By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has categorically stated that the new dates fixed for the 2015 elections cannot be postponed, as doing so would amount to working against the provisions of the constitution.
INEC had, on February 7, 2015, following advice from the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Security Chiefs, postponed the general elections earlier fixed for February 14 and 28.
The general elections were rescheduled to March 28 and April 11 respectively.
The NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), and the Service Chiefs had, in a letter to INEC a week earlier, advised the commission to reschedule the election timetable due to the military’s inability to provide security for the conduct of the polls due to ongoing operations against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east.
During a three-hour drill yesterday in the Senate, Jega stated that the possibility of the rescheduled elections being further extended was unlikely, given the fact that there is no constitutional ground for doing so.
He said: “I don’t see how anybody will contemplate any extension beyond these six weeks. There are no constitutional grounds upon which you can do that. It will only have to be unconstitutional. I don’t see how anybody will contemplate any unconstitutional means.
“For us, we work by the constitution, by the law and, far as we are concerned, that is what is guiding us and we should all put the interest of the nation at heart.
“I kept saying consistently that INEC is not a security organisation. We are an election management body, so we rely a lot on security to be able to ensure that things are done well and that there is no disruption of the electoral process.
“We have been working very closely with the inter agencies consultative committee on election security, and that is why for us if the Service Chiefs say that ‘we can’t guarantee security, give us more time,’ what is the alternative security arrangement and if we consulted with the stakeholders and we cannot find an answer.
“We are going to use close to 700,000 ad hoc staff. We can’t send people to the field in that kind of a situation.
“Our hope and prayer is that in the next six weeks there will be significant improvement in the security situation for us to be doing elections all over this country in a much secured environment.
“There are certain questions that we are not really competent to answer. Certain questions should be directed to the military, they can answer it better.”
On the efficiency of the card readers to be used during the forthcoming elections, the chairman said: “We have done functionality and durability tests on the card readers with a local partner, a company that tries FRID with their technical partner in Texas, and there were 13 specific tests that were done about functionality, durability and versatility and the card reader has passed all the tests.
“We have done some tests and the results we have are about 90 per cent successful. We feel comfortable that the card readers can be used and add value to the electoral process. It cannot be perfect. It may not be able to read every finger and that is why we agree with political parties.”
According to him, out of 182,000 card readers ordered by INEC, only 503 had failed to work, a figure which, he added, represents 0.03 per cent of the total purchase.
Jega, however, said in an event where a card reader fails during accreditation, arrangements were already in place by the commission to have same repaired or replaced within the time of accreditation, which is between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., and lost time added to accreditation period.
On the issue of high rate of PVC collection in three states under emergency rule, Jega said: “Why should anyone blame me for that? There is need for us to have clarity on this matter. In Yobe, only two local governments are under emergency rule and the state is among the second phase in the distribution of the PVCs. In Yobe, along with about 11 other states, we distributed cards as long as July 2014. So, if the rate of collection has gone very high, I don’t see why that should be seen as a problem.
“The same thing in Adamawa. Only four local government areas are inaccessible and we devised a system where cards can be distributed in IDPs. So, as many as had been displaced but who had registered have been able to collect their cards.
“But when you look at the way newspapers do their analysis, they tend to project it as if there is regional slant in the distribution of the cards.
“When we designed the distribution of cards, we did it in such a manner that we took two states each from each geo-political zone to make a phase and we did it in three phases just to avoid being accused of this regional slant in the distribution of PVC.
“It will be wrong to assume that Yobe or any other state have higher rate of collection. If people come out to collect and other people did not, why should we be blamed for that?”
According to him, only one million PVCs are yet to be produced for the commission out of the 68 million cards billed for registered voters in the country.