ABUJA — Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a coalition of over 70 organisations said the just concluded Anambra governorship election showed that the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) needed to do more in election management.
Convener of the Situation Room, Ene Obi said this while reading the document co-signed by her, co-conveners Asmaú Joda and James Ugochukwu at a news conference in Abuja.
Obi said that Situation Room sent observers to monitor the Anambra election and the supplementary polls conducted in Ihiala and received reports from its field observers, partners, and network in the course of the election.
“The administration of the Anambra governorship election appears to have suffered from severe logistical challenges.
”Situation Room observed protracted delays in the opening of polls in most units as a result of the late deployment of ad hoc staff.
“This issue reoccurred on a larger scale in the supplementary election held in Ihiala local government area and rather disappointing as it was expected that INEC would have been better prepared to deploy staff and materials early.
“At the onset of the election on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) posed challenges to the accreditation process in many voting locations, particularly failure to authenticate fingerprints and detect faces. This delayed the voting process.
“ In some instance where the batteries of the machines went flat, INEC’s technical team responded and rectified the situation when contacted.’’
Obi said that INEC’s administration of the election fell short of the expected standard, especially in the light of the fact that the omission had repeatedly assured of its readiness to conduct the election.
She said that the introduction of the BVAS was a welcome development but election preparations needed to be improved upon to deliver efficiency in its use for the accreditation process.
She, however, said that the performance of the BVAS improved significantly in the supplementary election conducted in Ihiala.
She said that reports from Situation Room observers indicated that it took an average of three minutes to accredit on voter when it worked, thereby making the voting process swift.
She said that the upload of polling unit election results to INEC’s Result Viewing (I-Rev) portal was satisfactory as upload of results started around 5:pm an hour after the extended time for the close of polls.
She added that as at 9:30pm, 60 per cent of results had been uploaded, adding that this rose to 73.5 percent at 12:30 pm on Sunday, Nov.7, 2021 and went to 88 per cent at 10:00 am on Tuesday, Nov.9, 2021.
The convener said that the performance of ad hoc staff during the election showed that there were knowledge gaps of the election process because in some polling units observed, ad hoc staff struggled with operating the BVAS.
Obi said that the staff were not aware of some procedures such as displaying the register of voters in their polling units of deployment.
She said that Situation Room noted that security agents were mostly civil in their conduct and were not reported to have harassed or intimidated voters or election observers.
She said that security agents complained of non-payment of their election duty allowances even after reassurance by the police that all personnel had been paid before the election.
Obi added that the menace of vote-trading was once again observed in the election as there was an organised procedure for identifying voters who cast their votes for a particular political party.
The Situation Room convener said that vote trading had continued to feature in Nigeria’s elections and would remain if perpetrators go unpunished.
She said this brought to light the imminent need to establish the National Electoral Offences Commission to prosecute electoral offenders.
Obi said that Situation Room called on INEC to make the necessary effort to adequately prepare for other elections scheduled for 2022 in Ekiti state as well as for the general elections in 2023.
She added that election stakeholders needed to critically interrogate the diminishing rate of citizens’ participation in the electoral process with the view to overturn the trend of voter apathy.
She also urged all stakeholders to continue to sustain their effort and support towards an improved electoral process and deepening democracy in Nigeria.
Obi said that Situation Room commended women in Anambra for rejecting money to sell their voters and going ahead to vote their conscience.
She said that this should be emulated by other citizens who continued to sell their votes to the highest bidder without drawing the linkages between the act and the inability to demand accountability and better governance from leaders.
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