The excitement and hope generated by the appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega as Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, by President Goodluck Jonathan is almost fading out, being replaced by a palpable anxiety. Can he organise a truly free and fair polls similar to the June 12 1993 election, believed to be Nigeria’s best election so far, even acknowledged to be so by the former military dictator, who annulled it for contrived reasons? Will Jega be able to deliver in tune with the expectations of Nigerians? Or will he end up like his predecessor, Professor Maurice Iwu, otherwise known as ‘Professor Wuruwuru’, who supervised one fraudulent election after another, the worst of which was the 2007 poll, which to the dismay of the civilised world woefully fell short of Nigeria’s poor electoral standards? In the last two weeks TheNEWS editors consulted a wide range of Nigerians to ask for suggestions on how Jega can ensure credible elections at all levels. Twenty of their salient suggestions are hereby offered for his consideration

(1) INEC needs to be a credible and independent body
Jega must ensure that INEC works hard to maintain integrity and credibility. In its programmes and dealings with political parties, INEC must be seen to be truly an impartial umpire, allowing no special favour to any party, including the ruling party which nominated its commissioners. The behaviour of the last INEC regime left much to be desired in this regard, as illegal ballot papers and ballot boxes were found in the possession of the candidates and overlords of the ruling party. According to Lanre Arogundade, Vice-Chairman, Electoral Reform Network, ERN, “Jega must make up his mind to run a credible INEC which sets the basis for the rule of law, not an INEC which will continue to join in the political fray or going to court when litigations are not directly concerned with it.”
The credibility factor is the most crucial if the Jega regime really wants to turn a new page in the way Nigeria conducts its electoral affairs.
“In the 2007 elections, the obvious bias and partisanship of the INEC chairman, Iwu, was central to the failure of the elections,” the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform, CODER, said.
It added that every decision taken by the former INEC chairman (Iwu) was clearly the wish or desire of (former) President Olusegun Obasanjo. “The many obstacles put in the way of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as he sought to run for the presidency showed beyond the shadow of doubt that although it was the voice of Maurice, it was actually the hand of Aremu,” CODER maintained.
Added Arogundade: “Jega should preside over an INEC that does not “meddle in the internal affairs of political parties for political purposes.”

2. INEC must never go cap in hand to Aso Rock
To further help the integrity and credibility of Jega’s INEC, CODER supported the Electoral Reform Committee’s recommendation that the funding of the commission “should be a first line charge on the consolidated revenue fund of the federation”.
This, as CODER argued, will free INEC from the apron string of the Executive Arm of Government and enable it plan properly for elections and be a “master of its own procedures”.
Therefore, experts argued that in a situation where a ruling party determines who gets what, when and how, the independence of an electoral body could be jeopardised as happened under the Obasanjo government.

3. New Voters’ Register
The new INEC boss must immediately declare the old electoral register irredeemably flawed and announce an emergency to carry out a fresh registration of voters. During the Ondo State Election Tribunal proceedings, it turned out that a lot of foreign names, such as Mike Tyson, Muhammed Ali existed in the register for the state. The same anomaly reared its head in the Anambra governorship poll in February this year. Names that ought to be in the register were not there, leading to massive disenfranchisement of eligible voters and an ‘embarrassing situation’ where only 10 per cent of the ‘registered voters’ voted. Arogundade argued that the present register is worse than flawed. As he put it, “Anybody who was 17 years old in 2007 is now of voting age. If there is no fresh electoral register, how do you accommodate them?”
CODER also believes that the current register should be replaced with a digitalised register containing the biometrics of voters––photographs, finger prints, thumb print, etc. This will eliminate incidents of multiple thumb printing.
The group added that voters’ registration should be continuous but in an election year, it should be concluded six months before the general elections.
TheNEWS does not necessarily agree with this time frame, but agrees with the need for an overhaul of the register, a task that must begin in the next few weeks. Remember, it has to be treated like a national disaster, requiring an emergency measure.

4. The Modified Open Secret Ballot System
Nigeria conducted the much praised June 12, 1993 poll using this method. Politicians who speak with candour on our recent unwholesome polls generally agree that even though the method used then may not be in a political science textbook or in use in any other country in the world, it offers a very transparent prospect in voting. The modified open ballot system works this way: all voters registered in a particular polling booth assemble at a specified time; they are accredited and then secret balloting starts. At the end of the voting, the ballots are counted and the result announced to all the accredited voters. It worked then, but the quandary of our country is that our leaders love changing a winning formula. The beauty of this is that the man who headed our electoral process at the time, is still alive. We advise Jega to hire him straightaway as a consultant.
CODER, like many Nigerians believes that this method of voting will guarantee “the sanctity and integrity of the electoral process…the process makes for factual synchronisation of accredited voters with the voter register and the actual votes cast at the election”. The process, as the organisation argued, is more transparent than the open secret ballot as the voters participate in the process and see it carried through.
As witnessed in 2003 and 2007 polls in many states of Nigeria, the number of votes cast exceeded the registered voters, not to talk of the duly accredited voters in the election. The Modified Open Ballot will check some of these abuses, as witnessed in Ogun State in 2003 where the votes recorded in the presidential poll exceeded the votes recorded in the governorship race, though the two elections were held same day, same time.
“Any voting system that will ensure a credible election should be adopted,” Arogundade advised.

5. Number of Voters Per Booth.
When Professor Jega faced the Senators, one of his promises was that he would explore how modern technology can be interfaced with our electoral process. TheNEWS wants to advise him not to even bother about acquiring high-tech gadgets yet, there is a simple science that he should immediately experiment with and use on election day. Past electoral arrangements embark on a deliberate game of deceit and fraud when they stuff the register with 500 names per polling booth, leaving room for ballot stuffing and rigging. Science has shown that it is not possible for 500 people to vote in an election held between 8am and 4-5pm in any part of Nigeria. Mr. Jega should try it: it will take at least 2-3 minutes to locate a voter’s name in the register, accredit him and then allow him to cast his vote. If we go by this simple, demonstrable logic, it follows that at any polling booth, not more than 150-200 people can vote in any given election at any given booth. Politicians and INEC officials who record huge votes, 100 per cent turnout at some booths should cover their faces in eternal shame. It’s just not possible. Those figures make our country a huge laughing stock in the civilised world. To Jega, we therefore recommend not more than 200 names on any register for a polling booth.

6. Let disputed votes go through Forensic Analysis
Surely Nigerian poll riggers are still living in the past, believing that their fraudulent acts can go undetected. Thanks to science, nothing can be hidden from scrutiny. This was the new dimension introduced in some parts of Nigeria following the rigged polls under General Olusegun Obasanjo’s watch three years ago. Forensic analysis clearly showed multiple voting by same thumb, it showed that palm kernels were used to make thumb prints in many places, it threw up a number of anomalies in the election, including revelations that ballot papers earmarked for a different state were used in the disputed areas. According to Professor Yemi Osinbajo, an expert on the law of evidence, the forensic analysis of some ballot papers used in some local governments in Ekiti, showed that there were 30,000 multiple thumb prints of 130,000 PDP’s votes.
We therefore urge Professor Jega to warn the die-hard riggers that INEC shall subject ballot papers to forensic analysis

7. All voters must carry National ID Card
To be doubly sure that the right person registered is the person voting, all voters should go to the voting centre with their national ID card or international passport, or driver’s licence as proof of identity. This will help stem underage voting, ghost voting, mercenary voting and so on.

8. Elections should not be held same day anymore
Thanks to the courts, this has become part of the national tradition now: when Nigerians go to the polls early in 2011, not all the governors will be facing the electorate. But there is need to make a deliberate policy on this staggered poll rather than this accident that has occurred through the courts. For one, elections in mountainous areas or the creeks should not be held same day when voters in more accessible areas go to the polls. If we are truthful to our nation, we must admit, that reaching all those areas on election day has always presented huge challenges, to the extent that in some areas, election materials are never delivered and votes cast are awarded or allocated rather than being the expression of the will of the people. In Bayelsa State in the 2007 election, the courts ordered a new governorship election because the INEC could not produce the ballot papers used to announce the election of the incumbent governor. Since there was simply no election as the opposition claimed, INEC had audaciously written a phantom result.
By holding elections in the inaccessible and remote areas of the country a week or days before the other accessible areas hold theirs, INEC will be in a pole position to better monitor and supervise the election in those areas. Such an arrangement will also enable INEC to have more personnel available to conduct the election in more accessible areas of the country. Election monitors will also be able to do their duty, without having to stretch themselves.
Our recommendation is that the result of the election in the difficult areas should be withheld and only disclosed when polling has taken place in other areas.

9. Why a Saturday for our polls, why not a weekday?
Saturday is a precious day for many Nigerians. It is a day set aside for weddings, funerals and many social engagements. By scheduling polls on Saturday, the electoral body may actually be alienating these people who don’t want to joke with their Saturday. This line of reasoning has engendered the suggestion that the INEC should consider holding elections on other days, say a Tuesday or a Wednesday, instead of this fixation with Saturdays.

10. Safekeeping of ballot papers and boxes
In our view, election materials should be treated like the national currency, which the nation spends fortune in protecting, ensuring that it is not forged or stolen from the Central Bank or the Mint. INEC should extend a similar attitude to polling materials. From their production, INEC must ensure that the process is not compromised in any way. Let the materials be produced by the Mint or any other press with proven strict security measures. To ensure safe delivery to all polling areas, our advice is that INEC  consider employing bullion vans, the services of the banks or companies carrying currency notes. And after the election, INEC must also explore asking the banks to lock the ballot boxes up in their strongrooms or vaults. If the banks are unwilling to help, let INEC explore building strongrooms per state at their INEC headquarters until the courts dispose all the election cases.
In addition, Jega must make sure that INEC numbers all ballot papers serially and booth specific. The last regime attempted this, but the process was heavily compromised.

11. Voting and Election Result
We advise Professor Jega to ensure that election results are declared at each polling unit and all collation centres, not in Abuja for whatever reason. All party agents must sign the result, along with the security personnel assigned to the election area. We also urge him to cancel any election held in any part of the country marred by violence, disenfranchisement and intimidation. This, according to experts, will prevent a repeat of what happened in states such as Osun and Ekiti, where the opposition candidates and agents were barred via brute force from some areas, where the poll was ultimately perverted, leading to costly litigations.

12. Cultivate the Monitoring Groups: they are your inseparable allies
TheNEWS advises Jega to work with credible civil society organisations to monitor elections. As Arogundade put it, “you had situations in the past where local monitoring groups were sometimes disallowed from participating in elections.”
Worse still, some of their field officers were beaten up as was the case of Dr. Abubakar Mommoh, a Lagos State University lecturer who was beaten in Ekiti State during the governorship re-run.

13. Live by the Rule of Law
If he wants to succeed, Jega must abide by the rule of law. Arogundade said he should not preside over an INEC “which will continue to join in the fray or going to court when litigations are not directly concerned with it”.
Also, INEC should, in the view of analysts, obey all court rulings where certain candidates have been disqualified.

14. Let there be massive voter education
According to Paul Kassim, an Abuja-based lawyer, Jega should embark on massive public enlightenment to educate Nigerians against this issue of selling of voter’s cards by the electorate. In the last election in Anambra State, candidates of political parties were alleged to be buying voter’s cards and this kind of conduct undermines credibility of any election. “Nigerians need mass orientation to understand that to participate in an election exercise is their civil right that should be valued more than any amount any politician is willing to pay for their cards.”

16. Let the Police maintain neutrality
Another issue which Jega must address is, according to Kassim, police involvement in electoral malpractice. The Nigeria Police has been severally accused of colluding with politicians to corrupt the electoral process. The new INEC chairman must come up with a policy that will make it difficult for the police who are required to provide security at polling stations, to corrupt the process. Stringent measures should be imposed on any officer found to have colluded with politicians to corrupt the electoral process. “Those who snatch ballot boxes often do so in the full glare of police officers and this tends to give the impression that the policemen were compromised. Something must be done about the police force in the conduct of future election in the country,” he said.

17. Purge INEC of the bad boys
D. Mohammed, a senior member of staff of the National Youth Service Corps Secretariat, Abuja, urges Jega to  re-organise INEC. “He needs to flush out the bad eggs so that he can create room for credible people to work with him. We have a lot of good Nigerians who can be relied upon to do the right thing.”

18. Encourage parties to practice democracy
Another political analyst advised Jega to encourage parties to adopt internal democracy which can throw up candidates that can deliver, not those who will bribe their way to power. “If a candidate is popular (chosen through this good process), people will come out to vote for him and it will be difficult for such popular candidates to be rigged out, otherwise the people will revolt.”

19. No enjoyment of stolen votes
Jega should, as a civil society group advised, make sure that all electoral disputes are disposed of before winners are sworn in. This is contained in the recommendation of the Electoral Reform Committee, headed by Justice Mohammed Uwais.
This will prevent the ugly experience of state governors who may later lose at the tribunal, using the state resources and instruments of office to manipulate election petitions. This, according to Yemi Osinbajo, a past Attorney-General of Lagos State, is a most perverse idea, especially because the period spent is one in which all such governor’s acts are deemed valid. “Why should a mere swearing-in after a fresh election have the effect of ignoring the legal situation immediately preceding it and immediately create a new term?” Osinbajo wondered.

20. Prosecute Electoral Offenders
In Nigeria, electoral offenders do not get punished, even when their culpability has been established at the Election Tribunals. To sanitise the electoral process, therefore, Jega should ensure that every suspected perpetrator of electoral fraud is prosecuted and, if found liable, punished. This would serve as a deterrent to other would-be offenders.

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

– Additional reports by  Desmond Utomwen and Nnamdi Felix/ Abuja.