INEC guideline doctored, premeditated to rig 2019 elections alleges IPAC

*We are committed to conducting credible polls, not increase polling units – INEC chairman *Says 84,004,084 voters registered for 2019 polls With 39 days to the 2019 general elections, the sincerity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct widely acceptable and credible elections was yesterday questioned by the Inter- Party Advisory Council (IPAC). The umbrella body of registered political parties in Nigeria picked holes in the 2019 Election Guidelines and Regulations presented by INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu accusing the Commission of importing into the document items that do not reflect agreement reached between IPAC and INEC. The Publicity Secretary of IPAC, Barrister Imo Ikenga Ugochinyere raised this alarm while addressing the media at the National Electoral Institute venue of Regular Quarterly Consultative meeting of INEC with political parties and presentation of voters registers for the elections. The INEC chairman, Prof Yakubu in his address after presenting the electronic version of the voters register to representatives of the 91 registered political parties said the 2019 Guideline have been sent electronically to the parties. The parties accused INEC of doctoring the guideline for 2019 election on accreditation procedures, demanded list of Collected PVC before election as well as calling for the sack of Idris Ibrahim as Inspector General of Police. IPAC accused the leadership of INEC led by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and of producing the Guideline without the consultation and notification of the chairmen of political parties, alleging that obnoxious clauses and strange inclusion were made to massive rig the 2019 election. The National Chairman of the Action Peoples Party (APP) and the Spokesperson of IPAC, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, had interjected the meeting to raise the alarm over the release of the guideline without the input of the chairmen and tampering with the clauses which led to applause from chairmen who supported his views. The issues raised was the tampering with the 2015 accreditation method which allowed accreditation separately and voting separate and the rejection of the new clause which provides for simultaneous accreditation and voting which the parties said will give room for a scanty polling unit that will aid rigging instead of the accreditation and voting separate which will keep the people behind as shield to resist rigging. The political parties also insisted that the commission must provide a form to record and announce accreditation and issue it out to the political parties before voting starts, to deter tampering with the results since accreditation has been known. Also the political parties demanded for the total number of PVC collected before the election and the removal of former corps member and federal civil servants from the list of INEC adhoc staff. Earlier in his address, INEC chairman had re-emphasised the Commission’s policy that the Smart Card Readers will be used for the 2019 General Elections for accreditation of voters. He said “for clarity, I wish to stress that the function of the Smart Card Reader during accreditation is to confirm, verify and authenticate the voter. “First, it shall be used to confirm that the PVC is genuine and issued by INEC. “Cloned cards or cards that do not match the codes for a particular polling unit in which the voter is registered will be rejected by the Card Readers. “Secondly, the Card Readers shall verify that the voter who presents the PVC is the actual owner of the Card by ensuring that the personal details on the Card Reader are consistent with the manual register for the polling unit. “Thirdly, the Card Reader shall be used to authenticate the fingerprint of the voter as an additional confirmatory procedure. If the fingerprint is not authenticated by the Card Reader but the PVC is confirmed as genuine and the voter’s personal details are consistent with the manual register, he/she shall be allowed to vote. “However, where the biometric authentication fails, the voter will be required to thumbprint a box next to his/her picture on the register and to enter his/her mobile telephone number before proceeding to vote. “Consequently, the separate Incident Form used in previous elections which is only completed by the Presiding Officer without the involvement of the voter is now abolished. “Similarly, the claim that the Card Reader has been enhanced to recapture voters’ fingerprints at polling units and automatically overwrite the biometric record on our database is untrue and should be disregarded”. Reacting to these, Ugochinyere said IPAC demanded the retention of the 2015 accreditation and voting procedure and rejection of the unilateral move by INEC to tamper with the National Guidelines to include simultaneous accreditation and voting instead of separate periods for accreditation and voting. IPAC maintained that ” In order to secure the credibility of the 2019 election in view of the non-signing of the electoral law and usage of the same law used for the 2015 election that INEC must reverse back and maintain the accreditation and voting procedure adopted during the 2015 election and enshrined under Section 8(a) of the 2015 election guideline which holds that there shall be separate periods for accreditation and voting. “The advantages of the retention of the 2015 accreditation method is that it will reduce the physical manipulation of the results at the pulling unit level as all voters who have been accredited will all be waiting for the separate commencement of voting which is better than the simultaneous accreditation/voting which leaves a few people at the pulling unit thereby making it easy for manipulation and security intimidation New introduction provides separate forms for recording and announcing of total number of accredited voters by 12/1pm close of accreditations before voting starts. This addition is to secure the credibility of electoral process by ensuring that once accreditation ends by 12/1pm the electoral staff announces the total accredited votes, enters it into a form and all-party agents sign and copies are issued out to the party agents who will all sign before the voting process starts. “This one secures the electoral foundation and blocks tampering of result and snatching of materials because the total accredited votes evidence is already issued out and no manipulation can alter that as it is already in possession of the agents even before voting starts, the worse that can happen is that even if anybody wants to rig, his rigging plans will be limited inside the already known total number of accredited votes”. The body demanded the issuance of list of PVC collected and yet to be collected on a polling unit, ward, local government state and national basis. “In order to reduce the possibility of desperate politicians conniving with compromised INEC staff to hijack uncollected PVC and give to their supporters to come and vote which is now possible with the re-introduction of the incidence form inside the voters register which allows all PVC holders to vote once their name is in the register even when the card reader cannot recognise their finger print and also to avoid falsification of results which will exceed the total number of PVC collected in a particular area. “This makes it imperative that INEC must agree on a date with political parties to release the final list of PVC collected and not collected on polling unit basis to help the parties have a total summary of the votes that is for the election since voting is on PVC possession alone, so that we know the number of people expected to vote which is not the same with the total number of registered voters. Also, a date for the close of the collection of the PVC must also be agreed and announced to Nigerians after which INEC issues the requested PVC collection data to the political parties”, said Ugochinyere. Prof Yakubu, however, reiterated INEC’s resolution to conduct free, fair, credible and acceptable elections in the 1,558 constituencies across 109 Senatorial Districts and 360 Federal Constituencies between February 16 and March 2, 2019. He said total number of register voters for the coming polls is 84,004,084 after the mandatory display of the register in all polling units nationwide for claims and objections from 6th- 12th November 2018. Regional breakdown of registered voters shows the Northwest having highest number of 20,158,100, followed by Southwest 16,292,212, North Central 13,366,070. Others are, South South 12,841,279, Northeast 11,289,293 and Southeast 10,052,236. After the 2015 General elections with 69,788,117 registered voters, he said the Commission had registered 14,283,734 new voters in the Continuous Voters Registration exercise between April 27, 2017 and August 31, 2018. Similarly, the Commission has printed and delivered the Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) to the States for collection by registered voters. He urged all registered voters who have not collected their PVCs to approach any of our Local Government Area offices and other designated collection centres nationwide to pick up their cards. Though the Commission is encouraged by the response so far,he said millions of cards are still yet to be collected. , while reiterating that the Commission will not allow the collection of PVCs by proxy. Yakubu also said the Commission will keep very close watch on campaign finance. In particular, we shall closely monitor spending by parties and candidates as well as individual and group donations to campaign organisations. “We will discharge this regulatory responsibility diligently. The Commission has designed Campaign Finance Reporting Forms to ensure compliance with the reporting requirements by parties. “The EC16C for annual finance reporting by parties, the EC16D for income (including contributions and donations) and EC16E on party expenditure are already available on the Commission’s website”.