ABUJA— The
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is to propose amendments to
its guidelines to stem the spate of inconclusive elections through
removing the
eight million uncollected Permanent Voter Cards from its assessment of
elections in the country.
Speaking to
newsmen, weekend, INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, also denied claims that
it had received legal advice from the Attorney General of the Federation on
legal knots that followed the inconclusive governorship election in Kogi State
and the judicial tango that followed the court judgment on Abia State
governorship election.
Yakubu, who was flanked by a national commissioner,
Prince Adedeji Soyebi, and Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole
Osaze-Uzzi, also disclosed that the commission had, under his watch, conducted
137 re-run elections flowing from the 680 court cases filed against the
commission after the 2015 elections.
Yakubu also lamented the avalanche of
litigations facing the commission, and in an apparent reference to the ongoing
crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, noted that the party had in the
last three months been faced with 11 court orders from courts of coordinate
jurisdiction, many of which were contradictory.
Noting concerns that the use of
total number of registered voters against the use of total number of PVCs
collected widened the base for the assessment of elections, Prof. Yakubu said:
“It is true that only those who have collected the PVCs can vote, but our
guidelines formulated on the Electoral Act only talk about the total number of
registered voters in a constituency.
“It is in the guidelines, and we can amend
the guidelines. But we cannot amend the guidelines in the middle of an election
so that nobody will accuse me of changing the goal post during the election.
“Maybe after we dispose off, particularly these re-run elections, there will be
an opportunity in full consultation with the stakeholders to revisit those
guidelines.”
He disclosed that there were currently an estimated eight million
uncollected PVCs in the country as he said repeated efforts to get the owners
to pick them had been largely ineffectual.
Yakubu said the commission would
deepen the use of technology and give legal backing to the use of the smart
card reader through the amendment of the Electoral Act.
Denies
consulting AGF on Kogi
or any matter
Yakubu flatly denied the claim that the
Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, gave advice
to the commission on some knotty issues it had faced, particularly on the
stalemated governorship election in Kogi and the court decision on Governor
Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
He said: “Some people have castigated the
commission for relying on the advice of the Attorney General of the Federation
in the case of the Kogi election. “We never sought clarification from the
Attorney General of the Federation, we never.
In this country, the Attorney
General is also the Minister of Justice; so he is the chief law officer of the
country, but he is also a political office holder.
An independent commission
like INEC should not be seen to be relying on the advice of a political office
holder. I have never spoken to the Attorney General.” Yakubu said.
He also said
the commission had made a recommendation to the appropriate authority on
filling the vacancies in the commission. He disclosed that there were presently
six vacancies in the ranks of national commissioners and 21 in the level of
Resident Electoral Commissioners.
Noting with concern the spate of conflicting
judicial orders and judgments the commission has had to grapple with, he said
on the impasse in the PDP:
“In the last three months, we have been served 11
judgments and orders interestingly from courts of coordinate jurisdiction
operating from three cities of the country on one issue and almost all of them
contradictory. It started from Lagos, Port-Harcourt and to Abuja.”
Vanguardngr
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