INEC/DGD EXPERIENCE SHARING AND CONFIDENCE BUILDING WORKSHOP WITH POLITICAL PARTIES ON VOTERS’ REGISTER, CONTINUOUS VOTER REGISTRATION AND PERMANENT VOTERS’ CARD ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE CHAIRMAN INEC, PROF. ATTAHIRU M. JEGA, OFR, AT THE TRANSCORP HILTON, ABUJA, ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2013 Courtesies Today represents yet another significant opportunity for us in INEC to meet and interact with one of the most critical segments in the electoral process as represented by the political parties. This is in line with the Commission’s resolve to embark on a series of regular engagements with critical stakeholders as we prepare for the conduct of the 2015 general elections. As part of lessons learnt following a comprehensive review of the 2011 general elections, enhanced stakeholder engagement was identified as one key area where the Commission needs to invest more energy and resources on. This important recommendation is already being implemented in the form of regular engagement with critical stakeholders as exemplified by the introduction of Quarterly Meetings between the political parties and the Commission beginning from this year, with the Third Quarterly Meeting scheduled to hold on September 24, 2013. These regular meetings have proved very useful in assisting the Commission to bridge the communication gaps that hitherto existed, and have also gone a long way in smoothening its relationship with the political parties through the provision of regular briefings and updates on activities and programs. Such meetings afford us the opportunity to share our progress towards repositioning the Commission for the sustained conduct of free, fair and credible elections. Since the 2011 general elections, the repositioning of the Commission has been pursued vigorously through a number of measures that included: the creation of a new biometric Register of Voters; use of the Re-Modified Open Ballot System (REMOBS); new security measures for protecting ballot papers and ballot boxes such as colour coding and serial numbering; new result collation and transmission systems; a development of a revised framework for the collation and return of results as well as a revised procedures for recruitment, training, re-training and deployment of regular and Ad-hoc staff during electoral activities. In addition, the Commission also established closer collaboration and partnerships with a range of critical stakeholders (political parties, security agencies, civil society organizations, media practitioners, and so on); expanded and improved voter education and citizen enlightenment programmes; established the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to ensure coordinated engagement of all the security agencies during election periods; developed a five (5) year Strategic Plan and Strategic Programme of Action; commenced the programme of action for delimiting constituencies; established a Citizen Contact Centre (ICCC) responsible for direct and real-time contact between citizens and the Commission on issues regarding the Commissions work (contact: phone: 07098115257; 07098117563 & 07098110916; Web Address: inecnigeria.org; Facebook: facebook/inecnigeria; and Twitter: @inecnigeria). At present, the Commission is engaged in the development of an Election Management Infrastructure that will provide a basic planning framework for the conduct of some of the most critical election-day activities such as tasks, timelines, resources and responsibilities as well as an Election Project Plan. These are just a few among several others that we shall be sharing with you as we move towards 2015. It is, therefore, with great honour and pleasure that I, on behalf of the Commission, welcome the National Women Leaders and Youth Leaders of all the registered political parties represented here in this Workshop. The purpose of the Workshop is to sensitize political parties on, provide information about, and create an environment for robust discussions on two important aspects of our activities, viz: Voter Register Optimization and Permanent Voters Cards (PVC). It, therefore, also aims to provide an opportunity for sharing of knowledge and confidence building as we collectively embark on the journey towards the 2015 general elections. As, I am sure, we are all very much aware, a credible register of voters is a necessary requirement for credible elections. Given the poor state of the register inherited by the present Commission when it came into being on June 30, 2010, compiling a new register of voters became absolutely imperative. This informed the decision to embark on a significant expenditure of time, energy and resources in a new register of voters as we prepared for the April 2011 general elections. In approximately 3 weeks, between January 16 and February 8, 2011, in spite of formidable challenges, a total of 73.5 million eligible voters were registered. The Commission has now been able to establish a huge national asset of databases in each state of the federation and the FCT, as well as at the national level, with equally secure Disaster Recovery Centres. Immediately after the successful completion of the exercise, the compiled voters’ list was consolidated and underwent two levels of de-duplication at the Polling Unit (PU) and the Local Government Area (LGA) levels under the first phase of the data clean-up process. This exercise, through which the data was subjected to screening using the Automated Fingerprint Identification Software (AFIS) software, resulted in the discovery and elimination of a total of 870,000 multiple registration cases ahead of the April 2011 elections. Following the successful conduct of the elections, the consolidated register of voters has since undergone the second stage of the AFIS de-duplication process at the national level. The purpose of this is to optimise the register in order to make it even more credible through the subsequent discovery and elimination of any possible cases of multiple registration. This last stage, which is expected to further improve the integrity of the register of voters, is virtually completed now and the resulting optimised register is currently being used to produce the Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) in preparation for the 2015 general elections. The production of the permanent voters’ cards is in progress and is expected to be completed before the end of the year. Section 10 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) empowers the Commission to carry out regular updates of the register of voters through the CVR exercise; a legal responsibility that was essentially exercised in the breach by past Commissions. In the exercise of these powers, and in Departure from previous Commissions, the present Commission successfully carried out the CVR exercise ahead of the series of governorship elections conducted since the April 2011 general elections in Kogi, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Sokoto and Cross Rivers States. The CVR for Edo elections was, however, suspended following the acrimonious tension in the build-up to the governorship elections, just as that for Ondo was equally suspended for similar reasons. The Commission is now finalising plans to roll-out the CVR across all parts of the country in the last quarter of 2013 to enable all eligible voters who have either turned 18 years of age since the last general elections in 2011, or who did not for one reason or the other register during the last exercise, the opportunity to register and participate in subsequent elections. This national rollout will be preceded by the CVR in Anambra State between August 19 and 25, 2013, ahead of the forthcoming governorship election in that state on November 16, 2011. I am confident that this forum will afford everyone present a deeper and clearer understanding of these issues and an even greater insight into the road maps to their defined objectives. As key players in the electoral process, the Commission expects the knowledge shared during this Workshop to be passed on to the voters and the general public at large through targeted advocacy to both your card-carrying members and supporters alike, thereby engendering public confidence and support for these important activities of the Commission ahead of the forthcoming 2015 general elections. At this juncture, I wish to, on behalf of the Commission, sincerely thank the UNDP and other partner agencies of the Democracy and Good Governance (DGD) Project II for their immense support towards organising this Workshop. Our invited development partners and other distinguished invited guests, let me once again welcome you all to this Workshop and wish you fruitful deliberations.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 14:53:29 +0000
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