National Commissioner and Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, speaks with, on the governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states held on November 16, 2019 and the commission’s preparation for the 2023 general electionsThe Independent National Electoral Commission is a product of the constitution and the law and all its processes and procedures are articulated and encapsulated in the Electoral Act, 2010.
The commission works with the security agencies under the auspices of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security to design deployment template for the elections. We rely on their assurances in the provision of security for the elections. It is their constitutional and statutory right to provide electoral security. The commission is not a security outfit and does not have its own security.
Many people are of the view that INEC is already overwhelmed by the challenges facing our elections. Is that the case? There is the belief by some persons that INEC always wants to conduct the exercise, with or without the irregularities and then push the parties to the court to resolve their issues. How does this belief make you feel?
The bill for Electronic Voting has passed second reading at the Senate. Is there likelihood that INEC would do electronic voting in 2023? There is every possibility that with manual voting in 2023, the cost of the election would be more than what was experienced in 2019 given that there would be more registered voters. Does it mean there is no alternative to expensive elections?
The commission prints ballot papers in accordance with the number of registered voters and prints result sheets based on the number of political parties. The commission does not see the future to determine the number of persons that will turn out to cast their votes. It will be disastrous to under-print ballot papers and tell the voters on the queue that the ballot papers for election are exhausted.
Very soon. We have a few courts ordered re-run elections between now and February. We intend to fix dates for these elections and early in 2020 the commission will take a decision on the resumption of PVC’s collection and continuous voter registration.
If Nigeria govt can't guarantee mean of livelihood then vote-buying continues. Majority don't care about life to preserve it. They risk life to rig election for governors just to afford to eat. Will u leave your biz to go kill or snatch ballot boxes for governor election? NO.
After inecnigeria must have rigged for APC, they turn around and lecture us!... 'George Orwell Animal farm'
Tell me how do you convince so many hungry mouths not to sell vote or accept a bag of rice? You can't bcus there's no level plain field to start with financially. If ea Nigerian gets N100,000 per month crude oil allowance whether u work or not, then good governance will matter.
Nigerians don't quite know what good governance is, how it translates to actual benefit & development. Those who understand it are few, those that don't are so many. Thus, there are no compelling interest to govern properly for reelection when you can buy stupid people's vote.
Electronic voting the only solution