2023 Elections: INEC, other actors failed to meet Nigerians’ expectations – Yiaga Africa

THE 2023 general elections might have come and gone, however, the impact and memories are still fresh in the minds of the electorates, as Yiaga Africa, Friday, asserted that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and other electoral governance actors did not meet public expectations.

Yiaga Africa which was one of the election observers of 2023 general elections, stated this during the Presentation of the Yiaga Africa Report on the 2023 General Election tagged ‘Dashed Hopes?’ in Abuja.

While presenting the report, the Board Chair, Yiaga Africa, Dr Hussaini Abdu, described the 2023 general elections as one of the most meticulously planned since 1999 based on INEC’s four-year strategic plan and a detailed Election Project plan ahead of the election including a new Electoral Act enacted one year in advance, early release of election funds to INEC and empowerment of the Commission to deploy election technology (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and INEC Election Results Viewing Portal (IReV) including introduction of electronic transmission of results.

Abdu said: “INEC and other electoral governance actors did not meet public expectations for the 2023 elections despite the confidence-building and voter mobilization initiatives that preceded the elections.

“INEC’s extensive preparations and public communications set the bar high for the election. Unfortunately, the Commission did not meet these expectations.

“The Judiciary delivered judgements that undermined provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act and rolled back reforms seeking to improve the candidate nomination process in political parties.

“The elections represented a missed opportunity, as incremental electoral reforms to enhance electoral integrity failed to deliver desired outcomes.

“Factors including poor logistics on election day, especially during the February 25 election; the failure of the technology designed to drive transparent result management, namely the result collation system and the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portal; poor communication provided by INEC at critical points in the process; tactical use of violence to influence electoral outcomes; voter suppression; vote buying; non-compliance with electoral law and guidelines; and apparent manipulation of results during collation cast doubts on the credibility of the process, resulting in broken public trust in INEC and the overall outcome of the elections.

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“Processes and procedures influence the integrity of electoral outcomes.

“Therefore, a compromised process will produce questionable outcomes.

“Yiaga Africa deployed a comprehensive election engagement strategy for the 2023 General elections.

“Yiaga Africa deployed a total of 6,377 citizen observers for the 2023 general election. In the pre-election phase, 822 long-term observers were deployed across the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Nigeria from November 2022 through February 2023.

“The long-long term observers observed the pre-election landscape and reported their observations bi-weekly.

“Yiaga Africa observed party primaries, Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), Collection of Permanent Voter Card (PVC), INEC testing of the BVAS machines and Mock accreditation. On February 25, Yiaga Africa deployed the Process and Results Vote for Transparency (PRVT) methodology formerly known as PVT- Parallel Vote Tabulation, to observe the election day process. The PRVT leverages proven statistical principles for systematic observation of the election day processes.

“Yiaga Africa deployed 3, 014 observers to a random representative statistical sample of 1,507 polling units. An additional 822 mobile observers were deployed to specifically provide information on the election process in each LGA and observe the result collation process in the LGA and state collation centre.

“For the March 18th election, Yiaga Africa deployed a total of 1,547 citizen observers across 28 States to observe the governorship election. In Benue, Delta and Kano, the Process and Results Vote for Transparency (PRVT) methodology was employed while the observers relied on traditional observation methods in the other 25 States.

“With the introduction of the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV), Yiaga Africa launched the Election Results Analysis Dashboard (ERAD) as a complementary tool to monitor the INEC IReV portal. 1,561 data clerks were trained to observe and download the results from the IReV portal for the Presidential election.

“The citizen observers observed the entire election day process from the set-up of the polling units, ballot and counting, result announcement, posting of the official results and uploading of the polling units to the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal.”

On the report about outcome of the 2023 elections released by Yiaga Africa, he (Abdu) pointed out that “Electoral democracy is at an inflection point in Nigeria owing to weak electoral governance, procedural shortcomings, the zero-sum nature of politics, and electoral impunity.”

The report also indicated that, “Nigeria needs legislative, administrative, and policy action to enhance the integrity of elections, restore public trust, and guard against ephemeral enthusiasm in the electoral process.

“To achieve this, Yiaga Africa outlines five key messages from the elections and a pathway for reform and action in its final report. The final report is structured into four parts. Part, one highlights Yiaga Africa’s 2023 election strategy.

“The contextual issues that shape the outlook of the election are analyzed in part two. Part three focuses on Yiaga Africa’s assessment of the elections against electoral integrity principles such as transparency, inclusiveness and fairness.

“In Part four, Yiaga Africa proposes a framework for legislative, administrative and policy reforms to achieve eight key objectives namely, rebuilding public confidence in the election, strengthening INEC’s institutional independence, improving the commission’s effectiveness, addressing the ambiguities, complexities and inadequacies of the electoral legal framework, enhancing the integrity and accuracy of the voter register, protecting voting rights and inclusiveness of elections, safeguarding the use of electoral technologies and raising the quality of political engagement and candidate selection. “

According to the report, Big lessons from the 2023 general election include: Electoral reforms can deliver credible elections if stakeholders, especially INEC and political parties, comply with the rules and guidelines: Several innovations were introduced prior to the election to combat electoral fraud and enhance the integrity of the process. Innovations such as use of the BVAS for voter accreditation improved the transparency of the accreditation process. While it is unclear if the technical glitch that resulted in the delay of upload of presidential results was accidental or deliberate, the IReV would have deepened the credibility of the election, assuming the results were uploaded to the portal in real-time as provided in INEC’s guidelines.

“The newly introduced timelines in the 2022 Electoral Act availed INEC and political parties with sufficient time to plan for the elections. Full compliance with the guidelines on results management enshrined in the electoral law would have inspired public confidence in the electoral outcome. Unfortunately, the guidelines were observed in breach in several collation centers.

“The constellation of electoral technology, the 2022 Electoral Act and new political actors heightened optimism and appetite to participate in the elections: Citizens exhibited increased enthusiasm in the lead up to the elections due to the combined effect of the new electoral law, introduction of technology such as the BVAS and IReV, and new faces on the ballot. The enthusiasm displayed by voters especially young voters demonstrates belief in the power of the ballot to safeguard popular choice. The high turnout for the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) and collection of the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) are indicative of improved public trust in the process before the election. Where voting rights were threatened by INEC’s poor handling of the PVC collection process, citizens instituted legal action to enforce their right to vote.

“Electoral technology is no silver bullet: To deliver its promise of transparent elections, the competence, integrity, and neutrality of vendors, operators and managers of electoral technologies must be guaranteed. It takes more than electoral technology to protect the integrity of elections. Additional oversight from political parties, civil society groups, media and citizens is required on all aspects of the election value chain.

"INEC requires fundamental reforms: An overhaul of the appointment process of INEC commissioners is needed to restore public confidence in the electoral commission. The commission showed signs of institutional capture following the controversial appointments of commissioners into INEC before the election. Some Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC), collation and returning officers sabotaged the elections through non-implementation of the logistics plan for the election, misapplication of guidelines on results management and manipulation of election results at the collation level.

“In addition, there is a pressing need to unbundle the commission and shift certain institutional responsibilities it bears currently to other institutions. For instance, the responsibility of political party registration and regulation, and electoral offences prosecution should be divested from the commission.

“The election reveals ambiguities, complexities and inadequacies with the election legal framework: The implementation of the 2022 Electoral Act for the first in a general election reveals existing gaps that constitute the basis of electoral disputes.

“The ambiguity with the provisions on results collation, margin of lead and electronic transmission of results made the process susceptible to manipulation and misinterpretation. Although the Act gives INEC powers to review election results declared under duress, the modalities and procedures for the exercise of this power were not prescribed in the Act or guidelines leaving a vacuum.

“Also, the legal framework places no statutory obligation on INEC to subject its electoral technologies to testing and verification. Standard practice requires institutions deploying electoral technologies to test and verify equipment, software and tools within a reasonable time before deployment for elections”, the report pointed.

Meanwhile, the report urged INEC to rebuild public confidence in the electoral process through; “Independent audit/review of the elections: A comprehensive multi-stakeholder independent audit of the 2023 general election is crucial for inspiring public confidence and ensuring accountability for operational lapses, electoral impunity and identifying fundamental changes required to enhance the quality of elections.

“Prosecution of electoral offenders: Investigation and prosecution of electoral offenders especially collation and returning officers engaged in results manipulation and flagrant violations of the guidelines on results collation. INEC is encouraged to provide regular updates on the prosecution and list of electoral offenders and convictions on its online and offline communication channels.

“Strengthening INEC’s institutional independence Professionalize INEC appointments: The criteria of non-partisanship and unquestionable character prescribed by the constitution have proven inadequate. Therefore, professional skills and qualifications should be considered when making appointments into INEC.

“Election administration requires individuals with diverse legal, IT, logistics, statistics, and communications skills. The appointing authority should consider the age, health status and gender of nominees when making appointments into the commission.

“Integrate and safeguard public participation in the appointment process: The appointing authority should subject nominees to public scrutiny before transmitting nominations to the Senate for confirmation. Screening of nominees into INEC by the Senate should be executed diligently and devoid of partisanship. Additionally, the Senate should issue guidelines for submitting petitions against nominations into INEC to promote effective public participation.

“Unbundle INEC: The National Assembly should, through legislation, establish a Political Party Registration and Regulatory Commission and an Electoral Offences Commission to reduce INEC’s enormous and onerous responsibilities.

“Reduce over-dependence on third-party vendors and transport providers: INEC should recruit or build internal capacity for the design, production and maintenance of its technology. The commission should explore the use of private logistics companies or safe local facilities to reduce dependence on transport providers. Addressing the ambiguities, complexities and inadequacies of the electoral legal framework.

“Fix the ambiguities in the results management process: Further review to the electoral act to address the ambiguities in the results collation and transmission process and the role of technology in the results management value chain.

“Align reconfiguration of technological devices with election dates: Timelines for the reconfiguration of technological devices should be considered when preparing the timetable and schedule of activities for elections to avoid complications during general elections. The reconfiguration process should be open to political parties, media and election observers. Enhancing the integrity and accuracy of the voter register.

“Audit the voter register: INEC should undertake a comprehensive audit of the voter register to eliminate duplications, multiple registrants and ineligible voters to enhance the credibility of the voter register.

“The audit process should be subjected to public scrutiny to improve its transparency.

“Generate the voter register from the civil registry: The National Assembly should amend the electoral legal framework to enable INEC to produce the voter register from the national identify database compiled by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). This will reduce the cost of elections, facilitate regular updates to the register and foster harmonization of the national database.

“Review the requirement for voter identification: With the successful introduction of the BVAS that stores biometric information of voters, INEC should abolish the use of Permanent Voter Card (PVC) and adopt the use other legally acceptable means of identification for voter verification such driver’s license, international passport, national identity card. Protecting voting rights and inclusiveness of elections.

“Early voting: Amendments to the legal framework is necessary to introduce early voting for eligible voters on essential election duties such as security personnel, INEC staff, election observers, journalists etc. INEC should develop a framework for stakeholder engagement on early voting.Safeguarding the use of electoral technologies.

“Introduce legal timelines for testing, and mock exercise of electoral technologies: The National Assembly should make further amendments to the 2022 Electoral Act to establish the principles and introduce timelines for the mandatory conduct of testing and mock exercises for electoral technologies deployed by the electoral commission.

“Compulsory electronic transmission of results: Strengthen the electoral law to make electronic transmission of results mandatory including the upload of polling unit level results and results sheets used at different levels of results collation. Raising the quality of political engagement and candidate selection.

“Integrate governance accountability in voter education: Civil society, media, and other stakeholders should integrate governance accountability in voter education and citizen mobilization to sustain citizens’ participation beyond election day. Democracy doesn’t equate with elections; therefore, citizens should be engaged in the post-election phase to hold elected leaders to account for campaign promises and pressure leaders to undertake governance and electoral reforms before the next elections.

“Boost voter turnout: Voting at elections is a constitutional right bestowed on citizens to participate in decision-making that affects their lives, society and future generations.

“Therefore, citizens should cultivate the culture of voting in the exercise of their sovereign power to elect leaders. Democracy only delivers if citizens participate.

“Curb vote trading: Citizens should curb the menace of vote trading by resisting all the tactics employed by politicians to compromise their voting choices.”