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| Prof Attahiru Jega |
The leadership of International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law is in receipt of a
letter addressed to our Board Chairman by the Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission. The two-page letter, dated 17th February
2015 and signed by Prof Mohammed J. Kuna (SA to INEC Chairman) on behalf of
Chairman of INEC, Prof Attahiru M. Jega; was in response to our earlier letter
addressed to the Commission, the SGF, the DG of DSS and the Chief of Defense
Staff, dated 10thFebruary 2015, which contained 19
demands/recommendations to INEC and 9 demands/recommendations to the Federal
Government and its Service Chiefs concerning our position/recommendations for
2015 polls’ security and administrative conducts. The INEC’s letter under
reference is hereby attached for public and other electoral stakeholders’
perusal. This is in furtherance of our openness and public accountability.
One of the key issues
raised in our referenced letter borders on sudden deletion of millions of registered
voters by INEC in the National Register of Voters. Hinging our facts on the
state of the National Register of Voters in the last quarter of 2014, which
contained total registered voters of 70, 383, 427; we became surprised as in
how INEC could wake up suddenly and altered the names of approximately four
million registered voters within two months without detailed reasons and
adequate publicity to that effect. Our later investigation revealed that 3,
796, 767 registered voters or more were deleted within two months across the
country particularly in the North.
The INEC Chairman had in
his letter to Intersociety faulted our position on its
handling of the National Register of Voters; declaring our
position/recommendation as fundamentally flawed based on our
inability to avail ourselves of necessary information on Voters’ Register
posted on its website. Our concern was fundamentally on
timing and suddenness of the referenced deletion, which took place within the
last two months of 2014. We saw this as a repetition of the botched lopsided
creation of 30, 427 polling units by INEC in August of 2014. When
compared with official information on the state of the Nigeria’s National
Register of Voters released to Nigerians by the INEC Chairman during his Press
Conference of 10th September 2014, we have every reason to
query the Commission on our suspicion that ethno-religious and political
influences were behind the sudden exercise.
Admitted that we omitted
looking at official information posted on INEC’s website on our visits to its
website, concerning how and reasons why the Commission carried out the
exercise; but INEC’s public information management in Nigeria is fundamentally
elitist and under armchair influences. In the recent findings by the US based
National Republican Institute and the Democratic Institute, INEC was heavily
blamed for inadequate information and its dissemination concerning its various
activities. The major wheel driving the activities of electoral commissions during
electioneering is adequate public information dissemination concerning its
activities. Such information must be designed to reach the target audiences and
the target audiences in general electioneering are not the elites or academia,
but the general or un-attentive public, which include
farmers, artisans, rural dwellers, petty traders and commercial transport
operators.
It is not enough for
INEC to post information on its website and go home and air-conditioned;
thinking that every Nigerian is ICT literate and compliant including people
living in the country’s rural areas. If a lot of prominent Nigerians including
some public office seekers and holders can still be classified as “ICT
illiterates”, what can INEC tell Nigerians about tens of millions of others who
are still thousands of miles away from ICT age and application including
religious adherents who see it as a taboo because of
its alleged link with western culture? Can INEC tell Nigerians and
other global watchers of events in the country how many Nigerian citizens that
visit their website on daily basis? By the way, how many Nigerians have access
to internet and what is internet density in Nigeria particularly in the
Northwest and the Northeast?
In the Commission’s Analysis
of the National Voters’ Registration Database, released and posted
on its website on 13th January 2015 as per its overall
management of the National Register of Voters leading to the referenced
deletion, the Commission said it introduced four processes for
effective management of the National Register of Voters-Consolidation,
AFIS (automated fingerprint identification system), Post Business Rules and
Valid Register of Voters.
Using the case of
Anambra State as an example, in the 2011 voters’ registration; a total of
2,011, 764 people was registered (raw and unprocessed figure). Under Consolidation, the
figure came down to 1, 811, 536 RVs; after which it went
through AFIS resulting in 1, 784, 536 RVs.
A total of 27, 012 registered voters were identified then as multiple registrants.
When the figure of 1, 784, 536 RVs went through Post
Business Rules possibly in 2014, a total of 55, 306RVs were
removed or deleted. The Post Business Rules, according
to INEC tends to weed out RVs with incomplete
fingerprints by denying them PVCs while AFIS identify
and weed out multiple RVs.
With this, Anambra RVs came
down to 1, 729, 230. During the continuous voters’ registration exercise, a
total of 271, 285 new RVs were captured leading to its
further AFIS and Post Business Rules processes
resulting in identification of 34, 786 multiple registrants and Business
Rules removal of 5, 113 RVs. In all, when
the Post Business Rulesmain figure of 1, 729, 230 RVs is
added to the Post Business Rules CVR figure of 235, 943 RVs, the
current totalRVs for Anambra State comes to its present 1,
963, 173 RVs.
Finally, while the
foregoing struggled unsatisfactorily to offer reasons as per the referenced
deletion, the issue of indiscriminate registration of under-age voters and
issuance of PVCs to them further compounds and complicates the issues
complained of. It is correct to say that the Northwest and the Northeast
Nigeria parade the highest number of under-age voters in the country till date.
This is more so when the four processes of managing the
National Register of Voters only target multiple registrants,
registrants with incomplete fingerprints and INEC’s data duplicates and
fundamentally shield under-age voters particularly in
the Northwest and the Northeast.
The INEC Chairman’s
letter to Intersociety also went dumb by failing to
respond to the issue of gross lopsidedness in the geopolitical PVCs
distribution across the country. Its excuse on Mr. Muhammadu Buhari’s school
certificate issue, which the Commission hinges on ongoing court processes, is
not excusable. This is more so when despite several court processes concerning
whether or not to hold polls as earlier fixed, he defied the court processes
and announced a shift in the dates of the referenced polls.
All in all, we commend
the leadership of INEC for responding promptly to our all important letter
under reference, despite the skeletal nature of the Commission’s letter
referenced: INEC/CH/GC/073/1. This is a clear departure from
the attitude of the Nigerian public office holders who hardly respond to
several public interest letters addressed to them or their offices no matter
the timing, substance or otherwise so contained.
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
+2348174090052 (office)
Chiugo Onwuatuegwu, Esq., Head, Democracy & Good Governance
Program
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