How does the Transition Monitoring Group view preparations for the coming elections?
Well, in recent times the TMG has spoken about the lackadaisical attitude of the Independent National Electoral Commission, and indeed, the Federal Government towards these important elections. Don’t forget that they will mark the first time in Nigeria that we will have an elected president completing two terms. Also, it will be the first time that an elected government will conduct elections for the second time, consecutively. So, it is a very historic opportunity for which the entire world will be watching Nigeria. Given that background, we had expected INEC and the Federal Government to take the whole process more seriously than they have done.
Does that mean INEC has not done well?
INEC has two major challenges as far as we are concerned in trying to play its role as an electoral body. The first challenge, which is fundamental to its work, is the perception that INEC is neither independent nor impartial. For Nigeria to have credible elections, INEC must be perceived as impartial; because if the people don’t have confidence in its ability to organise the elections, they will query the outcome. The second challenge is the perception that INEC is not transparent in handling issues, and in informing Nigerians about the challenges it is facing. These two issues are weighty. You may want to ask why TMG thinks INEC is neither impartial nor transparent. INEC is very efficient in dealing with issues that affect the Peoples Democratic Party but when it pertains to other parties, INEC becomes laid back.
Can you give instances?
Sometime in 2006, the governor of Jigawa State and the entire members of the state House of Assembly defected to the PDP, and INEC neither declared their seats vacant nor conducted bye-elections to replace them. But when some legislators in Plateau State defected from the PDP to the Action Congress, INEC not only declared their seats vacant, it went ahead to conduct bye-elections. Interestingly, in the same Plateau State, some persons defected from the All Nigeria Peoples Party to the PDP but their seats were neither declared vacant nor was a bye-election conducted to replace them. If that is not partiality, then I wonder what it is. Infact in Jigawa State, a member of the House of Representatives refused to defect to the PDP from the ANPP and INEC went ahead to conduct a referendum for his recall. It was an instigated recall, but the guy was lucky that his people voted against it. In the case of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, INEC refused to verify the thousands of signatures collected for his recall and also refused to conduct a referendum on the matter. Whenever any member of the opposition raises an issue, INEC would lampoon such a person. All those are cases that demonstrate INEC’s partiality.
Then on the issue of transparency, we know the funding of INEC has to come from the Federal Government by virtue of the 2006 Electoral Act. We also know that when INEC was asked on repeated occasions ‘Do you have the required resources to embark on this?’ they said they had no problem. It took a bounced N20 billion cheque for Nigerians to know that INEC did not have the kind of money it had previously declared. And that made us to worry that if an electoral body is facing serious questions on two fundamental principles of electoral administration – impartiality and transparency – then something urgently needed to be done. That is why our members and our allies have called for Iwu’s resignation or removal to pave the way for someone else who will guide INEC towards conducting credible elections in 2007.
Will that change anything?
I agree that there is a perception that Iwu is not acting alone. Otherwise, the problems that have characterised the whole process would have necessitated his removal. But what we are emphasising is the enthronement of a tradition where somebody is held responsible whenever something goes wrong, so that others would learn a lesson. We are not unmindful of the fact that Iwu is just one individual within an institution that has thousands of employees, but if we know the way government agencies are run in Nigeria, everything revolves around the person heading it and when that person is not well focused or not well qualified or competent to do the job, he derails the institution.
What do you think of the spending pattern of politicians during the primaries?
Nobody can be comfortable when moneybags are all over the place hijacking the entire political process. The reason is because if someone spends a huge sum of money to get elected into a political office, when the person gets there, the primary preoccupation will be to recoup. So, it will affect the credibility of the elections; it will also affect the quality of candidates that will eventually be elected into political positions. Our worry is deepened by the fact that the 2006 Electoral Act capped campaign finance. It placed a peg on how much money an individual can spend in contesting for a political office and that provision was supposed to be enforced by INEC, especially with politicians and political parties spending huge sums of money beyond the prescribed limit. It means that the body entrusted with the issue of enforcing that restriction on the amount of money that can be spent is not doing the work very well.
I recognise, however, that we operate a cash economy in Nigeria, which leaves no trace; because when you are dealing with cash, there is no trail that can be used to know who is spending the money or not. That would affect the ability of INEC or any other body for that matter to really track down defaulters. But I think that should be the preoccupation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission because in terms of capacity and competence, it is best placed to really track the money going into these campaigns.
How do you assess INEC’s electronic registration of voters, bearing in mind the National Assembly’s insistence on manual registration?
INEC is not committed to e-voting (electronic voting). What it is committed to is e-registration. You know the electronic voting system has four major components namely electronic registration, electronic voting with embossed pictures of voters, the third is the voting itself, and the fourth is the electronic result transmission system. But INEC adopted three, which are the electronic registration, electronic voting and the electronic result transmission system. But the voting itself will be manually done, which means that after the manual voting, they will now key the results into the computer before they are transmitted electronically.
But on the whole, on the issue of electronic voting system, what is happening now goes to show to what extent the leadership of INEC is prepared to go against the run of public opinion in its decision to continue using a registration approach that it is ill-prepared for. It also shows the level of contempt the leadership of INEC has for constituted authority like the National Assembly that has repeatedly called on it to give up the e-registration for now, because it is ill-prepared for it, and concentrate on manual registration. After the elections, INEC has four years, between 2007 and 2011 when another set of elections will be conducted, to prepare adequately for e-voting. Mind you, people who are opposed to the use of this electronic registration are not opposed in principle to the concept itself. What we are arguing against is that the time is not there. We are talking about four months to the election and we are using a system that we don’t have enough machines for. We don’t have enough trained personnel. The whole thing shows that INEC is not a respecter of public opinion.
Do you subscribe to fears that the electronic result transmission can be manipulated?
Yes. It is a major issue and constitutes one avenue where we could have massive electoral malpractices that might not be detected. Because when you vote manually, at the end of the day, some people other than those who voted or even the party agents would be responsible for keying in the manually collected data into a computer that would transmit it electronically. And the question is, ‘will all the parties have representatives in the data entry and data transmission room where this major work will take place?’ To the extent that we have no reassurance from INEC that all stakeholders will be represented during the data collation, entry and data processing and transmission system, then we should worry.
You have collaborated with the police and other security agencies in the past in the conduct of elections. How well do you think they are prepared for the 2007 poll?
For the police to adequately play their role, they are supposed to be trained on the specific responsibilities that will be entrusted to them during the elections. These are: guaranteeing the safety and security of voters when they go to cast their votes, and enforcing the laws against electoral offences as stipulated in the Electoral Act. Now for them to enforce the laws, they have to be aware of the Electoral Law. I am not aware that any training has commenced to train them on the Electoral Law, which will prepare them for this onerous responsibility. They may say they still have time but as we speak, they have not started; and if you know the number of policemen we have in this country, which is currently between 300,000 and 325,000, you will agree with me that it will require a lot of time to do. The second issue is that the logistics and communications required for the police to play the role are not adequate. Now for communications, you need enough walkie-talkie sets. A communication assessment of the police that I was involved in a few months ago showed that in a typical police station, you have one walkie-talkie to averagely 16 policemen. Which means that not every police officer who will go on electoral duty will have adequate communication. If you have 16 of them, only one will be carrying a walkie-talkie set and when they encounter a situation that requires the mobilisation of more men, they will not have the communication to call for back-up; which is a serious problem. What that means is that when they are in a polling booth and a situation that threatens law and order happens and they have no communication to call for back up, they will either run for their lives or sit idlly and allow whatever is happening to happen.
Do you mean the police are also ill-prepared for the elections?
I am not aware of any movement on either the part of the police authorities or the government to get adequate communications for these men and women who will be deployed in the polling booths. Then, another requirement is transport. For policemen to play their role during the elections, they will need transport to take them from their stations to the polling booths. If you go to an average police station in Lagos or indeed any part of the country, a typical police station will have from 50 police officers to 200, depending on the size and the neighbourhood. But in no police station will you find more than two functional vehicles, as we speak, for transportation. And you ask yourself: On Election Day, what will they use to convey these people? Knowing fully well that during elections there is the restriction of movement of people and vehicles, when they have no vehicle and they can’t quickly get a taxi to take them, they will either not get to the polling stations on time or will not even show up at all. This was what we noticed in the 2003 elections. Many of them who had no transportation had to resort to taking lifts from election observers, politicians, all kinds of people and God knows how many of them were given lifts by election riggers. These things put a question mark on the preparations of the police and other security agencies on the important roles they are expected to play during elections, not to talk of defensive shields. For a policeman not to resort to lethal force, as in a situation that threatens law and order, the person needs to be adequately kitted with riot gear, helmet and defensive shields so that the person will not be so frightened as to use his gun in the bid to escape, in the first instance. I am not aware of any move for massive importation or local production of these defensive shields to prevent a situation where something that a baton, stun gun or water cannon can solve will make the police use guns, just because they