INEC: The Issue Behind Election Dates

It is now certain that elections in 2011 would hold on or before April 2011. There have been much of rigmaroles by INEC and the National Assembly on time of elections before April popped up as terminal date. Idowu Samuel writes about matters arising on 2011 elections.


Twice in quick succession, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is winning the sympathy of the National Assembly on the programmes it drew for 2011 general elections. The quick victories by INEC on the front of the parliament, without much emphasis, are an indication of how dearly the rest of Nigeria holds the issue of transition to the next phase of democracy.

Early in the year, INEC had caused a robust suspicion to well up in the Nigerian public against it about the huge cost it proposed for conduct of voter’s registration exercise. The Attahiru Jega-led INEC proposed the sum of N89 billion for purchase of machines meant for voters registration, and for other issues, including training of staff for the registration exercise. A disproportionate number of Nigerians had screamed at the huge cost and contended that the money, if appropriated, would not be spent on voters registration alone, but may be channeled into other unholy avenues meant to serve the interest of some powerful individuals who are eying biggest political offices in 2011.

The demand by INEC for such huge sum brought it face-to-face with the National Assembly, which initially made castigation of officials for the fat proposal. Jega had to make unlimited shuttles between the Senate and the House of Representatives chambers, making emotive defense of the election budget, as he repeatedly justified every penny that added up to make N89 billion.

To convince the legislators on the necessity for them to appropriate the sum for INEC, Jega sworn by his personal integrity, contending that he would see to the judicious spending of the sum if offered to INEC, stressing rather that if at the end, the amount budgeted had some remainder, he would not hesitate to return such to the national treasury.

Before the suspicion by INEC could turn into blackmail which hung around a possible denial of INEC the chances to give Nigeria free and fair elections in 2011, the leadership of the National Assembly resolved to fast track the release of the sum of N87 billion for the electoral commission, and, in the process, offered Jega very strong admonition to take the sum and apply his mind to ensuring free and fair elections in 2011 and not coming back to offer excuses on the conduct of the elections.
For the 2011 elections, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had altered the provision of the 1999 Constitution to peg the dates for January. The two chambers had agreed to fix the time-line between the elections and handover date to maximum of 90 days and minimum of 60 days. It was on that basis that INEC fixed the commencement of electoral process for October 2010, leaving other political parties to follow suit.
While preparations for the elections were on, INEC suddenly threw the spanner. It told the world that the January date set for take off of 2011 elections was unrealistic. It was perhaps only a few who believed that the Jega INEC was not really up to some pranks.

On that strength, critics began to express suspicion that the call for postponement of election dates was masterminded by the Presidency. Those who aligned with this school of thought felt that INEC was prevailed upon to call for shift of election dates in order to prepare ground for President Goodluck Jonathan to adjust with his desire to contest in the 2011 presidential election. The impression then was that had the election been allowed to hold in January as initially proposed, Jonathan could easily be overrun in the presidential election, since he was not known to have a muscle bearing political structure to win the election.

The Presidency had lent credence to the suspicion when it quickly prepared a bill to seek the second amendment to the constitution and the Electoral Act to accommodate the new date of election as demanded by INEC. It did not stop at that, it also requested for further amendment of the constitution to reverse the initial amendments effected in the constitution by the National Assembly.

In the fresh proposal by the executive arm, the sequence of elections which specified that the National Assembly election should be held first was to be altered. The Presidency again made effort to convince the lawmakers on the need to allow automatic delegates to vote during the primaries by political parties, just as it requested that the power to determine the nature of primaries should rest with political parties. The National Assembly, no doubt, considered the proposal by the Presidency a misnomer.  The Senate in particular threw the recommendations out, while the House of Representatives simply looked away and refused to entertain it.
Meanwhile, the two Houses consider the issue of new date of elections as germane and important. In the amendment which both Houses passed during the week, INEC now had between now and April next year to fix new dates for elections.

For instance, both Houses altered Section 5 (b) of the First Alteration Act by setting aside the 90 days maximum time-line and 30 days minimum for the election as they considered 150 days maximum and 120 days minimum as appropriate, in line with request for shift of election dates by INEC.
The alteration also affected Section 10 of the First Alteration Act, which is altered in Paragraph (b) “by substituting for the words 150 days and not later than 120 days before”, in lines 2 and 3, the words “90 days and not later than 30 before.” Sections 11 and 17 of the First Alteration Act was equally altered in the same format.

With the turn of events, INEC now has a full mandate to get into the fray of electoral business with a view to putting in place preparations that will assure Nigerians that it could be trusted for ability to conduct free and fair elections in 2011. It has more than sufficient dates to toy with in this regard.
Notwithstanding, INEC must wait a while for the National Assembly to get through the process of amending the constitution. The National Assembly has one more task to perform before the constitution could become operational. It must secure the endorsement of two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation for the amendment it had carried out so far. It is after the endorsement by the states and harmonisation of the views of the states with the National Assembly that the constitution could become law of the federation.

Then the onus of fixing new dates of election will rest on INEC. By implication, INEC has between now and April to tell Nigeria when it hopes the next general elections will hold.
There are indications that INEC may opt for the months of February and March to kick-start the process of next year’s elections in order to gain sufficient times to attend to post-election challenges, according to officials who spoke with Saturday Tribune.
Going by National Assembly’s, litigations arising from 2011 elections would only be attended to within 90 days for appeal court tribunal and 30 days for election tribunals. The idea is to avoid the problem of long time-lag for complaints on elections to be determined, contrary to the current experience in which case litigations over the 2007 elections are still pending before appeal courts.