2015 ELECTIONS ENDANGERED (2): INEC’s Permanent Voter’s Card Or Rigging Card?

Last week, Sunday Vanguard published documented evidence as obtained from Nigeria’s Election Management Body, EMB, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that Registration Area Officers, ROAs, would be expected to manually and comprehensively register voters from house to house. In this report, you will read details of the type of PERMANENT VOTER’S CARD that INEC has decided to use for the 2015 elections, a card that cannot satisfy the yearnings of Nigerians for a free and fair election. Yet, Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of INEC, is going about his job with messianic alacrity which suggests an agenda that is at once unclear to other national electoral commissioners, Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, as well as some very senior officials of the Commission. This report merely attempts to clear the fog of misinformation that a permanent voter’s card, especially the one INEC has awarded its contract, would solve Nigeria’s age-old problem of election rigging. The prognoses are very dangerous.
Like President Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist Muslim Brother, who has taken Egypt by storm, Professor Attahiru Jega, is also taking INEC by storm. This is by way of Morsi’s decree which vested him with immunity from judicial oversight and his ordering of the country’s assembly to draw up a constitution within a day, a work that would have taken all of 30 days, with a view to producing a draft ready for referendum. Mind you, Morsi has, in an attempt to court the military, has promised that the portfolio of defence ministry is its.
For Nigeria, the much vaunted permanent voter’s card that Jega’s INEC is proposing to use for the 2015 general elections may not put a stop to Nigeria’s romance with election rigging for two reasons. The first is the nature of the card itself. The second is the nature of the procurement.
THE IMPERMANENCE OF A PERMANENT VOTER’S CARD
INEC’s permanent voter’s card does not have the potentials to put a stop to Nigeria’s rigging problems because it is merely card-reader enabled.
Very senior sources at the Commission confided in Sunday Vanguard that a card-reader enabled voter’s card would not in any way do much to put a stop to the sophisticated rigging schemes of Nigerian politicians.
What the card would simply do, according to the sources, is that “on voting day, the card would make it easy for the official on election duty to identify the card holder as the owner of the voter’s card. When the prospective voter goes for accreditation on the day of election and presents the card, the card would be inserted into the machine and it would be certified as an authentic voter’s card bearing the name of the card holder”.
Except last minute modifications have been made to the earlier specification for the production of the voter’s card, Sunday Vanguard has been made to understand that the card would not have added feature of photograph identification.
“As has been proposed, the card reader would not display the photograph when the card is inserted; but this is just a minor flaw because the card identifies the holder as the owner of the card.
“Now, when the card is inserted into the PSO machine which would read it and register it as having been used for voting, it would not display the photograph as contained in the register. In Ghana, that was not the case. The card displayed the photograph and the card was polling unit specific.
“That brings us to the real flaw which is that the card holder can proceed from that point to another voting centre and re-use the card for the same election because the card is not polling unit specific – that is, a voter’s card that can only be used at one polling unit and one polling unit alone.
“What this means”, the very senior INEC source continued, “is that were the card polling unit specific, it would only have the capability to be used at only one of the 119, 973 polling units scattered across the country”.

The contract for the card has already been awarded.
The experience of Ghana and, lately, Kenya, where such cards were used is that in those two countries, the cards were polling unit specific – the cards were only enabled for use in only one polling unit in each of those countries.
Now, the only aspect where the card suggests a capability to ward off rigging is the requirement of a paper trail having been used. What this means is that there must be evidence that the voter’s card has gone through the card reader because of the need for serial registration to register the number of cards that have been able to pass through the machine.
As was earlier stated, it would not take divination to see through it that the “visit (to) voters and prospective voters in their homes” for the purpose of “MANUALLY REGISTERING THOSE WHO REACH THE AGE OF 18, SIX MONTH BEFORE ANY GENERAL ELECTION” as well as “TO COMPILE COMPREHENSIVE VOTERS LIST WITH A VIEW TO CAPTURE THEIR BIOMETRIC DATA AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME, AT LEAST TWICE A YEAR” constitute a recipe for electoral fraud. Just as the recruitment exercise that INEC is looking to see through, as well as the alleged skewed promotion exercise that has just been concluded, along with a voter’s card that is not polling unit specific, all suggest a pattern – intended or not.
WHY OPT FOR SUCH A CARD
Just as bad, Sunday Vanguard was informed, that an Information and Communications Technology, ICT, delegation was sent from INEC headquarters to China
Their mission was to go and learn about and prepare for the eventual use of the type of permanent voter’s card that the EMB has opted for.
Curiously, there was a disagreement among members of the delegation.
The source of the disagreement was and remained that this card reader type of permanent voter’s card is not the best for Nigeria within the context of the sophisticated rigging regime that politicians are wont to enthrone.
The questions to ask are:
Are the authorities aware that there was a disagreement even among members of the delegation sent to China from INEC?
If the authorities are aware of such a disagreement, have efforts been made to uncover the source of the disagreement?
If they are not aware of the second, have moves been made to find out?
The disagreement majorly hinged on the fact that “not being polling unit specific, the card would still be open to compromise”.
What some members of the delegation preferred was a card that would be customized in such a way that it can only be used for voting in only one of the 119, 973 polling units scattered across the country.
The practice in Nigeria is that when you register in a place, that is where you go and vote.
It was the self-same INEC that foisted this on Nigerians during the last exercise and it was with a view to eliminating rigging and mass migration preparatory to rigging.
Once a voter’s card is customized to a polling unit, it cannot be used elsewhere.
Now, the contract INEC has awarded, because of the plethora of the under-aged people in the voters’ register that are yet to be cleaned out, is like preparing more grounds for rigging.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
The nexus between the needless recruitment of staff by INEC, a recruitment which a consulting firm has pooh-poohed (INEC is in fact said to be perhaps the only EMB with the largest number of needless staff because of non-utilisation of capacity) on the one hand, the manual comprehensive compilation of voters register from house to house with a view to capturing biometrics later and the use of a voter card that is not polling unit specific.
It was Donald Duke, former governor of Cross River State, who said that on the day of election, the adhoc staff that are used at polling units are supplied by politicians and, therefore, eliminating rigging may not come easy. Sunday Vanguard gathered from sources within the Commission that the recruitment drive by INEC enjoyed the unpleasant benefit of politicians and National Assembly members nominating people into the exercise.
In fact, some national commissioners and RECs are calling for an outright cancellation of the recruitment exercise because they claimed it was “shoddily carried out”, alleging sectional favouritism.
What this would engender is a further bastardization of the voting process because if INEC is complaining about NYSC members who were used as ad-hoc staff and could not be 100% trusted, how can the Commission that has recruited nominees from politicians and politicians or ex-this and ex-that as and who would become permanent staff hope to trust politicians when entrusted with overseeing elections?
But some officials who appear to have the ears of Jega INEC said “there is already a budget for the recruitment of staff and, therefore, the hoopla about needless recruitment is misplaced”.
The use of a voter’s card that is not polling unit specific can be compromised by political parties with access to the card reader. All that a politician intent on rigging needs to do is to store up voter’s cards illegally – as can be made possible by the proposed manual comprehensive compilation being proposed by INEC – hijack and confiscate a voter’s register booklet and run as many cards as possible through the machine.
That way, with cards in hand and a register to boot, the paper trail needed would be generated, just as the cards can be used as many times as possible and votes counted and recorded for the party of choice.
If INEC is serious about safeguarding the 2015 general elections, the entire national commissioners must be seen to be equal and must operate on a collegiate basis – decisions must be collectively taken.
The use of committee to take very important decisions of the Commission to the exclusion of national commissioners would not help, just as the issues of determination of who goes for monitoring of elections, determination of the posting of RECs or who participates in elections – which are all concentrated and vested in the chairman today – should be jettisoned.
But how did INEC come to this?
JEGA’S QUEST FOR MORE POWERS
It all started when the Commission’s Chairman decided to launch a power-grabbing voyage. To get the legal backing for this acquisition of powers, Jega wote a letter, dated June 19, to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, asking for clarification on who should be the accounting officer of the EMB.
Jega noted: “Since our assumption of office as a new Commission in July 2010, having regard to the fact that neither the Constitution nor the Electoral Act defined the role of the Secretary to the Commission as the Accounting Officer, I have considered myself as such, relying upon provisions of the Procurement Act, particularly Sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Act and Regulations issued by the Bureau of Public Procurement to the effect that in an MDA/Corporate procuring entity, the Chief Executive is the Accounting Officer.
“I have also done this, given the weighty personal liability which the Procurement Act places on the shoulders of the Accounting Officer. The tradition in INEC had been that a Permanent Secretary was posted as the Secretary, until 2008, when INEC, having regard to the provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act appointed its Secretary. The functions/roles of the Secretary as specified did not say or imply that he is the Accounting Officer”.
The INEC boss told Adoke that the clarification was necessary in the light of the restructuring and reorganisation going on in the Commission as it prepares for what he described as “better, effective and efficient service delivery towards 2015 and beyond”.
He insisted that it was “pertinent to seek this clarification for the avoidance of doubt and in order to put lingering matters to rest.”
The “lingering matters” Jega spoke about, it was learnt, might not be unconnected with what a source described as the frosty relationship between the Chairman and other commissioners over the Chairman’s powers.
YOU CAN NOT RUN A ONE-MAN SHOW, ADOKE TELLS JEGA
In a July 26 reply to Jega’s reply, Adoke declared categorically that the Chairman is not the accounting officer of INEC.
Adoke said: “I have examined relevant provisions of the law particularly, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the Electoral Act, the Public Procurement Act and extant Financial Regulations in order to determine whether the law has expressly provided for the position of either the ‘Chief Executive Officer’ or ‘Accounting Officer’ of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“Regrettably, it would appear that no such terminology was used in the statutes examined. Item 14(1)(a) of Part 1 to the Third Schedule of the Constitution only provides that the Chairman shall be the Chief Electoral Commissioner. The provision does not state that the ‘Chief Electoral Commissioner’ is the ‘Chief Executive Officer.
“I have similarly examined the functions and powers of the Commission as provided for in item 15 of Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the Constitution and sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Electoral Act and wish to observe that these are functions and powers that can only be exercised by the Commission and not by the Chairman or any individual Commissioner except as may be delegated by the Commission under Section 152 of the Electoral Act or item 15(h) of Part 1 to the Third Schedule to the Constitution. “Consequently, in the absence of any clear donation of the powers of a Chief Executive Officer or Accounting Officer by the relevant statutes, and in the absence of any evidence to indicate that these functions and powers of the Commission have been delegated to the Chairman, I am unable to come to the reasoned conclusion that the law contemplates that the Chairman of INEC shall be the Chief Executive Officer or Accounting Officer of the Commission.”
The Attorney General added that the Electoral Act confers on the Secretary enormous administrative powers akin to those of Directors-General, who are “statutorily the Accounting Officers and Chief Executive Officers of their various Commissions”.
He pointed out that this is what obtains in similar Commissions, such as Police Service Commission, National Population Commission and Federal Judicial Service Commission.
But the dissenting views in INEC are being waved off as mere rants. The electoral body, as presently operated under its incumbent Chairman, decisions are taken by him, in consultation with his Chief of Staff, one Dr. Dr. Mahmud Magaji (he’s alleged to have usurped the powers of some national commissioners).In an earlier conversation with Mr. Kayode Idowu, Press Secretary to Jega, he said “some of the things being published by some people in that regard are laughable because the decisions taken at the Commission reflect a collective, hinged on consensus”.