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2023 GENERAL ELECTION

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We have the capacity to face challenges of the 2023 elections, INEC assures Nigerians

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured Nigerians that it has the capacity and courage to face the challenges that the 2023 general election may bring.

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of INEC, who was represented by Festus Okoye, INEC commissioner for information and voter education, said this on Friday at the launch of Yiaga Africa watching the vote report on the conduct of 2022 Ekiti and Osun governorship elections.

Okoye said the commission has taken lessons from the recently conducted Ekiti and Osun governorship elections and will improve on its strategies in conducting elections in 2023.

“I want to seize this opportunity to assure Nigeria that this present commission will be bold and courageous in prosecuting the 2023 general elections,” he said.

“We are going to harvest and we will continue to harvest lessons from the Edo governorship election, the Ondo governorship election the Anambra governorship election, the Ekiti and the Osun governorship elections in shaping the way we approach the 2023 general election.

“We are going to harvest all the good practices, we are also going to look at some of those issues we did not do so well and we will improve on them.

“But our assurance is that this commission will not lower the bar and we are going to improve and we continue to improve with every election.

“All the good practices we deployed in prosecuting the elections under review will also be deployed for the prosecution of the 2023 general election.

“We encourage civil society groups and organisations we encourage the media, political parties and all the critical stakeholders to study the Electoral Act 2022 to have a working knowledge of the provisions of the Electoral Act.

“The Electoral Act 2022 is different from the Electoral Act 2010 as amended. There are creative and innovative provisions that have been imputed into the Electoral Act 2022 That has changed the framework and dynamics of election management and result management in Nigeria.

“Unless we have a good knowledge of these documents, it will be very difficult for us to follow the trajectory of the electoral process and some of the innovations and some of the changes the commission will make and will continue to make towards improving the character and content and context of elections.

“This commission will continue to upload polling unit results to our INEC results viewing portal. This commission will not depart from it.

“The Nigerian people will be involved in every inch of the process in terms of knowing what is going on at the various polling units through our processes and procedures.

“We plead for the understanding of Nigerians we plead for the cooperation of Nigerians because we recognise the fact that the 2023 election will be challenging, but we have the capacity, and we also have the courage to face those challenges in a very broad and courageous manner.

Yiaga commended the electoral commission over improvement in election administration, especially in election result management, the functionality of technological devices and stakeholder engagement.

“Based on Yiaga Africa’s findings both elections (Ekiti and Osun) signify progress in Nigeria’s elections journey based on the significant improvement in the management of election logistics, openness of the voting process, transparency and accuracy of the election results, and compliance with electoral Act 2022 and INEC Guidelines and Regulations for elections,” the report stated.

“Be that as it may there were cases of ballot box snatching, violence, and disruption of voting and result collation by thugs and hoodlums linked to political parties.

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“The national assembly should expedite actions to pass the National Electoral Offences Commission bill. This will enable effective arrest and prosecution of violators of the electoral laws before, during and after the elections.

“INEC needs to revisit voter allocation to polling units especially for the newly created polling units to ensure equitable distribution of voters, which will reduce congestion and ease election day administration for the commission.

“Where the commission assigns polling units to voters, it should update the voter records on its website and communicate the changes to prevent voter disenfranchisement, especially to voters who have been assigned to new polling units.”

Source: Thecable

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INEC turns down 70 CSOs’ request to extend Voters Registration

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Tuesday, turned down the request of 70 Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, to restart and extend the suspended Continuous Voters Registration, CVR, exercise, by two months.

The electoral umpire, which ended the exercise on Sunday, after extending it from June 30 to July 31, said it could no longer entertain further extension to avoid harming preparations for the 2023 general polls.

Meanwhile, the commission disclosed, on Tuesday that over seven million Nigerians, who did their voter pre-registration online did not complete the process at physical centres.

Consequently, a coalition of over 70 CSOs, requested for an extension of the exercise for another two months.

The INEC had in June 2021, begun the CVR exercise and launched a portal, where Nigerians could register by filing in their biodata and required documents, after which they would visit INEC designated centres to complete the process physically. Going to a physical centre for biometric capturing was a prerequisite to complete the voter registration process.

According to data released by the commission, 10,487,972 Nigerians carried out their pre-registration online. Of this number, only 3,444,378 Nigerians, representing 32.8 per cent, completed the process at a physical centres.

INEC had fixed June 30 as the deadline for the CVR ahead of the 2023 elections, but extended it till July 31 after a Federal High Court in Abuja stopped it from ending the exercise, and following several pleas by Nigerians and CSOs.

However, a coalition of over 70 CSOs, again, yesterday requested for an extension of the voters registration exercise for another two months to avoid disenfranchising the people next year.

The coalition, which is under the aegis of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, said the exercise should be extended to accommodate more prospective voters, insisting that “there is still a window for extension by the Electoral Act, 2022.”

The Situation Room said it received reports of a tedious registration process in the just concluded CVR exercise, despite INEC’s assurances of a seamless process.

“Situation Room further notes that the CVR which ended on 31st July 2022 will leave many willing Nigerians disenfranchised from the 2023 polls even when the Commission can stretch itself a bit more to continue registering voters,” the CSOs said.

In a statement issued in Abuja, yesterday, the CSOs, further asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to activate steps to address the current economic challenges, alarming unemployment, plummeting exchange rate and financial hardship on the citizens.

It maintained that FGN must desist from increasing or introducing new taxes, especially the proposed five per cent inclusive of excise duty on telecommunications services in Nigeria that will raise the tax to12.5 per cent.

While expressing its disappointment over the state of the nation the Situation Room said there was need for President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately rejig the entire security architecture of the country.

“The state of insecurity in the country has deteriorated so much that most parts of the country are now being threatened by non-state armed men with various nomenclature like Bandits, Boko Haram, Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), Kidnappers and Unknown Gunmen.

“According to reports, ISWAP and Boko Haram insurgents having occupied some territories in the North East of the country are now encroaching into Abuja and the rest of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Bandits continuous raid on villages fuelled with kidnapping of helpless villagers in the North West States of Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi, have continued unchallenged.

“The abduction of road users on the Abuja – Kaduna highway has been a major concern, bearing in mind that some of the March 2022 passengers of the Abuja – Kaduna bound train are still in captivity.

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“Recently, Kuje Medium Security Correctional Facility in Abuja was raided by the insurgents leading to the release of high-profile terrorists from the prison without strong resistance from security personnel, despite 45 security reports and warnings of the imminent attack,”they said.

We can no longer extend CVR deadline, INEC insists

Decline requests to extend voters registration, the INEC said that  the electoral timetable cannot entertain any further stretching.

However, INEC reassures that the CVR will resume after the 2023 General Election and all those who could not register this time will have the opportunity to do so.

Source: Vanguard

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Call your supporters to order, Sam Omatseye tells Obi after backlash over ‘Obi-tuary’ article

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

Sam Omatseye, chairman of The Nation newspaper editorial board, has asked Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), to call his supporters to order.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Omatseye, also a columnist with the newspaper, alleged that Obi’s supporters are threatening his life.

He said if anything happens to him, the LP presidential candidate should be held responsible.

“Mr. Peter Obi, call you[r] supporters to order. They are calling and issuing death threats. If anything happens to me, you will be held responsible!!!!,” Omatseye tweeted.

Omatseye’s tweet comes hours after an opinion article he wrote entitled ‘Obi-tuary’, which was published in The Nation newspaper on Monday.

In the article, the columnist said Obi’s candidacy has turned out to be an excuse for “closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it”.

“This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd,” the article reads in part.

“Obi knows this. He is happy to be their catharsis, to be their excuse for unfurling their bile at the system, for acting like revolutionaries.

“He is playing to it by acting as though he is the saint of Nigerian politics. Perhaps the purists of the Biafran cause are unhappy, and they unleashed a past video clip of Kanu on social media. In it, Kanu lashes out at Obi as governor and states what this essayist wrote about him over building a NEXT supermarket while still the governor of Anambra state.”

However, the article has elicited sharp criticism from supporters of the LP candidate, who have accused Omatseye of bias.

Source: The Cable

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