In this report, CHIBUZO UKAIBE writes on the recent unveiling of the 2017-2021 strategic plan by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its implications for the country.
The 2019 election might be less than two years away, but the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is already racing against time.
It’s announcement of dates for the 2019 general elections and its unveiling of the of 2017 – 2021 Strategic Plan, last week, tells this much.
Apparently mindful of how time flies and how there are not perfect preparations, the commission has began its pre-election engagements. The political firmament had experience some unease last month, after the commission fixed dates for the 2019 general election. It had generated some concerns, rightly so because the action was unprecedented. In a political system where trust for government institutions is not common place, the suspicion that greeted the announcement was not unusual.
However, INEC followed the shocking announcement with a wide range of engagements with key stakeholders including political parties, to civil society organizations and the media.
The rationale for the early announcement was to engrain a system where dates for future elections are known as obtained in other climes. But much more, this process is expected to encourage an electoral tradition of early planning and transparency for all stakeholders.
Having secured the buy-in of major stakeholders, the commission, last week unveiled the 2017 – 2021 Strategic Plan in Abuja.
The strategic plan is in keeping with a tradition started by the immediate past chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who oversaw the development of 2010-2016 strategic plan. Essentially, the plan is targeted at making the conduct of general elections more inclusive, less cumbersome and above all, for it to meet international best standards.
The chief electoral officer, explained that the idea behind the strategic plan is to create a new medium term framework for general elections within which general elections are anchored.
While he noted that it will help to build confidence between INEC and election, stakeholders, Yakubu stressed that the plan seeks to “consolidate the conduct of free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria.”
“Through forward planing, everybody knows what to expect, making it easy to track the attainment of goals and objectives. Finally, a strategic approach to election management strengthens INEC’s internal systems through clear definition of tasks, cooperative work among the various units, effective monitoring and collective ownership”, he said.
He noted that “the current plan like its predecessor has benefitted from the active participation of INEC field offices, as well as a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the political and electoral processes.
“Recognizing critical gaps, challenges and uncompleted actions in the last plan, the 2017-2021 strategic plan and strategic programme of action have identified keys areas of focus needed to deepen and reinforce the commission’s commitment to free, fair and credible elections” he added.
The consultant on the development of the strategic plan, Dr Otive Igbuzor, explained that purpose of the strategy is to provide direction for INEC and actions taken to achieve its mandate given the international and national context of its operations.
He added that it will propose what needs to be done by the organization to achieve its mandate following a review of the previous strategic plan; provide a framework and focus for improvement within the commission as a whole; optimise the commission’s organizational system, among others.
Tailored after the last strategic plan, the strategic objectives of this new plan are to provide electoral operations, systems and infrastructure to support delivery of free, fair and credible elections; to provide voter education, training and research; register political parties and monitor their operations; interact nationally and internationally with relevant stakeholders; and strengthen INEC for sustained conduct of free, fair and credible elections.
Reviewing the last five year planThe 2012-2016 strategic plan which was developed after the 2011, was instrumental to the outcome of the 2015 general election.
For an election that witnessed the introduction of some major technological infusions like the smart carder readers and Permanent Voter Card (PVC), for analysts it was however interestingly, that the critical challenges that greeted the polls were more of failures to tidy up electoral laws than the use of novel technological tools.
The set backs to the amendments were perhaps reflective of the high stakes that heralded the 2015 general election, being the most keenly contested general elections since 1999, on account of the emergence of two almost equally strong political parties, PDP and APC.
Reflecting on the outcome of the last five-year plan however, the INEC chairman noted that the success of the 2015 general election is to an appreciable extent attributed to the diligent implementation of the plan. “Certain innovations in the electoral process were directly traceable to the plan”, he added.
But Igbuzor put the import in context when he revealed that the commission achieved 76 percent of its content, stressing that the commission “implemented 96 of the102 activities listed for the execution of first objective.”
Putting the challenges in perspective Igbuzor, explained that they didn’t bothered so much on INEC but on the other critical actors. For instance, he blamed the late passage of an amendment bill (drafted by INEC) the last National Assembly for why INEC could not “strengthen some of its capacity to deliver free, fair and credible elections.”
He said added “even then the amendment didn’t contain key provisions proposed by the commission such as Out of Country Voting (OCV), power of INEC to disqualify candidates who do not meet criteria for elections, provisions on constituency delimitation etc.”
He noted that it by inference affected the effective monitoring measures of INEC over the activities of political parties, who are the most critical elements in the process.
In this plan
Leveraging on the challenges of the old plan, the commission is proposing some rather bold steps, bordering on funding, party monitoring and prosecution of electoral offenders.
Outlining some critical issues, Igbuzor revealed that electoral commission will establish a unit for the prosecution of electoral offenders.
He said “In order to facilitate more effective prosecution, reduce impunity and enhance deterrence, the Commission will establish a prosecution unit staffed by trained prosecutors to facilitate quicker and more efficient prosecution of electoral offences.”
He added that the “Commission will explore funding sources beyond traditional sources from government and development partners.
“It will also design engagement programme with the Ministry for Finance, the Budget Office and Bureau of Public Procurement to appraise these institutions of the peculiarities of its operations and challenges.
“During the Plan period, the Commission will fully activate the INEC Fund as provided in Section 3 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
“Also, in order to ease the burden of funding during election periods, the Commission will spread general elections budgets across the financial periods covered by the election cycle.”
While the new strategic plan seeks to consolidate on the old plan, it remains to be seen whether the political environment and its actors would allow for the building of such desired electoral systems.
For some analysts, while these electoral vices are not new, the deliberate inactions of critical stakeholders have not helped the situation over the years While, the stakeholders are quick to pledge commitments to success of the electoral process, it is expected that such vows would be matched by requisite actions.
For instance, the spate of violence that trails elections has been blamed both on the political actors as well as a security operatives, for displaying seeming lack of capacity and alleged complicity in ensuring law and order during election.
More so, the perception of partisanship around the commission continues to fester in the light of demands that the emergence of the INEC chairman should not be done by the president, as recommended by the famous Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Committee.
Putting some of the challenges of INEC in context, the chairman outrightly blamed the lack of due diligence by political parties for the emergence of ex-convicts and certificate forgers as party candidates.
Yakubu added that this has resulted in nullification of elections which comes at a great cost to the country.
He said “under the electoral law, if the national leadership of the party submits a candidate’s name to the commission, INEC cannot reject it once the person is duly nominated by his or her political party and the law hasn’t changed.
“But there are problems and consequences. Some of the consequences are that courts could get the elections nullified on account of inappropriate nomination of candidates by political parties. At present INEC has no choice than to go and conduct a rerun at a great cost to the country. In some cases some of the candidates nominated shouldn’t have been nominated if the political parties carried out due diligence. If political parties had carried out due diligence on their candidates, we will never have the kind of problems we have with numerous elections being nullified on account of improper conduct of party primaries.
“It has also been observed that some parties have nominated ex-convicts as candidates and INEC has no power to reject such candidates only for court to nullify such election after they have been conducted. Some parties have even nominated candidates with cases of certificate forgery only for the court to nullify the election. Under these cases INEC has been made to conduct fresh elections. The parties are here and we can only appeal to their leadership to ensure that only what transpires at the primaries is transferred to the commission, and they should carry out due diligence on their candidates before forwarding their names to the commission. “
The INEC chairman further reiterated that all the 23 affected staff in the Rivers federal and state legislator Rerun elections, have been placed on suspension and on half salary until they prove their innocence at the courts.
He added that they are also going to do the same thing with the other 202 staff indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) who are still being investigated by the commission.
He also repeated his call for electoral offenses tribunal, lamenting that it was difficult for INEC, as it is structured, to carry out its responsibility for the prosecution of electoral offenders.
He noted “when you want to make arrests of electoral offenders, the commission has no police to make the arrest. Secondly, we have to investigate it so that you can have evidences that will make for successful persecution. We have no powers under the law to conduct investigation, so how do we successfully prosecute. “
Speaking on the relationship between the INEC and State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs), Yakubu, stated that the national electoral body corporates with the SIECs on so many levels, but noted that it has no say in the declaration of results for conduct of local government elections which is done by the state electoral body as empowered by the constitution.
Speaking also the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, called for early funding of the electoral commission ahead of 2019 general election.
Okechukwu who hailed the unveiling on the plan to stakeholders, added “credible elections has been set off. No big or small political party will say they have been shortchanged.”
On his part, the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, assured that INEC will conduct free and fair elections, noting that every stakeholder should be ready to play their part.
Represented by a deputy commissioner of police, Olawole Olokode, the IG, said the conduct of free and fair elections is possible, devoid of citizen harassment by election opponents. For what it is worth most of prospects in the strategic plan would involve constitution amendment to give them the bite they require.
Interestingly however, the representatives of the National Assembly were conspicuously absent during the unveiling of the strategic plan. The senate committee chairman on INEC and the House Committee on electoral and political party members were not available when called to give goodwill messages, which signals some discomfort in certain quarters.
Nonetheless, while the Sen Ken Nnamani electoral reform committee is also going on, the National Assembly is already in the process of amending the Electoral Act. On another level, the disagreement in the lower chamber over the debate for constitutional backing for smart card reader is also instructive, analyst opine.
Still, in a season of electoral amendments there are rising concerns over the plethora of activities playing out such that there should not be a clash of ego and interests.