I am not an ethnic jingoist — INEC boss.... The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, last Wednesday, addressed the media on the Commission’s controversial proposal to create 30,000 additional polling units across the country. He answered questions from reporters who attended the briefing. Below are excerpts of the question and answer session. Did the states currently under emergency rule, which have witnessed exodus of residents, also benefit from the newly created polling units ? Our expectation is that whatever is happening in the states under emergency rule now is temporary. Those who are displaced from their places of abode would definitely come back one day. You cannot say we should not create new polling units when we have information that people registered in those areas simply because they are temporarily dislocated from their communities. This is our stand. The information we obtained from registered voters in those areas is what we are using to create additional polling units. Everybody hopes that normalcy would be restored in those areas before the 2015 general elections. Will INEC reverse its decision on the creation of the controversial 30,000 polling units? Frankly, I don’t think that the question arises. We have taken a decision and we have not even implemented it. Many people who have misunderstood our decision did so because of lack of information, some perhaps out of mischief. But we are hoping that this kind of clarification we are providing would make people understand that, in the first place, there is no hidden agenda so that we can make progress. What is very clear is that many people are taking very hard positions on this matter even though they are ill- informed, very passionate and emotive about it. So, all we are saying is that we are here to pass the correct information so that the people can see that there is no hidden agenda. Various groups from the southern part of the country have called for your resignation or sack from office. How do you convince the nation that you deserve to retain your job? My response is that when enlightened people receive the information we have provided, many of them would reverse the stand they have taken. Our approach on this matter is to start educating the people. We would also disseminate this information as widely as possible to the various stakeholders in the electoral process. When we do this, the issues would become clearer. There are, of course, a few mischief makers who want to cause confusion and turn everything in this country into a debate along the North/South divide or into an ethnic or religious contest. That is not the case as far as INEC is concerned in the proposed creation of additional polling units. If somebody wants to be mischievous, there is nothing we can do about that. Clear thinking Nigerians would see the facts for what they are. I believe that all rational thinking people in those groups you have mentioned would change their stand when they get this clarification. What we are trying to do is in the best interest of this country. Anybody can say anything. People are entitled to hold their own opinions. This is not the first time people have called for my resignation or sack. I am not bothered by such calls so long as I remain the Chairman of INEC. Forget about my being sacked, any one of us could fall and die tomorrow. But, so long as I am here, I would do what I think is right. We did not lobby anybody to get appointed into this position, but we were brought because people knew we would do the right thing. That is what we have been doing, and we would continue to do so. I have said it before and I would repeat here that I would not wait until I am fired. Any day I feel I can’t do this job to satisfy my conscience, I would leave. I am in INEC to do a national service and I believe that I am making sacrifices. This does not apply to myself alone but all the National Commissioners. Many INEC staff are honest and sincere people who are doing their best in their various positions under very difficult circumstances and we would continue to do so for our country. Fortunately, if we don’t have the opportunity to serve our country here, we will do it somewhere else. What is your reaction to the allegation that the additional polling units were deliberately created to favour the North? When you get the document we have provided here, please go through it thoroughly and you will understand there is no basis at all to talk about favoring any part of the country. What is the total number of registrants on the voters register after the Commission subjected them to post-automated fingerprint information software, AFIS, and post-business rule ? How many voters in the post-AFIS register have turned up to collect their Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, and how many with incomplete data have turned up for Continuous Voters Registration, CVR? The figure we got after the post-AFIS process was 70,383,427. That is the total number of registered voters in post-AFIS. We arrived at this figure after we removed the names of all those who were involved in double registration in 2011. What we have done in two phases across the country was to distribute PVCs and conduct CVRs. So far, we distributed PVCs in 22 states and FCT, remaining 13 states. We would distribute the remaining PVCs across the remaining 13 states. The rate of collection of PVCs during the first phase was about 57 percent. By the time we did the second phase distribution, the rate of collection had gone up to 67 percent. Nigerians have up to next January to collect their PVCs. How would voters know where to vote if they have been allocated to any of the new polling units you are about to create given the fact that the general elections are around the corner? I can tell you categorically that it is not too late to create the additional polling units. Our hope is that by the time we finish the Adamawa election, slated for October 11, we would expect our officers across the states to give us feedback information on their readiness to create the new polling units. The Commission will then take a decision. Once that is done, we would have November and December 2014, January 2015 and up till the 3rd of February to sensitize Nigerians about it. There is really no problem at all. Why is the Commission planning to create additional polling units when it has not concluded its efforts to delimit constituencies across the country? Creation of additional polling units and delimitation of constituencies were designed to achieve different objectives. Creation of polling units was done for the last time in 1996. We had wanted both new polling units and new constituencies before the 2015 general elections. Creation of polling units is administrative. It begins and ends within the Commission. But for the delimitation of constituencies, we have to consult various stakeholders including the communities and the National Assembly. It can only come into effect when it is considered by the National Assembly and passed by a joint resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives. We have done our best in this regard. But we have realized that it is not possible to delimit the constituencies between now and the 2015 elections. So, we have reduced our work in that area but that does not mean we have stopped working on that project. But what could be possibly done is to create new polling units. The purpose for creating new constituencies is to ensure equal representation. For instance, as I speak with you, there are members of some federal constituencies at the National Assembly who represent 400,000 people while some represent about 1.5 million and even others up to three million people. This means that some constituencies are by far larger than others. How can somebody be representing 400,000 people while another is representing three million people? The idea of delimiting constituencies is to ensure that each person elected to represent a constituency represents nearly equal number of people. But doing that is more complicated and controversial than creating polling units. But the fact that we would not delimit constituencies before the 2015 elections does not mean we would not create polling units. The idea of creating new polling units is to make it easier for us to organise an election and for the voters to find it easier to vote within a short time. That is the purpose of creating polling units. It confers no advantage on anybody. In fact, some polling units existed in the forest in the past. People cooked up figures at such polling units but this is not possible under the present dispensation. But there is the fear that some of the additional polling units about to be created may be fictitious. But this is not possible. We have moved away from that. Every polling unit that would be created would serve a particular population because it is going to be based on the voters register. Imagine the relief somebody who voted in a polling unit with 4,000 voters during the last election would feel when he goes there in 2015 and meets a population of only 400 people. Would it not have been better for INEC to wait until after all the PVC distribution and CVR would have been concluded before embarking on this exercise? What would be the justification for waiting? Is it not the case that if INEC waits for CVR to be concluded, it would have the final figure of all registered voters in the country and this figure could then be used for the purpose of creating new polling units? What percentage difference would this make? The percentage difference would be insignificant. If we decide to wait until we conclude the CVR around November, there is no reason to wait and if we wait till November, there would be no time to do it again before the elections. All this talk about waiting is coming from people who don’t want the polling units to be created. What arrangement did the Commission make for creation of new polling units for displaced persons from the North-east who have relocated to the South-east in large numbers? That has been adequately catered for. When you look at the figures in the table we gave you, you can see it very clearly. If additional polling units need to be cited where they are needed, it would be done. The problem that arises in this kind of situation is that of availability of figures. Do we have the figure of people who relocated from the North-east to Onitsha and Aba? If we have the figure, we could sit down and analyse whether the figure of polling units given to the South-east states are adequate or not. That is how to proceed rationally. If you look at the table I have given you, and check Abia State, you would observe that the additional polling units proposed for that state would take care of this kind of demographic shift you have just mentioned. If the Commission creates polling units in places where people have been displaced as a result of insurgency and the population of such communities remain sparse during next year’s election, won’t it be possible for politicians to exploit the situation to cook up figures? This Commission is not in the business of producing fictitious results and our records have clearly spoken for us. We have done everything possible to prevent people from sending fictitious result. On election days, there would be both local and international observers. There is no way fictitious results could be returned in 2015 because we are going to use card readers. A voter has to appear in person before he can vote. Do you have any evidence that fictitious result was declared since we assumed office? Let us not be hostages of our fears because if we do that we would not be able to move. Many of the adverts that you are reading in the papers were sponsored by fictitious organisations with fictitious names. You journalists should do your investigation and find out those behind all these. Such people don’t want any change or progress and the only way they can achieve their aim is by introducing religion and ethnicity into everything about this country. I can be accused of any other thing but I am not an ethnic or religious jingoist. That also applies to other members of the Commission. My antecedents are there...
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 10:31:41 +0000
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