audience.
He added, “Section 134 of the constitution enjoins the commission to prepare for every possible scenario and eventuality relating to the outcome of presidential and governorship elections. Candidates for presidential and governorship elections must meet the numerical and geographical threshold in section 134(2) and 178(2) of the constitution to be declared the winners of the election.”
He said if there would be a rerun, it would be conducted within 21 days between the candidate with the highest votes and the one with the highest votes in the highest number of states. “We must resist the danger and temptation of rigid expectations aimed at preventing the commission from preparing for every possible scenario in accordance with constitutional dictates,” he added.
He reiterated that the provisional register had 93, 522, 272 voters, noting that the commission would continue to clean up the register to remove visibly under aged registrants.
