The Senate, this week, has confirmed the appointment of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the second term of five years.
The senators, who spoke before his confirmation, described him as highly qualified for the job.
Yakubu was first appointed INEC chairman in November 2015, taking over from Professor Attahiru Jega, who supervised the 2015 general elections.
Since then, Yakubu has supervised many elections as well, and, with each election, showed his willingness to incorporate lessons learnt from the previous exercise and introduce new ways of doing things.
For example, there is no gainsaying that under the supervision of Yakubu, the use of technology has drastically reduced incidences of electoral malpractices such as ballot stuffing, result sheet mutilation, manipulations, over voting, alteration of result sheets and hijacking of ballot boxes during elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has employed a number of innovative approaches to improve the management and conduct of elections in the country.
INEC became more sophisticated with its technologies in order to meet up with the international standards.
Results show that the introduction and perfection of the use, by the Yakubu-led INEC, of such technologies such as Electronic Voters Register (EVR), Automatic Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) and Smart Card Readers (SCR) have reduced the incidence of multiple registration and multiple voting to the barest minimum.
Equally, the development of e-collation support platforms has drastically reduced incidence of result manipulation at collation centres. Thus, it is believed that the incorporation of ICT in the country’s electoral process has reduced electoral fraud to the barest minimum and foster credible elections.
Another deliberate novelty was introduced by Yakubu’s INEC for the first time in the Bayelsa 2015 governorship election and that was the simultaneous accreditation and voting.
Previously, these two exercises were split, leading to an extended voting period. Again, many who were accredited never bothered to come back and vote.
In the Anambra governorship election of 2017, INEC introduced what is now known as the Peoples Result, whereby results are announced and pasted at each Polling Unit.
This allows observers like Yiaga Africa and CDD to self-collate and be able to project the winner.
One of the major achievements of Yakubu’s first tenure as INEC chairman was the rising implementation of continuous registration of voters as envisaged by the law. Before his tenure, registration of voters only took place close to a general election.
But in April 2017, registration of voters began and ran till August 2018, when it was suspended to prepare for the 2019 national elections.
Increased transparency and accountability in the Permanent Voter Card collection processes and reliability of the exercise has made the PVC become an accepted means of identification in Nigeria.
During the period, a record number 14 million new voters were registered, raising the total number of voters across the country from close to 70 million to over 84 million.
Inauguration and institutionalisation of all-year-round Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) as prescribed by law is another achievement of Yakubu, who ensured a revision of regulations, guidelines and manuals to abolish separate accreditation and voting procedure and introduced the Continuous Accreditation and Voting System (CAVS) to address the possible disenfranchisement of voters.
He also made it mandatory to use Smart Card Reader (SCR) for the accreditation of voters, ordered the discontinuation of the use of Incident Forms to address fraud and the requirement by Poll Officials to paste results at each polling unit in a new Form EC60E.
In the end, it can be said that the achievements of Yakubu and his visional and implementation of the 2017-2021 Strategic Plan and Programme of Action as well as plans to strengthen electoral management and operations with a view to making the nation’s elections credible and acceptable made the president to reappoint Yakubu.
Buhari and essence of honouring House of Reps’ summon
President Muhammadu Buhari, described as the epitome of democracy in the country has, expectedly been accepted to honour the summon by the House of Representatives to answer questions on the nation’s worsening security situation.
The decision to invite the president arose after the House had degenerated into a rowdy session on Tuesday following a motion presented by a member from Borno state, Mr Satomi Ahmed, on behalf of 10 other Borno state lawmakers.
Ahmed’s motion, which was the fallout of the heinous killings of 43 farmers on their rice farms in Zarbamari by Boko Haram insurgents on Saturday, also demanded a declaration of a state of emergency on security matters in the country by the president.
However, Ahmed had in his motion deliberately omitted the prayer summoning the president, prompting one of the co-sponsors of the motion, Hon. Ahmadu Jaha, to raise a point of order, drawing his colleagues’ attention to one of the prayers in the motion which Ahmed had failed to express.
According to Jaha, all sponsors of the motion agreed that the president should be summoned to tell the House what he’s doing about the worsening security situation in the country.
Jaha’s point of order calling for the House’s resolution summoning the president received the backing of majority of members, but some opposed it, thus throwing the House into a rowdy session, until the Speaker, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, called for the dissolution of the House into an executive session.
By accepting the invitation, the president may have proved cynics and those who question his handling of the insecurity situation that is threatening the survival of the country wrong.
Though no date has been fixed for the president’s address, the Speaker of the House of Representatives described the president as “a perfect democrat,” for accepting the House’s invitation.
He will visit the House in the near future, said the speaker.
In Nigeria, regrettably, there are many cases of previous leaders refusing to honour parliamentary invitations for no good reasons other than disrespect and failure to appreciate the significance of the lawmakers.
Despite that, it still can be said that there is a growing interest, more than ever before, in issues relating to democracy and good governance around the country, especially under the current administration.
This is a reflection of the increasing acceptance of the fact that democracy and good governance are not a luxury, but a fundamental requirement to achieve security and sustainable development.
The parliament, as one of the key state institutions in a democratic system of governance, has a critical role to play in promoting democracy and good governance. As the democratically elected representatives of the people, parliaments have the honourable task to ensure government by the people and for the people.
In the performance of their key functions of legislation, representation and oversight, parliaments can actively engage in the development and implementation of laws, policies and practices that promote democracy and good governance.
Speaking after a close-door meeting with the president at the Presidential Villa in Abuja Wednesday, Gbajabiamila said: “I think he is more concerned than me and you. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”
And, yes, the president should, and he is, more concerned with the country’s insecurity and preoccupied with measures to improve the ugly situation.
Security is an essential factor of human life. A peaceful and secure environment is critical to every society since it affects all aspects of economic and social development in a country, and is a necessary sin-qua non to the realisation of human rights.
These have direct effects on the creation of sound, competitive and equitable economic development, which ultimately has a positive impact on the whole society.
However, building peace and adequate security involves a wide range of efforts by diverse actors in government and civil society to address the root causes of violence and ensure that people have freedom from fear of humiliation, war and conflicts.
For instance, peace and security, which, fortunately, form the reason the president will address the House, good governance and rule of law are essential prerequisites to ensure that resources and services are made equally available to people, guarantee to freedom from fear and violence and emphasis on respect for rule of law as a cornerstone to sustainable development.
Of course, it should be noted by the House, the president and Nigerians, that peace implies much more than just the absence of physical violence. While often the search for peace is seen as an end to armed conflict or the enforcement of stability, for many peace-builders the absence of physical violence is only the shallow beginning of a much longer-term peace building, a process that must be inextricably intertwined with the context of global space.
Thus, peace and development are in a fundamental sense related to processes of globalisation and global social development. Of particular interest for peace and development is also how local communities are affected by global change and how local actors navigate in a global system, in relation to peace, conflict, security and development.
This means that addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict is a long-term and complex task. Conflicts have multiple drivers, operate as systems, are often local and do not stop at state borders. Therefore, responses to peace building require the influence, resources and commitment of institutions and individuals.
Essentially, approaches for attaining peace and security for national development must have the attention and commitment of both the government and the governed and the president and National Assembly members.
Thankfully, the speaker said that the president “is fully committed to the security of lives and property of Nigerians.”
