INEC AND THE 2023 ELECTIONS
The prompt release of the electoral calendar is commendable
In conformity with the provisions of the new Electoral Act, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently released a new timetable for the 2023 general election. The Presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for25th February 2023 while the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections will hold two weeks later, on 11th March. The timetable engenders clarity in the electoral calendar in addition to giving elbow room to the political parties, security agencies, and INEC itself to plan for elections. Its prompt release is quite commendable as it shows a commission ready to seize the moment. The ball is now in the court of the political parties that need to put their house in order, strengthen their structures and begin the process for the nomination of their candidates.
The current effort by INEC, as it also did before the 2019 elections, is aimed at standardising the timetable for general elections in the country at all times as it is done in many other democracies. Since 1945 in the United States, for instance, elections have been held on the first Tuesday of November in an election year. Our neighbour, Ghana, has similarly been doing same on 7th December of an election year for more than two decades. As INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu put it, the electoral body is resetting the electoral calendar in a manner that it can easily be predicted.
With the National Assembly rejection of any amendment to Section 84 (12) of the Electoral Act 2022 which the President claimed to be “defective”, it is now left for any aggrieved parties to seek redress in court. By the new act, the political parties have between 4th April and 3rd June to conduct their primaries and submit the names of candidates a week later while state primaries have also been fixed. Campaigns for federal and state elections have their allotted time while the entire process, more importantly, allows candidates to emerge on time to enable the resolution of pre-election issues which constitute nauseating and endless litigations in our elections cycle.
We appeal to the political parties to quickly study the Electoral Act 2022 and the accompanying guidelines from INEC and comply with them strictly. In the past non-adherence by the big political parties had left the polity with so much uncertainty, tending to make the conduct of the elections complicated for the electoral body. We hope that the two major ones (the ruling All Progressives Congress and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party) will work to curb festering crises due largely to the subversion of their internal processes.
As we seek to enthrone transparent elections where the votes of the electorate will not only be counted but would count, INEC should be encouraged by all the critical stakeholders. The early release of funds is crucial to the conduct of a credible election. INEC needs to make adequate preparations for logistics, election materials, ad hoc and regular manpower, monitoring of party primaries, voter education and other responsibilities. The relatively new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will have to be adequately tested in forthcoming bye-elections to ensure it always works. According to the new law, the electoral body should have all the needed funds a full year before the elections. As things stand, INEC is already running behind schedule.
Considering the safety challenges of previous elections, it is also time for security agencies to start mapping out workable strategies that would guarantee security across the nation. All this, in addition to the new law which paves the way for the introduction of electronic voting and transmission of election results will, to an extent, restore confidence and trust in the Nigerian electoral system.
