By Hillary Asemota
The Chairman, The Electoral Hub, Prof. Adebayo Olukoshi, and other Political Experts: Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, Prof. Adele Jinadu, former INEC, National Commissioner, Hajia Amina Zakari and other stakeholders have called for institutionalization of better electoral governance to advance the country’s political growth.
Speaking at the 11th technical session of the Forum organized in conjunction with the Madiba Foundation, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and MacArthur Foundation in Abuja, recently the stakeholders averred that there is the urgent need to emplace an effective framework that will ensure the survival of political parties after post-election circle.
Precursory to the meeting, Prof. Olukoshi, in his introductory remark noted that the imperative role of political parties in Nigeria’s democratic process, and the credibility/quality of elections has been a recurrent issue of concern for the Forum.
He argued that the convergence will zero on political parties in the quest for strengthening democratic governance and the securing and deepening of electoral integrity in the country.
In his own remark, Prof. Jinadu, noted that the struggle for democracy has been a perpetual attempt to expand the political space, inclusion, participation and accountability, adding that political parties and the party system in Nigeria have been shaped by a complex intersection of colonial-rule-induced fusion of ethno-regionalism coupled with long term experience with military rule.
Political parties, Prof. Jinadu, asserted have tendency to morph internal oligarchies of the rich and powerful who are in full control of these parties, which raises concerns about internal democracy.
“These challenges, he observed, have subsisted to present times as evident in the rush for ethnic voting blocs during the 2023 general elections. Consequently, the country today has neither a national party nor national leader.”
In her presentation, former INEC National Commissioner, Mrs. Amina Zakari, acknowledged that INEC has made efforts at engaging and strengthening political parties though beset by some challenges.
She said: “These efforts include monitoring party finance, convention and primaries, capacity-building programmes, and enforcement of requirements of national spread and presence in the FCT.”
The success of these efforts according to her, is however limited by trust gaps between parties and INEC, disregard for electoral rules by political parties, malfeasance by some staff of the commission. Zakari, canvassed that parties should be strengthened to ensure their survival after elections.
Presently, we have 9 parties with elected representatives at the National and State Assemblies, a diversity which might be lost if parties are not strengthened, she said.
“INEC department on Election and Party Monitoring should be reorganised and reinforced to focus strictly on political parties’ matters – registration, regulations, monitoring etc. also, campaign finance monitoring should be given more visibility.
“INEC should collaborate with CSO, and former INEC non-partisan staff in monitoring political party elections, congresses and conventions, particularly, their primaries.
“Capacity building programmes should be organized for political parties, including the full-time staff who run the day-to-day operations of the parties. Also, elected officials of political parties should undertake induction sessions organised by them as well as by INEC.
“On the imperative of strengthening INEC’s impartiality in monitoring political parties, efforts should be exerted at de-politicising the appointment of members of the Commission, including the Chairperson and National Commissioners, and Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).” The former National Commissioner said.
The outcome of both the physical and virtual roundtable which was later signed by Olukoshi, said it was however organized to commemorate the International Democracy Day by the Hub in the quest for a new Nigeria.
The chairman, reiterated that the meeting was focused on providing an opportunity for stakeholders to share their experiences, document the experiences of former ad-hoc staff, educate participants about the electoral process, and propose policy improvements in ad-hoc staff management that served in the 2023 general elections and the 2022 off-cycle governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States, CSOs, and Academia.
He said: “Specifically, the Roundtable had Zakari who chaired the Roundtable and Ibeanu, the lead presenter.
Also present were INEC FCT Administrative Secretary Alhaji Musa Husumu, Heads of Department, Ishaq Garba Aliyu, Antonia Idemudia, and Agness Sam-Akpe; Africa Director, MacArthur Foundation, Dr. Kole Shettima; and Programme Manager, Madiba Foundation, Ozoho Otonoku.
The Director of The Electoral Hub, Princess Hamman-Obels, in her welcome remark, outlined the objectives of the Roundtable as:
• document the rich and diverse experiences of these ad-hoc staff, using their valuable insights as lessons that will enlighten and guide electoral staff management.
• empower participants through comprehensive training on understanding the intricacies of the electoral process. This is to cultivate a cadre of electoral advocates who are not just informed but passionately committed to safeguarding the integrity of our electoral process.
• recommend policy improvements regarding the management of ad-hoc staff in our electoral process.
Ultimately, the roundtable provided an opportunity for reflections on a wide range of issues affecting ad-hoc staff performance in particular, and the Nigerian electoral process in general with a view of proffering workable recommendations, he said.
Participants, he said, highlighted the crucial role of ad-hoc staff, as key stakeholders in the electoral process, responsible for protecting its integrity and capable of thwarting the process, explaining that Ibeanu, in his lead reflection likened the role of electoral staff to the two faces of the mythical Roman god, Janus.
According to him, electoral officials, like Janus, have both faces, the good one capable of making elections and the bad one, capable of marring the integrity of elections.
He further pointed out in his lead reflections that for electoral ad-hoc staff to perform optimally and uphold the integrity of electoral process, three qualities are required – knowledge, courage and carriage.
Reflections on recently concluded elections were also offered, especially by FCT INEC HoDs that were present at the Roundtable. Ishaq Garba Aliyu, the HoD Electoral Operations highlighted the achievements of the 2023 general elections, underscoring the high level of preparations that went into the process and the logistics and technological challenges encountered.
Antonia Idemudia, HoD ICT, pointed out the advancements made in applying technology to various aspects of electoral conduct in Nigeria as well as the limitations of technology. Agness Sam-Akpe, the HoD Voter Education and Publicity also highlighted efforts at voter education deployed by the Commission during the 2023 general elections and challenges with accessibility of local communities.
There were also reflections by Presiding Officers (POs) and Assistant Presiding Officers (APOs), Supervisory Presiding Officers (SPOs) and Collation Officers (COs), Registration Area Technical Support (RATechs), and Election Observers.
These reflections focused on issues of recruitment and training of ad-hoc staff, deployment and activation of RACs, election day activities, election technology, and post election reverse logistics. Among other things, group members identified several challenges limiting the effectiveness of each of these areas of electoral conduct and ad-hoc staff management. Among the challenge identified were the recruitment of under-qualified personnel as ad-hoc staff, inadequate training, late activation of RACs, inadequate remuneration of electoral ad-hoc staff, inadequate security, technological failure and challenges stemming from inadequate support infrastructure, and challenge with reverse-logistics. Potential adverse consequences of these challenges create a need for concerted action by concerned stakeholders.
In conclusion, and having identified some key issues affecting the performance of ad-hoc staff, as well as limiting the quality and credibility of the Nigerian electoral process, The Roundtable proposed the following among other recommendations:
– There should be an upward review of remuneration of electoral officials and staff as a step towards encouraging them to uphold the integrity and credibility of the electoral process.
– Electoral officials, especially the Chairman and National Commissioners, should be considered for national honours and other forms of national recognition.
– All electoral staff, including ad-hoc staff, should be required to declare any conflict of interest before deployment on election duties.
– All malpractices and breaches of the electoral process, either by permanent or ad-hoc staff, politicians, security agents, and electorates should be punished in line with the legal provisions.
– INEC should establish a direct link with security persons posted to the various polling units. Information about the full deployment of security agents including PU posted for electoral duty should be available to INEC.
– INEC should revise duties of collation officers for the different elections to better manage collation time and performance as collators of National Assembly Election Results (consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives Elections) collate twice as much results as the collation officers of the Presidential Elections do.
– Security should be treated as a collective responsibility. Security agencies, civil society actors, ad-hoc staff, voters and all other stakeholders in the electoral process should take steps towards protecting electoral materials and personnel.
– Physical screening should be conducted before ad-hoc staff are recruited. This will present a stronger check against the recruitment of unqualified persons.
– INEC should ensure that recruited personnel possess the requisite educational qualification. This will address challenges with poor understanding of electoral process and duties by ad-hoc staff.
– The use of video and audio instruction materials is highly recommended to improve ad-hoc staff understanding of the election process, their roles, responsibilities and duties.
– The pre- and post-screening test with a recommended pass rate should be administered to ensure that recruits for ad-hoc staff duty are persons with adequate understanding of their duties and responsibilities.
– Registration Area Centres should be opened early and adequate security should be provided to ensure the protection of sensitive and non-sensitive electoral materials as well as electoral staff.
– Registration Area Centres should be made habitable. Adequate facilities including lighting, mattrasses, convenience, etc. should be provided at RACs.
– Adequate provisions for logistics should be provided. This should include logistics considerations that address the needs of physically challenged, pregnant women, new mothers, aged, amongst others.
– The stipend paid to SPOs for transportation should be increased or transportation fare be paid to vehicle operators to convey SPOs across their areas of electoral duty. PU conducts impact SPOs work, and if transportation fare is not adequate, SPOs cannot function optimally.
– Consideration should be given to the recruitment of more SPOs as SPOs were observed to be overwhelmed by the number of PUs they needed to handle.
– The Commission should explore the possibility of engaging private logistics companies. Private logistics companies are driven by the profit motive and the persons at the top would not be willing to compromise on the quality of their business. As such, issues of logistics failure can be better addressed.
