We Have No Powers to Declare Seats of Dead, Jailed Lawmakers Vacant, Says INEC Chairman

• To release full report on Kano underage voting
• Alleges plot to clone, sell PVCs

By Chiemelie Ezeobi

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it has no powers to declare the seats of the dead or jailed National Assembly members vacant, unless it receives formal communication from the presiding officers of the National Assembly on such vacancies. 

The electoral body has also said it will soon release the full report of its investigation into the alleged under-aged voting in the Kano local government election held on February 10, 2018.

INEC has also said it had received reports on attempts to clone Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) and to sell them online.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made these revelations during an interactive session with journalists on Saturday in Lagos.

Yakubu, who was responding to the issue of Senator Joshua Dariye, who was recently sentenced to prison by a Federal High Court, also identified some of the dead National Assembly members to include, Senators Ali Wakili (APC, Bauchi South), Mustapha Bukar (APC, Daura zone) and a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Buba Jibrin (APC, Lokoja Federal Constituency).

According to him, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, have to declare such seats vacant before INEC can conduct by-elections in those constituencies. 

 “We have no any power to declare the seat of any lawmaker vacant. The moment the returning officers make announcement declaring a candidate winner, only the court of law can reverse it. We cannot declare vacancy and conduct bye-election unless there is a formal communication from the presiding officers of that Assembly. So this is not a matter under the control of the commission.

“However, we have bye-elections to conduct in five outstanding constituencies caused by death and they are in Taraba, Bauchi, Katsina, Lokoja and Cross River States,” he said.

Stressing that the forthcoming elections will consolidate the 2015 elections as an affirmation of maturity of democracy in the country, he also disclosed that the commission had slightly redesigned its voter register.

On this new design, he said INEC has added the incidence forms to the voter register to take care of situations where the smart card readers are unable to read fingerprints of a voter.

He added that he  met seven million uncollected PVCs from the 2015 elections with Lagos having the highest number of 1.4million, adding that by June 14 of this year, not much progress had been recorded as only 500,000 persons were collected. 

For the 2019 elections, he said the commission has put strategic plans in place, adding that since April 2017 when the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise started, about 9,700,999 new voters have been registered as at June 14, 2018.

On the issue of the alleged underage voting in Kano, Yakubu recalled that the commission had earlier in Abuja disclosed that its voter register was not used by the state Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) for the February local government poll.

He, however, said based on the demand by some stakeholders, the commission would soon release the report submitted by the committee set up to investigate the allegations.

“INEC committee conducted investigation, submitted its report and we addressed the press on the matter that there was no connection between INEC voter register and the incidence of underage voting in Kano.

“In fact in many voting units they did not even use voter register to accredit anyone.

“Having said so, there is a demand that we should release the report of our investigation. I assure you we will soon release the full report of that investigation,” he said.

Speaking on the clean-up of the voter register, he said the commission would continue to strengthen the register.

He said while the commission had been working on the clean-up of the register, no single Nigerian had officially complained to INEC about the inclusion of ineligible persons.

 “As we speak, the commission has not officially received any complain of the registration of ineligible persons.

“Only last week in Ekiti, we made it available to 35 political parties contesting in the state elections, we have not also receive a single complaint.’’

Yakubu said that when the Kano investigation was conducted, the commission agreed to give the register to civil society organisations and the media.

He said that would be done without infringing on the right of Nigerians to apply for the register once they paid to the commission the relevant fee stipulated by the law.

“I want to assure you that we will continue to do whatever we can to improve the voter register as we approach 2019 general election.’’

In a related development, the commission in a statement issued by its Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze Uzzi, said it was taking the matter seriously and would engage the government and security agencies, as well as the promoters of the platform in order to get to the root of the allegation.

The INEC statement read: “We wish to assure the public that the commission had anticipated these and proactively taken measures to preserve and further secure our electoral materials. Several security features and secret source codes are contained in the Smart Card Readers which enable them to read only PVCs duly issued by the commission.

“The advertisement shows photographs of blank cards which have not been personalised and which do not contain any details.

“This notwithstanding, the commission wishes to state that it takes these reports seriously and will engage the government and security agencies as well as the promoters of the platform in order to get to the root of it and take all necessary action to take down the advertisement forthwith,” it said.

INEC said that in addition to the existing features, the commission is already working to further secure the PVCs and the Smart Card Readers and will continue to protect them from unauthorised and malicious access.

“It is for this reason that, beginning from next week, we are commencing the systematic hardware and software upgrade of all the Smart Card Readers nationwide. It is worthy of note that this enhancement had already been successfully done in Ekiti and Osun States, preparatory to the upcoming governorship elections in both states.

“We wish to reassure the public that our systems are robust even as we continue to fortify them ahead of the 2019 general election,” it said.