The role of INEC in the conduct of 2015 general election in Nigeria

Paper presented by the Chairman, Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor
Attahiru M. Jega at The Civil Society – INEC
Dialogue on the topic ‘Plans and Progress Towards
the 2015 General Elections’ held between the
27th and 30th of November, 2012 at The Bolingo
Hotels and Towers, Abuja.
Introduction
Globally, increased recognition of the relationship
between credible elections and credible
governance processes has given rise to increasing
demands for freer and more credible elections,
which has, in turn, sharply brought Election
Management Bodies into the public limelight.
Today, increasing demands for transparency and
accountability, by stakeholders, the traditional and
especially the new social media as well as the
need to adhere to global best practices in election
administration and operations all compel EMBs to
undertake very complex, time-specific, and costly
operations under the most intense public scrutiny.
While in the past, concern with elections has
largely been a preserve of states and politicians,
today, elections are the subject of widespread
scrutiny from a range of organized interests within
and outside national boundaries.
Throughout the world, the active participation of
civil society organizations (CSOs) has been widely
acknowledged as significant in deepening and
consolidating the democratic experiences of
nations. Broadly, CSOs have applied political
pressure for reform that have in a number of cases
brought down authoritarian regimes and in others
led to the expansion of the political space through
the enhancement of citizens’ participation,
increased transparency and accountability of
governance and the provision of voice to some of
the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in
society. The Arab Spring and the expansion of
democratic spaces across the West African Region
from Niger to Senegal are a few examples worth
mentioning.
In more specific ways, CSOs have in quite a
number of commendable cases actively supported
Electoral Management Bodies in managing the
electoral process. In the main, they have
contributed immensely in educating voters, in
bringing issues of concern to pubic limelight, in
ensuring that global best electoral practices are
enshrined through observation, and in the
provision of experienced electoral support. We saw
this not long ago in Senegal, where the civil
society organizations constructively engaged the
Electoral Management Body and assisted it to re-
appropriate its primary mission of conducting free,
fair, and credible elections. In Nigeria, Civil Society
Organizations have contributed a lot not just in the
expansion of the democratic space before and
since 1999, but also in pushing for institutional
reforms in the political and electoral processes that
have amongst others, partly resulted in the
establishment of the Uwais Panel that paved the
way for significant electoral reforms.
The New Commission: June 2010
In administrating elections, an EMB has
responsibility and obligation to be professional,
transparent, and non-partisan. Since its
establishment n June 2010, the new Commission
sought to achieve these objectives by ensuring
that the manner by which elections are prepared
and held will be more inclusive, participatory, and
transparent. It is in recognition of this that the
Commission had consistently striven to carry along
all stakeholders in the electoral process in
planning and executing its activities. It is in
response to this and to the various demands from
stakeholders in the electoral process that the
Commission decided a new bio-metric voter’s
register is indispensable to credibility of any
election it may conduct; that a coordinated
engagement with security agencies under the
umbrella of the Inter-Agency Consultative
Committee on Election Security (ICCES) is vital to
the security of elections; that the use of members
of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme
(NYSC) as well as University Staff and other
Professional Bodies as Ad-hoc Staff will
tremendously enhance the credibility of our
elections; and that periodic engagement with
political parties, civil society organizations and
development partners is necessary for achieving
the very difficult and complex task of
professionalizing the Commission and the conduct
of free and credible elections.
The new Commission very early recognized that
CSOs as key stakeholders have played significant
instrumental roles in the success stories recorded
since its inception in 2010. The support from CSOs
further strengthened the Commission’s resolve to
professionalize, to create a level playing ground for
all political parties and contestants, and to do all it
possibly can to have free, fair and credible
elections in 2011. It is this same resolve that
derives the Commission’s planning towards 2015;
it is also the same resolve that informs the current
dialogue with Civil Society Organizations.
INEC-Civil Society Engagement: from 2011-2015
The active participation of all stakeholders in the
political process remains one of the most
important issues the Commission insists on. In the
run-up to the preparations for the 2011 General
Elections, such kinds of engagements were a
constant feature of the operations of this
Commission. With specific reference to Civil
Society Organizations, this engagement took place
on several fronts. These include, amongst others:
involvement of CSOs in the voter education
programmes of the Commission; participation in
election observation; engagement in the
registration process, as well as participation in the
various post-election activity meetings organized
at various fora since 2011. Through all these,
CSOs have sent periodic reports and assessments
of our electoral process, and we have indeed taken
note of all these as can be seen in the
improvements put in place in subsequent elections
since 2011. In what follows, I would like to focus
on only three issues in detail to further
demonstrate the degree of engagement between
INEC and CSOs.
Registration of Voters
The voter registration exercise was planned for
January 15 – 29, 2011, using Direct Data
Capturing (DDC) machines. However, in response
to popular demands to register eligible voters not
yet captured, the Commission extended the time of
registration to February 7, 2011. Thereafter, a
display of the register of voters was made from 14
to 19 February, during which claims and objections
were received and addressed. After the display and
review of the register and consolidation of all
outstanding data, the commission on March 2,
2011 certified a final Register of Voters containing
73,528,040 voters on which the April 2011
Elections were conducted.
From virtually all accounts, the voter registration
was a success, given the tight deadline and the
difficult circumstance that the Commission had to
undergo in order to finalize the Register of Voters.
Civil Society Organizations actively participated in
the process from giving information, mobilizing
prospective registrants and observing the process
and reporting potential problems areas for the
Commission’s intervention. Indeed, towards the
end of the registration period, the massive
information received from CSOs and other
stakeholders helped the Commission to deploy
registration equipment in heavily populated areas
that substantially eased the queues. CSOs may not
be in a position to play a similar role as we move
towards 2015 because a registration on the scale
of 2011 is not being contemplated; but they can
play a huge role in the up-coming Continuous
Voter Registration Exercise, which the Commission
is preparing to launch early in 2013.
General Elections
The General Elections were held in April – May
2011 across the country. The original election
schedule by the Commission called for the holding
of the elections on April 2, 9 and 16 for the
national assembly, presidential and governorship
elections respectively. However, due to logistic
problems and with full stakeholder consultation,
the elections were rescheduled to April 9, 16, and
26. Some elections, which were postponed for
various reasons were conducted on April 28 and
May 7.
As with the voter registration, CSO support before,
during, and after the elections was commendable.
Such support included the mobilization of citizens
to vote, observing the elections, as well as
organizing a forum on voter education. Perhaps
one of the most significant contributions of civil
society organizations in the 2011 General Elections
was the creation of different election situation
rooms by different groups (e.g. EiE and the
Coalition of CSOs under PLAC). The Situation
Rooms helped to process information from the
field that was fed to INEC including challenges
such as: late or non-arrival of election materials
and personnel, cases of ballot box snatching or
diversion of electoral materials, identification of
conflict flash points, as well as actual outbreaks.
Such independent information in many instances
helped to corroborate information from INEC’s own
sources and was vital in designing prompt
interventions that addressed issues before they
became major problems. This role remains key in
strengthening our internal monitoring processes,
and I would like you to spend some time on this
issue so as to further refine it.
Registration and Election Review Committee (RERC)
As part of its post-election activities and on-going
lesson-learning process, the Commission
inaugurated a Committee of experts on election
issues called the Registration and Election Review
Committee in August 2011 to conduct an
evaluation of the voters’ registration and general
elections. This was to deepen the process to
continuously improve the Commissions operations,
enhance its organizational capacity through a
better understanding of the strengths and
weakness, revamp its planning, coordination and
execution capabilities and further deepen its
relations with critical stakeholders in the electoral
process. Both the membership of the Committee
as well as the consultations it held across the
country in the course of its work were significantly
informed by the participation of CSOs.
Towards 2015
These are just three of the many ways the
Commission and CSOs have constructively
engaged over the past two or so years. As we
move towards 2015, some of the old challenges we
have seen in the conduct of both the registration
and the elections will recur; some new challenges
will emerge, and all of these will require the re-
enforcement of some old ways of engaging and
imaginatively creating new ways to address
emergent challenges. This Dialogue’s key
objective is precisely to assess these engagements
and to rethink fresh ways of engagement as we
move towards the 2015 general elections. As we
do this, we should bear in mind the cardinal
objective of the Commission, which is to ensure
that the 2015 General Elections are even free,
fairer, and more credible than the 2011 General
Elections and of those that the Commission
conducted since then.
More specifically, I would urge you to focus on
enhancing citizen participation in the electoral
process; thinking of newer and more creative ways
of observing elections; and making input as to how
INEC can continuously improve transparency and
credibility of the electoral process.
Let me conclude by placing on record once more
the Commission’s profound appreciation to all of
you for your contributions to bringing about
substantial improvements to the Nigerian electoral
process. Of course, there is still room for
improvements and the challenges that remain are
still formidable. We cannot therefore rest on our
Oars; we must remain engaged and we must
continue to partner to bring about even more
substantial and enduring improvements to the
credibility of our electoral process in 2015 and
beyond.
Thank you.