When the APC announced that President Buhari, had garnered about 14.8m votes to emerge as its candidate for the 2019 elections, many a commentator were livid with rage at INEC for allowing what they considered “ highly inflated delegate numbers” to be published by the party.
Before long,conspiracy theorists started spinning tales of how this was a grand design aimed at manipulating the 2019 elections in favor of the ruling party. To these spin actors, INEC’s refusal to repudiate the numbers connoted a collusion with the APC to rig the polls.
Undeservedly, INEC has been woven into this old wives tale for the mere reason that it is statutory required to be present during the conduct of primaries by parties.
The Commissions main role during primaries is in line with the provision of the Third Schedule, Section 15 (C) of Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As amended) which empowers the Commission to:
“Monitor the organization and operation of the political parties, including their finances, conventions, congresses and party primaries.”
In carrying out the responsibility of monitoring in respect of party primaries the Commission is guided by the relevant provisions of respective party Constitutions and Guidelines as issued by the political parties.
The Commission monitors and reports on party primaries focusing on compliance with relevant provisions of party Constitution/Guidelines in respect of the following areas;
a) Mode of election adopted at the primary
b) Number of contestants/aspirants cleared to contest the primaries
c) Number of delegates accredited for the primary
d) Results declared.
The Monitoring Report captures and reports the conduct of the primary in the areas above as well as the processes adopted in the conduct of the primary. It thus serves as a reference material on the conduct of the primary.
DELEGATES LIST
In respect of the Delegates List, the political party provides INEC’s Monitors with a list of accredited delegates. The Commission’s monitoring role is to check the accreditation process and report on the Composition of the Delegates; i.e. establishing that the composition of Delegates is in line with the provision of the party constitution and Guidelines issued by the party.
The Commissions’ Monitors cannot and do not verify the identity of Delegates on the list provided by the party. The Monitors note the total number of accredited delegates as reflected on the list provided and/or announced by the relevant Electoral Panel/Committee of the party.
Subsequently, the final total result(s) declared by the party’s electoral Committee is checked against the total number of accredited delegates on the list provided by the party or announced before the commencement of voting.
The implication of all these is that the conduct of primaries is absolutely the affair of parties and INEC ‘s presence is more or less a rubber stamp of processes that the parties have already adopted for themselves.
INEC’s roles becomes even less critical when one considers the fact that the parties can reject all the actions or results obtained during the primaries and forward to INEC names that did not even participate in the primaries.
This practice is not only legal as contained in the Electoral Act but has been foregrounded by the Supreme Court.
So, let us discountenance whatever numbers parties want to bandy , the ultimate determinant of real numbers is the Smart Card Readers and PVCs. We should recall that Ifeanyi Ubah presented a register of 17m voters to the PDP’s candidate in 2015.
At the end of the elections, The SCR did its job and only 12.5m voters came out to vote for him. The SCRs are now even better upgraded to function better and will live up to its reputation.
