From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that balanced distribution of voters to polling units will be its priority project in the 2023 General Elections.
Commission’s chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, made the disclosure in his remarks at a meeting with the European Union (EU) Election Observation Follow-Up Mission in Abuja on Wednesday.
“Immediately after the 2019 General Election, we undertook a comprehensive review of the election observation reports by accredited domestic and international observers. Beyond that, we conducted our own internal review involving our regular and ad hoc officials and subsequently expanded it to include political parties, civil society organisations, security agencies, media organisations.
“From the review, we identified 178 recommendations. We then categorised them into three areas for the purpose of implementation. We have gone ahead to implement many of the recommendations that require administrative action by the Commission.
“Shortly after it was signed into law, the Commission released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Election which contains 14 activities out of which two have already been implemented. These are the publication of the Notice of Election and the availability of nomination forms on a dedicated portal for downloading by political parties.
“With regard to the 2019 General Election, the EU Observation Mission made 30 recommendations out of which 11 concern the electoral Commission directly. Three of them were identified as priority recommendations while 8 are categorised as general.
“The priority recommendations include the improvement of organisational and operational capacity of the Commission as well as the management of election outcome, particularly the availability and public access to results from Polling Units and collation centres.
“Since 2019, we have made progress, including the creation of a new Gender and Inclusivity Department as well as the Litigation and Prosecution Department. We have similarly expanded voter access to Polling Units for the first time in 25 years by converting the erstwhile 56,872 Voting Points and Voting Point (Settlements) into Polling Units and relocation some of them from congested locations to unserved and under-served locations, bringing the total number of Polling Units to 176,846.
“We must admit that in many States we are struggling to achieve a more balanced distribution of voters to polling units. However, this is a priority project for the Commission which will be accomplished before the 2023 General Election,” he said.
Speaking further, Prof Yakubu said: “Clearly, the biggest progress made by the Commission since 2019 is in the area of deepening the deployment of technology in elections. INEC is the first electoral commission in West Africa, if not Africa as a whole, to upload Polling Unit level results to a portal in real-time on Election Day.
“In addition, there are other portals for ease of nomination of candidates and submission of list of Polling Agents by political parties and the accreditation of media, domestic and international observers.
“We have also made a huge progress in the area of voter accreditation through the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). We have carried out a number of pilots and in spite of the challenges encountered in some locations, we are convinced about its efficacy.
“In the six bye-elections conducted last weekend in 4 States of the Federation, the device performed optimally in both rural, sub-urban and urban areas where the elections were held. We will continue to carry out more pilot test of the BVAS and deploy the same device in the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun Governorship elections and ultimately the 2023 General Election,” he promised.
Speaking earlier, the head of EU Observation Follow Up Mission, Chief Observer, Maria Arenaand Ambassador to Nigeria, Samuel Isopi had commended the Commission over the conduct of the elections.