Attahiru_Jega_375793870Pan Yoruba socio-polit­ical group, Afenifere, has a grouse to grind with the Chairman of Independent National Elec­toral Commission (INEC) Professor Attahiru Jega. The revered body is demanding his immediate resignation.
The reason for that has to do with the insistence of the INEC boss on going ahead with the allocation of the con­troversial 30, 000 new polling units in the country.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, scores of other associations and Nigerians have also tackled Jega over the project. But, so far the man ap­pears not ready to backpedal on it.
It was based on his insistence to allocate the new polling units that Afenifere stepped out on Wednesday to demand his res­ignation. As far as the body is concerned Jega’s arrangements for the 2015 general election are suspect.
Speaking after the group’s meeting held at the residence of its national leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, the Ondo State chair­man of Afenifere, Chief Korede Duyile, said the Federal Govern­ment should alternatively relieve Jega of the appointment as the electoral boss before next year’s election.
Afenifere said it was disturbed by the INEC boss’ body lan­guage predicting that the result of the election may turn out not to be acceptable to majority of Nigerians .
His words: “You will recall that the Southern leader’s forum met in Abuja and decried the attempt to create the 30,000 polling cen­tres whereby over 21,000 was allocated to the North and just above 8,000 was allocated to the South. We feel that this will fur­ther worsen the dichotomy be­tween the North and the South.
“The meeting reiterated its last decision, calling on Profes­sor Jega to resign his position, as most voters in Yorubaland and, indeed, most parts of Nigeria, especially the South, have lost confidence in him. It is clear that Jega will be a curse that will af­fect the integrity of the election and consequently cause crisis in Nigeria. If he insists on creating the 30,000 polling centres as be­ing presently pursued by him.”
Pre-empting what some peo­ple might say about the timing of the call for the INEC boss re­moval , he argued that removing Jega four months to the election would not have any effect on the peaceful conduct of the 2015 elections in the state.
Duyile said, “There is already a structure on ground in INEC. So it does not mean that a par­ticular person should be there. I admit that a person can make changes and have effect on it but even if a new person is cho­sen today since the structure is there, all the directors are there and all other commissioners are there so once the people lose confidence in INEC, then they will lose confidence in the whole electoral process.
“At the end of the day the re­sult will be un acceptable no matter how good it is. We feel that Jega’s action is based on cer­tain unclear issues.
“We do not want to fall into a situation that we had when local government were created under military and the South was con­strained particularly Yoruba land and now during consideration of the new constitution it was said that we should go into govern­ment first, let us take over from the military we will be tidying up all others.
“But up till today, 14years after ,we are still using that consti­tution. So we have to be care­ful we do not go into bondage again. There are lots of issues, because Jega’s actions is against our interest and this organisation is to fight for the interest of our people”
He insisted that “Jega is pursu­ing a course that will affect the credibility of the next general election if he insists on going ahead with the creation of the additional polling units”.
“We believe that Jega is acting on this based on uninformed is­sues. His actions are against the interest of the south of this coun­try,” Duyile said.
Jega is aware that several Ni­gerians especially from the South are not at home with the project. Internally, he is also facing huge battle with some National Com­missioners who have openly op­posed the proposal. But the man has adduced his own reason for insisting on the policy.
He submitted that the “policy is driven by collective aspirations of Nigerians to improve electoral process beyond 2015”.
This claim has since been punctured by some Nigerians. At the recent Southern leaders con­ference held in Lagos , speaker after speaker flayed the policy and argued that it will further widen political cleavages be­tween the South and the North.
Some people have picked holes in Jega’s recent claim that the polling units have not yet been created. “Dr Ambrose Umoh, a political analyst argued that the claim was meant to di­vert the attention of the public from the reality.
He submitted that the INEC leadership was deceiving the public it claims to serve by in­sisting in public that the Poll­ing Units have not been created while at the same time Jega was issuing official memos and cir­culars giving deadlines of on or before Thursday October 30th 2014 to all INEC state of­fices to implement the allocation of 30,000 new Polling units?
“This matter is straightforward , we are not fools , we have been following what have been hap­pening in INEC in recent times. The Chairman has already issued memo to his men across the country to implement the new policy. “
Very well Jega has devoted much time and energy to exon­erate himself of any blame in the policy. But he is yet to con­firm or disprove claims that he did not consult with stakehold­ers before firming up the policy. There are claims that even when key stakeholders like National Commissioners, Resident Com­missioners, INEC Operation Directors of 36 states, Security agencies’ negative report and letter to Jega, Chairmen of po­litical parties, UPN court action – all advised against the proposed creation of these 30,000 polling units he ignored the advice.
He only put up an argument that the policy was not designed to benefit only the north.
He said “No sectional or paro­chial, agenda,it is only meant to decongest overcrowding in poll­ing units and new settlements”
But Umoh does not consider the argument of addressing sa­lient issues. He noted that if no sectional agenda is involved in the policy how come out of 12 states which got 1000 new PUs 11 are all in one section of the country while many states with more voters strength in the oth­er section got less than 300 new polling units?
He asked “Is decongestion more valuable in only one sec­tion of the country? What evi­dence of new settlements was used to give more new polling units to Yobe than Osun State or Cross River ? Is this from GIS ca­dastral mapping or field reports from INEC corroborated by re­gional planners?”
He also dismissed claims that “INEC has no Post-Busi­ness Rule register”. As far as he is concerned this is a contradic­tion. He hinged his argument on the ground that it is a common knowledge that INEC is the only body in Nigeria that has been using the phrase ‘’Post Business Rule Register” in relation to its electoral activities.
He said “The ‘’Post Afis Regis­ter” contains electorate who do not have complete finger thumb-prints or the minimum two finger print threshold, those with no photo or faded photo.
That is why the AFIS register is not used for the conduct of election nor printing of perma­nent voters card (PVC). But the post business rule is the register of the highest clean up stage that contains names of voters with complete required minimum fin­gers thumbprints, an opposite of the Afis register that is deficient in integrity and completeness.”
The views of a source in INEC corroborated the posi­tion of Umoh. The source who pleaded for anonymity explained it is for the reason given above that INEC used it in the conduct of elections in states like Anam­bra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun. He said that it will be used for the 2015 election.
Not long ago, in his public ad­dress in the stakeholder briefings in recent elections, Jega repeat­edly said the ‘’Post-Business Rule Register’’ was the most credible and was the basis for the produc­tion of the distributed PVCs in over 24 states and the proposed PVC distribution exercise that is meant to go on in another 12 states including Lagos and Kano . There were all based on this same post-business-rule.
Umoh argued that if the INEC boss is now retreating from his earlier stance and wants invali­date the register , the only expla­nation that would suffice is sim­ply that it does not “serve his purpose of sectional allocation “
To be fair to the electoral body , it has been making known some of its programmes and challeng­es . For instance ,after Initial reg­istration the unscanned voters register had 73.5million eligible voters. but after AFIS the figure came to 70,383.427 registered voters. But Umoh is faulting the INEC chairman on this.
Hear him “ ls he saying that the only valid register of voters in the country as at the moment is 70,383.427 voters? Is that the figure that was used to produce the PVCs and register used for all the elections he has conducted recently and perhaps plans to use for the 2015 election?
“What is the value of eligible voters after recent clean up through AFIS was done and PVCs distributed?”
He insisted that It is a statu­tory right of contesting parties to be given a clean copy of the extant voters register in each jurisdiction. Umoh who is also a university lecturer in the depart­ment of political science further asked “Has Prof. Jega forgotten that in the elections conducted in Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and several by-elections, his INEC gave political parties the ‘’Post Business Rule’’ register figures that are different from his cur­rent claim of existence of only Afis ?
Some people are not pointing fingers at Jega only on the issue of new polling units and AFIS, they are also concerned about the INEC Chairman’s stand on the matter concerning security.
The INEC boss had recently pledged that security arrange­ments will be better than in 2011. But a group, Youth for Democ­racy led by Adamu Shuibu was at the National Assembly and expressed fears that the 2015 elections might be compromised if the issue of security of votes is taking lightly by the lawmakers. For the security of electoral pro­cess should be considered more paramount than any other thing.
Shuibu who spoke on behalf of others contended that securi­ty of personnel and materials on election day lies on security per­sonnel but security of the elec­toral process is the responsibility of INEC . According to him one if such electoral processes is a reliable voter register. He insist­ed that a credible voter register will be the basis for all logistics including ballot paper printing and the evaluation of materials and voting spaces that will be required.
Umoh is afraid that the cur­rent INEC may not achieve it . He argued this may be a tall or­der especially in view of the fact that at three months to election, INEC chairman is ,arguably, try­ing to “make the electorate buy into his claims on a post-AFIS register instead of the ‘’post busi­ness rule’’ that has been com­pleted and used with fidelity in recent elections. How does the Post-AFIS register of 2011 take account of people who have been 18years since 2012 on­wards and those who registered in the continuous voter registra­tion exercise? What is the status of the new PUs in the light of these fluid figures 3 months to the General Election? Is INEC not creating uncertainties for a deliberate purpose?”
No doubt Jega is aware of the growing criticism of some of his policies especially his insistence on executing the 30,000new poll­ing units project . He is also in the know that he is likely to court more enemies if he insist on hav­ing his way in all of them. What, probably, he may not be aware of now is the consequence (s) of ignoring the the advice and feel­ings of the multitude of people kicking against his plans .