The passage of the contentious Electoral Act Amendment Bill
would determine the preparation of the Independent National Electoral
Commission for the 2023 general elections, its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu,
emphasised on Tuesday.
Yakubu bared his mind in Abuja during the first quarterly
meeting of INEC with political parties in 2022.
According to him, the Commission was looking forward to
speedy passage of the Bill.
He said that the Commission would release the timetable for
2023 elections immediately the President, Muhammadu Buhari, signs the Electoral Amendment Bill into law.
“On the Electoral Amendment Bill currently before the
National Assembly, the Commission is encouraged by the Senate President’s
assurance to give priority attention to the Bill when the National Assembly
reconvenes from its recess today, and the commitment by the President to assent
to the Bill as soon as the issue of mode of primaries by political parties is
resolved.
“We look forward to a speedy passage of the Bill, which is
crucial to our preparations for future elections. As soon as it is signed into
law, the commission will quickly release the timetable and schedule of
activities for the 2023 general election based on the new law,” Yakubu said.
The INEC chairman said that the year 2022 was going to be a
very busy year for the Commission and the political parties, with the 2023
general election just 396 days away, adding that all the critical preparations
must be concluded this year.
On the Continuous Voter Registration, Yakubu said that as at
Monday January 17, a total of 8,260,076 eligible Nigerians commenced the online
pre-registration, completed the registration physically or applied for transfer
to new voting locations, replacement of their Permanent Voters’ Cards or
updated their voter information records as required by law.
He said, “The commission has been publishing weekly progress
reports of the exercise. We are aware that Nigerians want to know when their
PVCs will be available for collection. At the moment, the Commission is
undertaking the most comprehensive cleaning up of the data to ensure that only
eligible citizens are added to the voters’ register for the 2023 general
election and will share our findings with Nigerians and the actual dates for
the collection of the PVCs nationwide will be announced very soon.”
The INEC chairman advised political parties to continue to
encourage eligible voters who have not registered to do so, bearing in mind
that those who had registered at any time previously need not register again.
He said, “Turning to the major end-of-tenure and off-cycle
elections, party primaries for the Ekiti State governorship election are
scheduled for January 4 to 29, 2022. For the Osun State governorship election,
primaries will hold from February 16 to March 12, 2022. In the case of Ekiti
State, all the 18 political parties have served the mandatory notices for the
primaries.
“Let me seize this opportunity to draw the attention of
parties to the necessity for transparent and rancour-free primaries. Parties
should also respect their chosen dates for the primaries based on the
Commission’s timetable and schedule of activities.
“Already, many parties have rescheduled their primaries
several times. While the commission has earmarked a period of three weeks and
four days (that is 25 days) for the conduct of the Ekiti State governorship
primaries, virtually all political parties have decided to hold their primaries
in the last four days January 26 to 29, 2022. In fact, seven political parties
have chosen the last day for their primaries.”
Yakubu said that no party had so far submitted its list of
aspirants, the composition of its electoral panel, or the register of members
or list of delegates depending on the chosen mode for electing its candidates
adding that, only one party has indicated the venue for its primaries.
He told the political parties to do so immediately to enable
the Commission to work out the detailed plans for monitoring the primaries.
“All primaries for electing candidates must take place in
the constituency where election will hold as required by law. In the cases of Ekiti
and Osun State governorship elections, any primaries conducted outside the two
states will not be monitored by the Commission and their outcomes will not be
accepted,” he said.
Speaking on the February 12 FCT council elections, Yakubu
said, “It is now 25 days to the Area Council elections in the FCT. Major
activities have already been carried out, including the conduct of primaries
and nomination of candidates by political parties. Only last week, the
Commission presented the register of voters to political parties while the PVCs
for new registrants, requests for transfers and replacement of cards have been
printed and delivered several weeks ago to our FCT office for collection by
voters.”
He said, “For emphasis, the BVAS will be deployed in the FCT
elections which is the second major election after the Anambra governorship
election held in November last year.
“The 68 constituencies in the FCT (six chairmen and 62
councillors) covering extensive urban and rural locations sharing border with
five states in the North Central and North Western parts of the country is
another opportunity to pilot the efficacy of the BVAS in a different
geographical, geo-political and electoral context.
“The same technology will be deployed in all forthcoming
bye-elections across the country. For all elections going forward, polling unit
results will be uploaded in real-time to the INEC Result Viewing portal.”
Responding on behalf of the political parties, the National
Chairman of the Inter Party Advisory Council, Yabagi Yusuf Sani, said the
successes recorded in the last Anambra State governorship elections and the
deployment of technologies aided the success of the election.
“It is our fervent hope and prayers, that the new heights in
the standards of performance by INEC will not only be sustained but, further
perfected and improved upon for greater degrees of success in its conduct of
future elections.
“We are in this regard anticipating more superlative
performance by INEC in the remaining off-season elections, beginning with the
council elections in the FCT and later on, the gubernatorial elections in Osun
and Ekiti states.
“While commending INEC for its unprecedented outstanding
performance in the Anambra State gubernatorial polls, we are not, however,
unmindful of the manifestations of incidents of hitches experienced in that
exercise. IPAC is calling on INEC to take measures to rectify observed lapses
in Anambra,” Sani said.
He also warned that the most serious and potent impediment
to the successful conduct of the 2023 general elections, is the lingering
debacle between the Executive and the Legislature on the fate of the 2021
Electoral (Amendment) Bill.
Sani said that while time is running out for the resolution
of the disputes between the two arms, the IPAC is of the position that the
controversy may have been contrived in the first instance, purely and clearly
in the pursuits of narrow and self-centered political ambitions of some of the
gladiators.
The IPAC chairman, therefore, called for the immediate
resolution of the impasse over the Electoral Amendment Bill in the superior and
overriding national interest.
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