The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says Nigeria is on
course to achieving optimal democracy.
Festus Okoye, INEC national
commissioner for information and voter education, spoke on Tuesday in response
to the European Union (EU) election observation mission’s final report on
the recently concluded general election.
Barry Andrews, the chief
observer, said the elections exposed enduring systemic weaknesses that need to
be corrected.
Andrews faulted INEC for the operational challenges and glitches experienced with the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) and the result viewing portal, saying the discrepancies severely damaged public confidence in the electoral body.
“Public confidence in INEC was severely
damaged on 25 February due to its operational failures and lack of transparency,”
he said.
“While some corrective measures
introduced before the 18 March elections seemed to have a positive impact,
overall trust was not restored and eventually led civil society to call for an
independent audit of the entire process.”
‘CHANGE TAKES TIME’
Reacting to the report, Okoye
said it is unfair to judge the commission and the entirety of the polls off a
few glitches.
He noted that in other reports
submitted, domestic and international observers attested to the fact that in
terms of voter accreditation, the BVAS performed optimally.
The national commissioner,
however, noted that certain factors contributed to issues encountered in the
conduct of the elections.
“If you look at those challenges,
you must also look at the context of the elections, also the environment which
was surrounded by, one, insecurity in so many parts of the country. Nobody can
dispute that,” he said.
“Secondly, there were also issues targeted at
some of our staff and other Nigerians.
“You have to also look at the
issues of fuel scarcity during that particular period and the issue of the
naira redesign and also that we had significant challenges with transporters.
“So these are some of the issues
we’re going to look at.”
Okoye said INEC would act on the
recommendations made by the EU mission.
“One of the lessons that we must learn is that
we must have faith in our democratic institutions. Is it every time that we
have a challenge with a particular section of the constitution that we now run
to the national assembly to amend the law? There has to be some level of
fidelity, that is the only way we can progress,” he said.
“The other issue I want to
outline is that democracy is not a 100m dash, we as a people and a nation have
to build our democratic institutions and our own democracy.
“You heard the chief observer say that there
is democratic regression in so many countries of the world, are we supposed to
also regress? No. We have to be positive and build our own.
“Those who say there is nothing
positive about our democracy are saying that we should allow anti-democratic
forces to take over and nobody does that.”
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