JDPC asks INEC to implement electoral law against vote buying

……demands enforcement from Security Agencies. 

By Felix Oti, Awka. 

Justice Development and Peace /Caritas  (JDPC) in collaboration with Foreign, Commonwealth  and Development office has called on Independent National Electoral Commission  (INEC) to implement electoral law against vote buying and sanction/ suspend defaulting political parties.

According to the Executive Director (JDPC)Onitsha  Rev.Fr. Dr Edwin Udoye  who disclosed  this yesterday  in Onitsha:”JDPC Onitsha stands to report that 2021 Anambra state governorship election was transparent, peaceful, free, fair and credible. INEC’S general performance was highly commendable; we do hope the lessons from Anambra state election can be used to improve on the subsequent election and most importantly, the forthcoming general election in the year 2023.

‘The security did a marvelous job despite the fear of violence which existed till the last minutes of the election. ‘The number of security personnel was adequate enough and the comportment of the security agencies at the polling units were highly commendable.

‘Political stakeholders have continually increased their vote buying activities and this period of amount ranging from N2,000 to N10,000. This has become worrisome and strict measure should be set up against vote buying.

Furthermore, the high rate of voter apathy experienced in the election has not been recorded in the history of election in Anambra state. Although this has a large attribution to the security challenges that beclouded the election, few cases of BVAS machine not able to accredit potential voters were recorded and inability to INEC to totally distribute voters cards prior to the election.

The JDPC full Anambra 2021 gubernatorial election reports reads: : Election is a process and not an event and as such, there are activities that are critical to the process in order to ensure full participation of the eligible citizens and general understanding of the electoral process. The 2021 Anambra  State Governorship Election against all odds was held on 6th November 2021 across the state  with axemption of Ihiala LGA that was conducted on 9th November due to logistic and security challenges. JDPC Onitsha conducted training and enhancement, Engagement with key stakeholders and CSOs, training and deployment of election observers among others. On Saturday 6th November 2021, JDPC Onitsha deployed 550 carefully trained stationary observers to polling units across the 21 Local Government Area Anambra State. The observers were deployed to observe the Election day process from the arrival of the election of officials, set-up of polling units to the closure of the polling units. This report is based on verified reports received from observers as at 4pm on Election day. In addition, critical incident reports were received and processed as at 4:00pm. These incidents could potentially undermine the integrity of the election if unaddressed.

Pre-election Activities:
Multi-stakeholders Engagement: As the election was threatened by “no election in Anambra State” by IPOB, JDPC Onitsha collaborated with civil right concern, Hope Givers Initiative to write to the South-East Governors Forum, Traditional Rulers and Religious Leaders to engage IPOB for the purpose of dialoging with the agitation groups to allow the election to hold. This was equally given media and online visibility. This paid off as the stakeholders engaged the IPOB, who later cancelled the no election order. JDPC had a dialogue session with INEC Anambra State on their level of preparation and the modalities for the election with a view to sensitize Anambra Voters. Other Stakeholders engaged to achieve a peaceful, free fair and Credible election in Anambra State include Situation room, Religious Leaders, Community leaders, Security agencies, CSOs and IPOB representatives.

Civic and Voter Education and Sensitization: JDPC Onitsha conducted civic and voter education acroo the 21 LGA of the state. Training of trainers exercise was conducted for one hundred and five persons who later did step down trainings in their communities and religious group. Equally, voter education and sentisization were done in three radio stations- Radio sapientia, Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) and City Radio.
Capacity strengthening and security awareness: JDPC Onitsha also carried out in the three senatorial zones of the state, capacity strengthening and security awareness training, comprising of security personnel, community leaders, National Youth service corps member, members of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, Man o. War, Anambra Vigilante Service (AVS) in ensuring and maintaining security and peace throughout the period of the election activities. 
Observer’s training and Deployment of Observers- Election is one of the most central pillars of democracy and thus calls for very careful selection of observers. JDPC Onitsha trained over 550 observers from the 21 LGAs as they were accredited by INEC to observe election. The INEC code of conduct for election observers were part of the key messages of the training. The observers were deployed with observers checklist to their government of residence to observe election in their closest polling units because of security situation of  the state. The various observers report was compiled and informed this final report of JDPC Onitsha.

Security chalenegs before election
Prior to the election, there were profound fear and tension before the election as a result of “no election order”  by IPOB, activities of unknown gun men, arson, kidnapping, attacks at election campaign arenas, threat of one week sit-at-home, burning public facilities and indiscriminate killings of innocent citizens. This scenario informed our intensive engagements before election.
Election day observation: 
Commencement and arrival of INE officials: The election recorded enthusiastic and early arrival of some voters in many places. Notwithstanding the palpale security challenges, tension and fear some voters manifested resilience, commitment, determination, fearless and audacity in trooping out to exercise their franchise. However, the election witnessed late arrival of INCE adhoc staffs with election materials in almost all the polling units. The delay was attributed to poor logistic plan, limited number of ad hoc and disappointment from the bus owners contracted to carry out conveyance activities. The situation was lately remedied.
Usage of Bimodal verification Accreditation System “(BVAS): The use of BVAS was classical and innovative. Nonetheless, BVAS malfunctioned in may places. This resulted to the delayed in verification as it could not swiftly authenticate fingerprints nd defect faces. The poor handling of BVAS by many ad hoc staff showed they were ill-trained and lacked requisite knowledge in its operationalization.

Voters turnout: despite the facts that some voters came out to vote, generally the turnout was low considering the number of the registered voters in Anambra state. Pre-election fear and inability of voters to collect their voter’s card as reported during our radio program by some respondents could have contributed for the low turnout.
Voter Buying: Across all parties, money sharing and vote buying to sway the voters was public, conspicuous and rampant, campaigning continued at the polling units. Nevertheless, some voters didn’t succumb to the money inducement to sell their conscience for money.
Citizen’s activism: Many voters stayed back to guide and protect their casted voter. Efforts by some unscrupulous persons to hijack the electoral process were resisted by voters.

Security Agents: Combine security agents both heavily armed and non-armed were deployed for the election. The security did marvelous work by maintains maximum order and peace. Their presence was serene and peaceful.
Reported Violence: cases of snatching the election materials were reported in Abatete, Idemili North LGA. Disruption activities by the thugs and miscreants were reported at Umuatuegwu Okija, Onitsha North LGA, where some hoodlums in ward 12 did not allow the set up of election material on polling unit 026 and Osru Central School Orsumoghu
Supplementary election – Election could not hold at Ihiala LGA because of reported security incidents and delayed arrival of election materials which resulted to the supplementary election being fixed on Nov 9. It was reported that BVAS worked perfectly at Ihiala without any record of failure.
Challenges: Despite the peaceful and calm election on the Nov. 6, there were still few challenges that affected the electoral processes and they included security threats and Accreditation of domestics observers by INEC.
Security threats – The security situation in the state before the election was so bad that the citizens were so afraid even to participate in election related activities. This led to poor voter turn out
LOOPHOLES: There are some loopholes observed on the Election Day and they included late arrival of INEC officials and opening of polling units, malfunction of most BVAS, Religion biases and poor trained INEC ADHOC staff
Late arrival of INEC officials and opening of polling unit: the late arrival of INEC officials and subsequent opening of polling units delayed the commencement of accreditation and voting across several poling units.
Malfunction of BVAS – It was observed that BVAS was deployed to the polling units. However, it was also reported that most BVAS took longer tie to verify the voters and some failed to authenticate voter’s fingerprints and photos even where voters details were confirmed on the voter registers except for the Ihiala supplementary election where the BVAS functioned effectively.
Poor trained INEC adhoc staff- it was observed generally that INEC adhoc staff were not well trained s some of them were seen enquiring from the voters how the BVAS could be used to capture, accredited and verify voters before voting.
Vote buying: there is still indiscriminate vote buying across the state by political stakeholder, this has the political of undermining the public confidence and trust in the electoral process.
Recommendation:
Having successful achieved a peaceful, free, fair and credible election in Anambra state, it is important to critically pay attention to the following if public confidence and trust in the electoral process must be sustained.
Have a registered transportation company to move the election material and officials on the Election Day. This may reduce delays and abscond by the commercial drivers.
Quickly respond to address the issue of fast increasing voter apathy if public confidence and trust be sustained continuous civic and voter education across the states and also partner with relevant MDAs and CSOs.
INEC should critically examine and maintain the factor(s) that has enable the BVAS machine on perfectly work in ihiala LGA but almost did not work on the guber. Election Day.
INEC can introduce an institution for proper training of ad-hoc staff instead of the shabby 3-days training given to officials who would come to the field and find the election processes foreign.
INEC should quickly implement the electoral laws against vote buying and sanction/suspend defaulting political parties.
Continuous and intensive voter education that will include comportment and behavior of voters at the polling unit.
Training sanitizing of the political party agents on modalities of doing their work
INEC should ensure total compliance to her stipulated election code of conduct.

9. Commendations:
   JDPC Onitsha hereby extend her profound appreciation to the Archbisp of Onitsha Archdiocese; His Grace- Valerian Okeke, Foreign, Commonwealth and development office (FCDO), the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria (CCFN), Security Agencies, our project partners, other Anambra JDPCs, CSOs AND ALL Other stakeholders that contributed to the peaceful, credited, free and fair election in Anambra state