National Council of State, NCS, met for over seven hours on Thursday at the presidential villa Abuja. The meeting was called at the behest of President Goodluck Jonathan for the present and past leaders of the country to brainstorm on issues surrounding the forthcoming general election.
Apart from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, all former elected and military leaders and state governors were in attendance at the meeting. Since the major issue on the agenda was the arrangements for the conduct of the election, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was summoned to brief the council on the preparedness of the commission to conduct the polls.
At the end of the marathon meeting, two governors were delegated to jointly brief the press on the outcome. The governors, Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo and Rochas Okorocha of Imo who represented the PDP and APC, respectively, could not even agree on what actually transpired at the meeting in terms of the final outcome of the council.
Whereas Okorocha told the reporters that the council advised INEC to carry on with its plans and perform its civic responsibility as earlier planned, Mimiko said that INEC was told to go and consult further with stakeholders and see if it was possible to go ahead with the election or not.
Mimiko said this: “Council of State, in a meeting close to seven hours, discussed essentially the state of preparedness of INEC (for the elections). INEC had the benefit of input from council members and security chiefs and agencies. And based on the very exhaustive discussion and advice, INEC is constitutionally empowered with the basis of the discussion, to brief the nation and then the news will be communicated to you.”
Asked if there was a shift in date, the Ondo State governor said: “Like I made it absolutely clear, I am not INEC. The INEC chief will appropriately brief you based on the meeting we just had. INEC is going to consult widely with stakeholders and come up with a decision that they will brief the nation on soon.
“The Council of State is essentially an advisory body. Mr. President, in his wisdom, invited INEC to brief us on the state of preparedness and based on what INEC briefed us and based on the perception of council members and security agencies, INEC was properly advised and you will hear from INEC.”
He stressed: “For any avoidance of doubt, like I said, INEC had the benefit of inputs and perspectives from council members. Issues of distribution of PVCs (permanent voters’ cards), card readers, the extent of piloting to ensure that people are familiar with this, security issues, all of these were discussed.
“The issue of the fact that seven days to election 34 per cent of Nigerians are yet to get their PVCs was also raised. It was a major issue that was discussed.
“Issues of preparedness and security to conduct elections nationwide, issue of extensive pilot of the card readers, which is a new technology was also brought to the fore.
“All of these were discussed but ultimately, council being an advisory body to take advantage of the different perspectives of the council members, allowed everyone to air their views on the election.”
However, Okorocha said: “NCS advised INEC to go and perform its civic responsibility which is to conduct elections. That is what we rose to agree. It was a very challenging moment, and INEC has reaffirmed severally that they are ready.
“But because of the concern of security agencies in some few local government areas, council asked INEC to go and perform its civic responsibility, which is the conduct of elections.”
Asked if there was a decision on the change of date for the polls, he said: “There was no decision as to the change of dates or postponement at all. But the council has asked INEC to go and perform its responsibility.”
However, contrary to what was reported in some media, the Nigerian Pilot Sunday can authoritatively report that the INEC chairman told the Council that the electoral body is not 100 percent ready for the election and needs additional time to tidy a lot of loose ends.
In his briefing to the Council of States titled “Preparations for the 2015 General Elections Progress Report” INEC Chairman talked on several contentious issues including PVC Production & Distribution, Card Reader technology, Sensitive and Non Sensitive electoral Materials, Voter Awareness and Security concerns in the North East.
In his conclusion, Jega remarked that the commission is yet to perfect its level of preparedness but believes that it is ready as he frankly suggested that the elections may be postponed by six weeks given the security report in four North East states.
Jega told the Council that the printing of the PDF hard copies of the Register of voters to be used for the elections in the polling units and voting points has commenced in virtually all the states. He disclosed that the initial challenges caused by the late delivery of new printers, which delayed commencement in some states have been since overcome.
On the production and distribution of PVCs, Jega said a total of 45,098,876 or 65.81% of the total have been collected by voters and about 34% of the PVCs are yet to be collected by the voters.
Shedding light on the PVC Card Readers, the INEC boss declared that the commission ordered for the production and delivery of 182,000 customised CRs, sufficient for 150, 829 voting points, VPs, plus redundancies. Out of this number, 154,500 have since been delivered and distributed to the states and FCT. The remaining balance of 27,500 has been produced and shipped and was expected on Wednesday February 4th but did not confirm if the balance was actually delivered as scheduled.
According to him, “In the highly unlikely event that a CR fails, we have enough spares to deploy before the end of accreditation at 1PM and adjust the time to gain lost time.”
On non-sensitive materials, Jega said “there were delays in respect of sending the materials to Borno and Yobe states, because we have to keep them longer in the Zonal store until adequate security arrangements have been made to transport them to the states. A couple of months ago, INEC’s State office in Yobe was damaged by insurgents and 11 Hilux vehicles carted away.”
He admitted that timelines have been missed in respect of the supply/delivery of some of the non sensitive materials to the states.
On the Recruitment and Training of Ad hoc (Temporary) election Personnel, he said that larger number of Ad hoc Staff will be used in 2015 compared with 2011, the training his slightly more challenging. He said that the commission needs more time to train the ad-hoc staff that will operate Card readers.
“With the benefit of hindsight, and given the new technology of PVC and CR, we could do with more days of especially hands-on training for POs and APOs. Regrettably we cannot do that due to funding constraints. Also a more decentralised, LGA level training with smaller numbers on classroom would have been ideal.”
Since the constitution did not give any room for staggered presidential election, Prof Jega said the issue of insurgency is a major cause of concern to the commission, as the security challenges in the North East will negatively affect conduct of free, fair, credible and peaceful elections.
He declared that the National Security Adviser, NSA, has briefed INEC of recent developments in four of the North East States, stating that safety and security cannot be guaranteed during the proposed election period, and strongly advising that INEC considers rescheduling the elections by at least six weeks, within the provisions of the electoral legal framework, and within which time span it is hoped to restore sufficient normalcy for elections to hold.
He said “This is a new development that INEC cannot certainly ignore or take lightly.”
In conclusion, Jega admitted the apprehensions of Nigerians that the commission cannot tidy up its end before February 14, which was the tentative date for the presidential election.
His words: “Although our state of preparedness may not be 100 percent or perfect, and although a bit more time of additional preparation would enable us improve and perfect the current level of preparedness, we believed that we are ready for the elections as planned.
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