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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The 2019 general elections may have come and gone. But the dust raised by the polls will take a long time to settle, as the integrity of the polls, especially the presidential election, appears a matter of controversy between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as well as other interested groups.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared President Muhammadu Buhari, who was candidate of APC in the presidential election, winner of the poll. However, the PDP, which is contesting the result, has continued to insist that its candidate, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar was supplanted in the poll.
The controversy over the integrity of the poll, again surfaced recently following the presentation of reports by two international observer groups- the European Union Election Mission (EU EOM) and the National Democratic Institute/ International Republican Institute ( NDI/IRI) .
The two observers were among the 39 foreign observers accredited by the electoral body to monitor the 2019 general elections.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, EU EOM Chief Observer, Maria Arena expressed reservations about certain issues in the conduct of the elections. The EU chief observer acknowledged that the national collation centre for the presidential election was opened to party agents and observers, while the collation exercise was continuously televised.
However, she noted that “inconsistent numbers, lack of clear checks and explanations, and insufficient public information undermined confidence in the integrity of the election.”
She said “There was a discrepancy of 1.66 million fewer registered voters recorded than was previously announced by INEC in January. Polling was cancelled without sufficient accountability. The main reasons given were incidences of violence, over-voting and non-use of smart card readers, resulting in the annulment of voting for nearly 2.8 million registered voters. Lack of transparency in the use of smart card readers meant that it was not clear if all polling units with problems were cancelled as was required in INEC guidelines,” Arena said.
She continued: “Citizens did not have sufficient means to scrutinise results…INEC did not provide centralised information on the declared results for the different locations, despite these being races for federal bodies, and has not posted complete results data on its website.
“Similarly, there is a lack of disaggregated results by local government area, ward or polling unit, which would allow for a thorough checking of results.”
Regardless of the misgivings, Arena also commended INEC for making some progress even though it worked in “a complex security and politically-charged environment.”
The EU EOM in its 88-page report advised the electoral body to strengthen its result collation processes in a way that would inspire confidence in the process.
Consequently, it also recommended a legal framework that would allow for transparency and public accessibility of election results. This, according to the report, would include the display of all the result immediately at collation centres, advising further that “results forms from all polling units (should) be published before deadline for submission of petitions against declared results.”
On its part, NDI/IRI in its report stated that the country witnessed a setback in the 2019 elections from the modest improvements it recorded in previous years.
NDI Regional Director for Central and West Africa, Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, who spoke for the two bodies, noted that the 2019 general elections “fell significantly short of standards.
“You will see that up to 2015, there was progressive improvement in the way in which elections were being conducted in Nigeria. Many of us were around when the 2007 elections took place. It came under a lot of criticisms and justifiably so, and we saw some improvements in 2011.
“We saw more improvements in 2015 when Nigeria had one of the most credible elections in its history and it was hailed both by Nigerians and friends of Nigeria across the world. Now the hope of many Nigerians was that there would be greater improvements again on what transpired in 2015 during the 2019 general elections.
“As we said in our reports, those expectations were not met and it is our hope that preparations for the 2023 elections will begin now. That is why we are hoping that this report will stir up the conversation towards a lot of reforms required to make the electoral process better,” he stated.
For the PDP however, the reports are a validation of its positions on the 2019 polls. The party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, stated that with the EU report, it is now obvious to Nigerians that it has not been crying wolf about the alleged manipulation of the presidential election.
The opposition party called for the prosecution of INEC officials involved in the alleged sabotage of the electoral process.
“The world can now see that the PDP has not been crying wolf in insisting that the election was out rightly rigged with the cancellation of millions of PDP votes, alteration of results and allocation of fictitious votes to the APC.
“Nigerians are still in shock over the revelations by EU of how about 2.8 million votes were deliberately cancelled without sufficient accountability ‘and how several returning officers gave no reason for the cancellations,” it stated.
The PDP added that “more shocking is the iniquity committed at the national collation center, headed by the INEC Chairman, where the EU report exposed inconsistent numbers, distortions and ‘a large discrepancy of ‘1.66 million more registered voters, as announced by INEC on 14 January, compared to those announced by state returning officers during the collation of presidential results. Nigerians witnessed, on national TV, how professors and returning officers were unable to reconcile result figures due to heavy manipulations upon which INEC declared the APC winner.
“The EU report has further exposed the iniquity committed by the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC by listing how ballot boxes were compromised, how essential materials were missing, how voter register was not always ticked as required and how manual authentication procedures were not correctly followed. The report also bared how figures on result forms did not reconcile, how result forms were not publicly pasted, how ‘result forms and smart card readers were not packed in tamper-evident envelops as required’, in addition to how the APC administration used security forces to intimidate voters, aid violence against our members and muscled votes for the APC,” the PDP said.
On the flipside, the spokesman, President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation for the 2019 general elections, Festus Keyamo, described claims by the PDP on EU EOM election report as myopic.
Keyamo told Daily Sun that the claim of the opposition party on the EU EOM report indicated that the party does not have a good research team and as such could not study the report before commenting on it.
The campaign spokesman explained that the EU EOM report neither indicted the president nor the APC for any irregularities in the presidential poll.
He noted that rather, the report indicted the two major political parties for failing to rein in their restive supporters before and during the poll, thereby leading to violence in some areas.
Keyamo added that if the PDP is alleging that there were irregularities in the 2019 polls, the opposition is invariably saying that it manipulated the polls in states hitherto controlled by the APC, which was won by the opposition.
“If the PDP say there is anything irregular about the election, it means there were irregularities in Imo, Bauchi, Benue, Adamawa- these are known strongholds of the APC before the election- which they won,” Keyamo added.
Like the APC, a coalition of presidential candidates in the 2019 general elections, believe that INEC did its best in the conduct of elections.
National Chairman of the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), Shittu Mohammed, who spoke on behalf of the coalition at a press briefing in Abuja, also faulted the report by the EU EOM.
Mohammed, who was also APDA’s presidential candidate for the 2019 election, said “the report of the European Union Election Observation Mission released over a week ago wherein they alleged a lack of transparency in the guidelines of election is bewildering. With all due respect to the EUEOM, it is left to Nigerians to decide how we conducted our 2019 general elections.
“INEC consulted widely and extensively, and together with stakeholders of which we are a part of, came up with the guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 general elections, which the commission followed to the latter. We recall that nine out of the 11 points for consideration we raised as candidates under the auspices of the IPAC and CUPP respectively were adopted by the commission. How then can the EU-EOM accuse the commission of lack of transparency in putting up guidelines for the elections?”
On his part, the PDP Deputy National Chairman, Elder Yemi Akinwonmi, wants the international community to continue to pay keen interest in the political developments of Nigeria, especially in the area of election monitoring.
He noted that what transpired during the 2019 general elections was a mockery of democracy, as INEC and the security agencies were allegedly compromised.
“We are now living in a despotic environment. We are now living in time of strange changes. Nigeria is fast becoming a failed. The international community should beam their searchlight on Nigeria. What is going on in Nigeria must not go unchecked if you want democracy to survive”, the party chief stated.
Beyond the debate the reports of the international election observers have generated, analysts say the observations made by the two foreign observer groups cannot be wished away. Interestingly, the leadership of the National Assembly has promised to take the observations into consideration in the enactment of a new electoral act. But whether or not the parliament will treat the issue with the urgency it demands is another issue altogether.
