Why We Are Worried About INEC

Why We Are Worried About INEC
By Franklin Ahaotu

As the hullabaloo that characterized the 2019 General election seems to be gradually reducing, the legal tussles and accusations has continued to generate enough energy as to make any well-meaning Nigerian, to begin a second line of thought on what actually transpired within and outside the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before, during and after the  just concluded 2019 General election in Nigeria.
I remember vividly how sometime in September   2018, the Nigeria media went agog with the news of a proposed   INEC budget for the conduct of the 2019 General Election.  The very popular opinion then was that the budget being proposed was too high for a nation that is still recovering from the effect of Economic recession that led to the loss of jobs, which threw millions into poverty and thereby making the country a poverty capital of the world.
Recall that it was not until the 10th of October 2018 that the national assembly finally approved the sum of N189 billion supplementary budget for the purpose of the 2019 election. And shortly after the chairman of INEC  Prof. Mahmood Yakubu also defended the budgetary estimate, noting that a lot of things has been improved on about the process, compared to that of 2015. I still remember that a total of N134.4 billion, he said was for operational cost, N27.5 billion for Technology/ICT. While N22.6 billion and N4 billion is insurance related and what she called contingencies, respectively.

This approval had come as a sigh of relief for many Nigerians after an initial hide and seeks then between the leadership of the Senate and the presidency. Those of us who were monitoring the development equally agreed with the approval if that was what she required for a free and fair election in the country.
Everything about the Election was looking very good until INEC gave Nigerians the shock of the century, when they woke up that Saturday, to hear that the much awaited Election has been postponed for a week; this ugly news coming few hours to the commencement of the process.
The entire nation stood still, even my Pet Dog that accompanied me to a walkout that day could sense the unusual in the atmosphere. While we were still trying to recover from the anger and frustration, INEC justified the shift, adding also that the rescheduled Election made the Commission to lose the sum of N7 billion, according to Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
Prior to this postponement, we hear rumors of the election being staggered to facilitate victory for a particular party. Some said INEC Database is being Hacked to manipulate the smart card readers. The last time I checked the smart card reader is a device that was configured to keep a record of all cards read: voters verified and those not verified are collected and transmitted to INEC central server via GSM data Services.  As interesting as the smart card reader technology is, INEC appeared to have developed cool feet about their own technology, hence was alleged to have collated results manually. This is even more surprising considering the huge amount the commission invested in ICT. Should we say that the essence of the whole smart card reader technology has failed? Maybe not yet; at least let us allow the court to give a verdict on very many legal battles that are ongoing before we conclude on that.
When Prof. Attahiru Jega came up with this laudable technology in the 2015 election, stockholders had applauded it, although, after the said election, it was agreed that the smart card reader technology needed an improvement to correct the reported cases of failure in some locations
A huge number of persons who couldn’t be captured during that election were accommodated by what INEC described as Incident Form, which of course has its own element of controversy. So when INEC 2019 Election team told Nigerians that the Smart card Reader technology has been improved on and as such would not require the incident form in the Election (No-Card-Reader-no-Voting.) It sounded like a sweet sermon in the ears of those who earnestly wanted an election devoid of fictitious voters.
Was that the case during the just concluded election? Your guess is as good as mine. I learned that immediately after that announcement, some powerful persons who were not comfortable with the idea began to question the rationale behind it; as according to them, it can be likened to an electronic voting that is unknown in the Nigeria Constitution, made worse by President Muhammad Buhari’s refusal to sign into law the new electoral act amendment bill. 
I still believe that it was this pressure mounted by this group of politicians that made INEC to do a last minute change in plan, as they came up with the idea that those whose fingerprint cannot be captured by the smart card reader, can still vote provided that their names are in the voters register and are certified as the owner of the PVC. In that case, they would be required to put down their phone numbers, in case of litigation, INEC had said.
Perfect idea one would say: if true, this process was strictly observed, it would have been very strange to hear of doctored election result or inflation of vote figures, as being alleged; since very polling unit has a result that makes up a registration area that in turn formed the cumulative of an LGA result. Simple arithmetic abi?
That, as far as I know, appeared not to be the case in INEC 2019 election that we all hear of Kidnaping of electoral officers and rewriting of results. Those who perpetuated this electoral fraud definitely knew that INEC did not mean exactly what they said; at least there would not have been any need to announce a result that does not emanate from the Poling unit. Perhaps they have been advised by their lawyers that INEC has no power to cancel an already declared election result.
Funny enough, INEC is foolishly buying into their narrative, thereby emboldening these political criminals who go to the extent of destroying used electoral material to cover up possible evidence in the law court.
Like a football match, no team can celebrate a win unless the referee blew the final whistle, even if the duration for the match has elapsed. So also, it’s only INEC that can declare a candidate a winner in any election in Nigeria, and the commission should be ready to defend any result been declared in the law court whenever the need arises.  So I urge INEC not to play the second fiddle in the Election tribunal but be ready to help the will of justice. If anyone has a contrary opinion on this, he or she should please let me know.