Dr Bertola Perekeme is the chairman Bayelsa State Independent Electoral Commission. As the state’s council election draws near, he spoke with JOY EMMANUEL on the level of preparedness for council election.
What is your level of preparedness for the next council election in the state?
You may be aware that this commission was inaugurated on 15th of November, last year. And Governor Seriake Dickson had charged the commission to conduct council elections in 2018.
As a commission, we are preparing for the challenge of the council elections. The conduct of election is very herculean at every level all over the world globally. It is not something you can wake up and say I want to conduct elections. Four months down the line, we are making preparations. We are getting the commissioners trained in the act of conducting elections. We are also doing capacity building for our electoral officers and other categories of staff who will also be actively involved in the conduct of the election. A lot of things are in place preparatory for the conduct of 2018 council elections in Bayelsa state.
What was the recent stakeholders’ meeting all about?
It was an inaugural meeting. The essence of the meeting was part of our preparations for the challenges ahead. We were able to meet with the chairmen and secretaries of the political parties to intimate them with our programmes. Also, to let them know the time table for the council elections and the need to also educate their sympathizers and party faithful to conduct themselves in a manner that we will enable us to have free, fair and credible election.
What gives credibility in elections is not only what the commission does, but the electorate as well. Because of the do or die affair attitude to politics that is peculiar to third world countries, including Nigeria, we feel that we need to tell them that council election is coming. Besides, election crises come in several ways. Most times it emanates from even the parties during their primaries.
Intra party candidate’s selection normally snowballs to crises and so we told them that while they urge us to be free, fair and credible in the conduct of the election, we also advise them that the process of their primaries should also be fair and credible. The process of selection of their candidates should be seen to be free so that crises would be minimised at that level.
How far have you sensitized the public?
The sensitization is also embedded in our timetable. As the timetable unfolds as the campaigns go on, BYSIEC also has its level of sensitization through the media. Also because it is a peculiar terrain, we also involve the town criers. The town criers are the only nearest people to the electorates.
For some two years now, there has been no council election in Bayelsa state. Council elections were conducted last in 2013?
The tenure elapsed in 2016. Another set would have come from April 2016 but because of recession that Nigeria went into and because council elections are state funded elections could not be held. When states are owing salaries, you don’t expect that monies will be available to conduct election. So for about two years now, there has not been council election.
Which area do you think will be more challenging to you?
Apart from the difficult terrain of Bayelsa, the major challenge we will have will be in terms of movement of materials and personnel to conduct the election in such difficult terrains. Elections are just like infrastructure. That is why constructing roads in the Niger Delta costs more than five times than in some other parts of the country. The major problem we have is difficult terrains in terms of accessibility of materials and the personnel to and from where elections will be conducted.
Do you have the accurate number of aspirants?
There are 68 political parties in Nigeria. But until then, we can’t
ascertain the number of aspirants. Some parties may not contest. Some parties may contest for chairmanship or most times more of councillorships without
chairmanship so until the parties call for primaries we don’t know yet. The
commission will also observe the primaries as they return their nominees, we will then know the accurate number of persons per party that will be contesting the elections at the two levels: chairmanship and councillorship.
We know that 2015\2016 governorship election in Bayelsa state, there was so much crises that erupted and this one is even a community election as in more of grassroots.
What measures do you intend to put in place to forestall a repeat of the 2015/ 2016 election crisis in Bayelsa state?
The 2015 experience was not state wide. It was a peculiar case to Southern Ijaw. Violence was not recorded in any other part apart from Southern Ijaw and Ekeremor. The main challenge of conducting elections is how to help the electorate to eschew violence not necessarily averting violence but you can bring it down.
It is more with the electorate, the parties and their supporters. Election has evolved beyond mere going to cart away election materials and ballot papers and boxes.
For instance now, Kaduna state wants to conduct council election. You are aware that the Independent National Electoral Commission and the National Assembly have amended the Electoral Act to bring to bear electronic voting system. Card reader is now a must.
Kaduna state independent electoral commission wants to practice and adopt electronic voting system on the 12th of May. The machine is already there. They are educating them. They have brought out their time table. So it is more than carting away ballot boxes and papers. That is what most persons are interested in. National elections will come up next year.
The security agencies too will assist us. You know that Southern Ijaw re-run was largely hitch-free because security agencies and some other measures which INEC put in place were deployed. So we will consider all those things and bring some of these measures to bear in our election. We are going to carry out and aggressive massive voter sensitization and voter education at the grassroots level.
Do you intend to use electronic voting system during this LG election in Bayelsa?
The electorate have been yearning for electronic voting system, which is capital intensive. The last time election was conducted in Kaduna is over three years now. In all the elections I have observed, the closest one to avoiding a lacuna is that of Delta. In some places LG polls are four, three and even five years overdue. The last time election was conducted in Rivers state was in May 2015. They want to conduct another one. In all of these places committees were used to administer local councils.
So preparations for electronic voting is also another entirely exercise. Apart from its capital intensive nature, we also noticed that it requires some level of manpower to tackle. We are hoping that the timetable will come out in the next one month, we are not thinking of electronic voting for now. It is not an option.
Why do you think so?
It involves lot of things in terms of manpower, procurement of equipment. It can’t take you anything less than one year to plan. As I speak, Kaduna state has all of the materials needed and they have started training. The 90 days time line for electoral activities to conclude has started.
One of the challenges that elections in Bayelsa state is faced with is the difficult terrain.
Are there some measures that BYSIEC is putting in place to breach the lacuna?
Yes there are. For instance, the experience over the years is that election materials especially none sensitive materials are distributed on the day of election including sensitive materials. And accreditation and voting is supposed to take place simultaneously.
That is the tradition. But you discover that in other to alleviate these challenges, what we trying to think is how we can send out personnel and materials ahead of time with sufficient security. So by the time they get to the registration area centres (RAC) it is nearest to the units. Materials get there so that on the day of election officials come and distribute. So the farest place anybody can go is less than thirty minutes. Those are the measure that we are considering to adopt.
Are you also monitoring the voter registration exercise?
We only advise the INEC. That job is strictly for them. Recently, I went to the INEC secretariat to have an idea of the updated register because by 2015\2016, all that Bayelsa had was 663,000 voters as at the end of the last quarter of registration. By law, only registration that is done 60 days before the election, are the persons that are eligible to vote. Anything after 60 days before the date of election those persons will only vote in subsequent elections.
