The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has said that the 2023 general elections witnessed diverse challenges, including misconduct by INEC officials and the deployment of thugs by some political actors.
Yakubu disclosed this on Monday in Abuja at a meeting with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the review of the elections, saying, “As you are aware, there were many challenges encountered before and during the elections. The severe cash and fuel situations were compounded by the perennial insecurity nationwide.
“The impact on our deployment plans, compounded by the behaviour of some of our own officials in the field, made logistics management particularly challenging. The deployment of thugs by some political actors made Election Day administration difficult in a number of places.”
The INEC boss noted that since the 2019 general elections, the commission had worked together with the National Assembly, CSOs, and other stakeholders for the improvement of the electoral process.
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He further said, “We were meticulous in our preparations for the elections, and there have been many positive developments in this regard. One area is the repeal and re-enactment of the Electoral Act 2010 into the Electoral Act 2022.
“The new law provides a period of 180 days for political parties to conclude their primaries and submit the names of candidates, and the political parties took advantage of it for the 2023 general elections.”
Yakubu also said that the development enabled the commission to commence the process of producing the sensitive materials for the elections in good time and that the printing of all sensitive and non-sensitive materials for the 2023 general elections was done in Nigeria.
He added, “This is the first time in 44 years since the transition to democratic rule in 1979 that this great step was taken and achieved despite the record number of 93.4 million registered voters and over 500 million ballot papers, result sheets, and other documents for the five categories of the main elections and supplementary polls.
He also noted that while voter accreditation using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was very successful, the uploading of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), especially for the presidential election, encountered a glitch as explained in the statement released by the commission on February 26, 2023.
He said, “The commission is aware that this matter is currently the subject of litigation and would reserve its comments for now. Nevertheless, the performance of the technology deployed for the elections is part of the ongoing review of the 2023 general elections.
“It will form an integral part of the comprehensive report that will serve as a basis for further engagement with stakeholders focusing on specific actions necessary for the improvement of future elections and electoral activities in Nigeria.”
He denied what he said was the impression in some sections of the public that INEC received huge sums of money from development partners for the elections, saying that on the contrary, and for the avoidance of doubt, the commission did not receive any direct funding or cash support from international development partners.
He said, “Rather, their support was totally indirect through CSOs and implementing partners working on elections. Indeed, it has been a longstanding policy of the present commission not to receive direct funding and cash transfers from sources other than the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“We hope that we shall continue to have this type of productive partnership with the civil societies and development partners in the future.”
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