50 INEC facilities have reportedly been targeted across Nigeria in the previous four years, according to Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of that country's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In spite of the attacks, the INEC Chairman told the audience during his lecture on Tuesday at the Chatham House in London that the elections would go as scheduled.
According to Yakubu, “In four years, 50 facilities of the commission were attacked in various parts of the country. Mainly in the form of arson and vandalisation. Electoral materials and vehicles were destroyed. And sometimes these attacks even targeted the staff of the commission.”
The chairman recalled that in Imo state, several workers of the commission were attacked during the Continuous Voter Registration, resulting in injuries and deaths.
He highlighted that the commission would have to replace and rebuild infrastructure due to attacks.
According to Yakubu, the commission and other security agencies have beefed up their presence in these areas.
His exact statements were as follows: “The last attack happened on Sunday last week, but because of the cooperation between the military and the electoral commission, we were able to respond, and the damage was limited to just a section of the building in a local government.
“The commission has repeatedly called for concerted efforts to control and check these attacks. And in December last year, the National Assembly held a public hearing on this, that authorities have these attacks under control and the response by the Security Agency is more coordinated.
“Despite these attacks, we will rebuild facilities, and we will replace damaged or lost items. The election will continue.”
The electoral body stressed that it promised a free, fair, and inclusive general election in 2023 to the people of Nigeria and their friends.
Yakubu declared, “We have left no stone unturned in preparing despite several challenges. But all elections, especially those involved in the type of extensive national deployment we do in Nigeria, will naturally come with challenges.
“We have worked closely with stakeholders and development partners to confront these challenges. We are satisfied with our preparations so far. Our commission does not take the pledge we have repeatedly made for Nigerians lightly. We’re leaving no stone unturned in our preparations, and our commitment remains only to Nigerians, not any political party or candidate.
“Our commitment and loyalty are to Nigeria and the Nigerian people; only the vote they cast will determine who becomes what. This is what the law requires of us. It is not in our hands but in the hands of citizens.
“We cherish our institutional independence and the integrity of the commission and with the enthusiasm of Nigerians the goodwill of stakeholders and partners and the commitment of the commission. We believe that the 2023 general election will be among the best conducted in.”
The chairman continued by assuring everyone that the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) would function flawlessly during the elections.
The chairman reaffirmed, “We are confident, and this is what we have done, and we completed this earlier this week. We have the machines for the 2023 general election, but we didn’t want to take chances. Each and every machine has been tested, and confirmed that the machine is functional.
“So actually, for the last two weeks or so, our officials who are in all the states of the federation tested those machines, and the functionality of the machines is very encouraging. So we’re not taking chances.
“The second thing we are going to do and pretty soon is to conduct mock accreditation exercises nationwide ahead of the election. We don’t wait until the midterm election comes. We’ll test the integrity of these machines with real-life voters.”
Even more impressive, Yakubu stated that over 600,000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) have been obtained in Lagos state in the past month.
More importantly, he stressed that there would be no proxy collection of PVCs and that the commission was investigating complaints of biassed PVC issuance.
Yakubu stated that the electoral commission would apply the same strategy and framework that allowed over 2 million IDPs to vote in the 2015 and 2019 elections.
“We have over 2 million persons in displaced camps in Nigeria, across a number of states. And we’ll organise elections for them the same way as we did in 2015, 2019 and will do so in 2023,” he added.
The chairman continued by saying that the rise in vote-buying was due to the country’s increased legitimacy of the voting process.
On the topic of vote buying, he argued that it shows how far we’ve come as a democracy. Simply put, it is becoming progressively evident to everyone that the votes have been counted.
For this reason, he urged the National Assembly to swiftly pass the Electoral Offences Commission Bill and bring justice to those who break the law.
With that in mind, Yakubu emphasised, “So let me say the opportunity to renew our appeal as a commission for the National Assembly in Nigeria to speedily pass the electoral Commission’s offices commission so that all violators of our laws shall be penalised accordingly.”
He noted that while INEC does have the authority to bring criminal charges, it is limited in its ability to do so because it lacks the resources to make the arrests or conduct the investigations that would yield the evidence needed to bring those charges.
“The good thing is that the Senate in Nigeria has passed the bill. But it’s awaiting concurrence by the House of Representatives. So we hope that the National Assembly will do the needful by passing that law, and that law should be assented to speedily before the end of the lifespan of the present assembly,” Yakubu said.
The commission reaffirmed that it is ready to conduct a runoff vote if necessary.