TELL Magazine

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC faces a big test Saturday February 25, as Nigerians go to the polls to elect the next president to run the affairs of the country for another four years, along with National Assembly members. The Commission had assured Nigerians that with the introduction of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS election malpractices will be reduced to the barest minimum. BVAS had been tested in the off-season elections in Osun and Ekiti states last year, and INEC said it had perfected whatever lapses that could have been noticed in its deployment in the last two exercises.

The Conference Of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), a coalition of political parties registered by the Commission, has called on INEC to key into the ground already prepared by President Muhammadu Buhari for free, fair, credible, safe, and peaceful elections starting from Saturday, February 25.
In a statement signed by its Secretary General, Willy Ezugwu, the CNPP urged the commission to ensure that its officials were not compromised in line with the level of neutrality demanded by President Buhari. This warning became necessary with the arrest of a federal legislator on Friday [ the eve of the election] in Rivers State in possession of about half a million United States dollars believed to be money he intended to use to compromise the security and officials of the Commission.
The federal lawmaker, Dr. Chinyere Igwe, according to police report, had a sum of $498,100 on suspicion of attempted vote buying. The suspicion was reinforced with the list of beneficiaries allegedly found on him to whom he intended dispensing the money.
The police said the recovered list of suspected beneficiaries of the money included officials in INEC headquarters in Rivers State.

The CNPP said, “This arrest is just a tip of how politicians have planned to deploy illicit funds to compromise the electoral process. Since they have no access to the volume of cash to deploy for vote buying due to the naira redesign policy of the federal government being executed by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, these corrupt politicians are deploying foreign currencies to perpetrate their evil acts.”

While commending the Police for its gallantry, the CNPP urged “the Department of State Services (DSS), anti-graft outfits, the military and paramilitary agencies on election duty to remain on high alerts and proactively nip in the bud all acts capable of instigating violence during and after the polls”.

Vote buying has been the major headache of INEC. Professor Mahmood Yakubu, its chairman, believes that vote buying is the only factor that can negate the efforts of his Commission. BVAS is the Commission’s response to years of sharp practices by politicians at the polls. It is believed that, if used during the election, it would stop the practice whereby politicians use people other than real owners of voter cards to represent their interest at the polls. Eighty-seven million, two hundred and nine thousand, and seven (87, 209, 007) registered voters will be eligible to cast their votes at the election, with the second leg of the exercise fixed for March 11, 2023 when state governors and members of the state legislature will be chosen by voters. The over 87 million voters are those who were able to collect their PVCs by the end of the deadline for collection last February 5. After the deadline, 6,259, 229 PVCs were left uncollected. Ninety-three million, four hundred and sixty-nine thousand, and eight (93, 469, 008) voters are actually in the record of the Commission. A breakdown of the registration showed that the Northwest zone has the highest voter population with 21, 445, 000 followed by Southwest with a voter population of 15, 536, 213 leading Northcentral with a voter population of 14, 603, 621, followed by Southsouth zone with a voter population of 13, 284, 920, while the Northeast zone parades a voter population of 11, 937, 769 to lead Southeast zone with a voter population of 10, 401, 484. The five leading states are also situated in the Northwest, Southsouth, and Southwest. But the Northwest has three of the states-Kano, Katsina and Kaduna- while Southwest and Southsouth has one each in Lagos and Rivers respectively. Lagos leads them all with 6, 214, 970 followed by Kano with 5, 594,193, Kaduna with 4,164, 473 and Katsina with 3, 459, 945, while Rivers comes behind with 3, 285, 785 voters.

To ensure that the process is not tampered with, the federal government has announced restriction of movement through the Nigeria Police Force from midnight on Friday till midnight on Saturday. The government has also closed the land borders for the same period of time, while all domestic airlines have suspended operations for the election day.

Days ahead of the election, there were fears that movement of materials and payment for logistics could be hampered, as the chairman also pleaded with the authorities concerned to ease the challenges of fuel scarcity and Naira scarcity occasioned by the naira redesign and mopping up of the currency in circulation to forestall vote buying. But as the day moved closer, Yakubu expressed relief, indicating that he had got assurances from the right quarters that there would be no problem. He said, “We are pleased that the NNPC Limited assured us that it will ensure availability of the products for the polls. Likewise, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has assured us that it will provide us with the small amount of cash we require from our budget to cash payment to some critical service providers for the election. I must reiterate that the bulk of payment for works goods and services are still paid for by electronic transfer.” The INEC Chairman who said his Commission had overcome the challenges posed by attacks on some of its facilities in different parts of the country, said he could say with confidence that the exercise would go on without any hitch.

Hear him, “I want to assure Nigerians that we are adequately prepared for this election. We remain fully committed to a free, fair and credible process. I want to once again declare that our allegiance is only to Nigerians. Our commitment is to ensure that in this election we put everything in place for free choice, fair contest, and credible outcome”.