A few hours after the shocking announcement of the postponement of Nigeria’s general elections, the chairman of Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, Professor Yakubu Mahmood, addressed the media, offering detailed explanation concerning the decision arrived by the commission and steps to ensure a smooth exercise on the rescheduled date.
Mahmoud was more than an hour late to the briefing initially scheduled for 2PM. It was understood that the INEC boss held a meeting with relevant stakeholders and international observers, ahead of the briefing.
Here are some of the major points made by the Commission’s chairman:
Over 640 Court Cases and 40 Court orders against the Commission: With over 90 political parties and 23,316 candidates vying for various positions at the polls, coupled with 84 million voters casting their votes in 119,973 polling stations, the commission admitted that managing the elections hasn’t been an easy feat.
Mahmmod stated that while the Commission tried to do its part in ensuring that all ballot papers where ready before the main elections despite the tight legal timeframe for nominations, several back and forth cases of nominations and withdrawals has resulted in the Commission being cited in over 600 court cases.
“The Commission has been sued or joined in over 640 court cases arising from the nomination of candidates. As at today, there are 40 different court orders against the Commission on whether to add or drop candidates.”
Distribution of Election Materials Sidetracked by Bad Weather: The statement from the Commission’s Chairman, also revealed the challenges it has experienced in distributing the materials needed to conduct the elections to all its polling units.
“There is usually roughly a one-month window for the Commission to print ballot papers and result sheets and either fly or transport them to several destinations until they finally get to each polling unit. Unfortunately, in the last week, flights within the country have been adversely affected by bad weather.”
As a solution to the problem, the Commission had to rely on slow-moving long haulage vehicles to locations that didn’t have infrastructure supporting air service, despite its previously set up zonal airport hubs in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Maiduguri, Lagos.
Voting Materials destroyed by Fire: Outside logistical challenges, the Commission also had to contend with fire incidents resulting in the destruction of various materials needed for the election.
“In a space of two weeks, we had to deal with serious fire incidents in three of our offices in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State, Qu‘an Pan Local Government Area of Plateau State and our Anambra State Office at Awka.”
These cases caused the destruction of hundreds of PVCs, ballot boxes, electricity generating sets, and more specifically, over 4,600 Smart Card Readers in Anambra state.
Timing of the Polls: The Commission also recorded different challenges peculiar to each state, which made it apparent that the polls couldn’t open simultaneously at 8am Nationwide. A plan the Commission wasn’t willing to go through with, if it intended to maintain the public perception of neutrality.
Logistical Issues Require Time: Taking into account the logistical challenges it was facing, the Commission had intended to move the elections to Sunday, February 17 or Monday, February 18.
However, following consultations with its ICT department, a new date of February 23, 2019 for the Presidential and National Assembly Elections was decided on.
“While the Commission was considering the following Monday 18th February 2019 as an option, our ICT Department advised us that it would require 5 -6 days to reconfigure about 180,000 Smart Card Readers earlier programmed to work only on election day Saturday 16th February 2019.”
All Election Materials Moved Back to the CBN: Following the postponement, Mahmood stated that, most of the sensitive materials needed for the elections, had been carefully returned back to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He also gave the assurance that the materials would be properly audited, to avoid future problems.
Way Forward: Speaking on the way forward, and how the Commission intends to prepare for the upcoming polls to avoid a repeat of Saturday’s event, Mahmood listed its plan for the week.
- Completion/confirmation of deployment Monday 18th February 2019 of materials
- The configuration of the Smart Card Readers Sunday 17th Thursday 21st February 2019
- Receipt and Deployment of sensitive Wednesday 20 and materials to LGAs Thursday 21st February 2019
- Refresher training for ad hoc staff Thursday 21st February 2019
- Deployment of personnel to RACs Friday 22nd of February 2019
- Election Day Saturday 23rd February, 2019.
