Technology and INEC's Quest for a Model Election
The Election of Ekiti is here again and as usual the momentum is building as political parties are doing everything possible to emerge winners of the June 18th 2022 exercise.
Much has been said about the Political parties participating in the elections and according to the information at hand about 15 political parties will be slugging it out although 3 political parties namely; APC, PDP and the SDP are clearly ahead in the race.
At the end, the winners will jubilate and the runners up will be forced to lick their wounds for another 4 years that is, if ltigations will be avoided then Inec can heave a sigh of relieve for the first time.
Apart from the 1999 elections which ushered in the Alliance for Democracy Candidate Otunba Niyi Adebayo as governor of Ekiti state, almost all the subsequent elections has got Inec busy during the post election saga and Inec in Ekiti has received more blames than praises in the course of conducting Ekiti elections.
This time, it appears Inec is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring a free and fair election with its recent constant programmes of sensitization, awareness, campaigns and most especially the use of technology that will replace the analogue form in the electoral process in Ekiti. If i am not mistaken, this will be the first time Inec will be electronically conducting an election with the ABIS and APIS to forestall any electoral malpractices.
If will electronically transmit results directly from the polling units and people can log into the portal to get the results straight from the source. This will no doubt put a check on the spread of unverified results being circulated on social media which nearly misled the public in the last gubernatorial election when a sitting governor went on radio to announce a doctored result. This time around, information will be made available to all and sundry to avoid accusing Inec of any complacency.
On the 18th of May 2022 Inec invited stakeholders, Political parties and the general public to give an update on how far they have gone with the preparation of the election. The Inec Honorable commissioner in Ekiti state Dr. Tella Adeniran gave a well detailed analysis on the preparedness of commission to ensure voters and their votes are well accounted for. Mrs Oladunjoye Abimbola from the Inec ICT Department in Abuja did Justice to the updated and upgraded system of voting with the card reader now discarded and voters will now be cleared for voting facially including the use fingerprints which will be used to solve the misunderstanding surrounding the failure of card readers in the last guber election.
Moreover, the commission recorded a huge success in the areas of having complete data of voters in the state while doing away with multiple and non eligible voters. The commission has also laid to rest some malicious report from some quarters that Inec is distributing unclaimed PVC's to a political party.
At this juncture, it is important to let us know that The Independent Electoral commission is just an umpire whose duty is to coordinate the process. It is not part of the players and just like a football match while the referee is to regulate the affairs and how the players plays will determine the outcome of the match. Inec as a regulatory body can only appeal to the political parties and their members to play by the rules and in most cases political parties play it very dirty and still blame Inec for the outcome.
The general public should know Inec's sole responsibility is to make materials available at the designated polling units, make sure that only eligible voters vote, transmit the results and declare the winner. No Inec official is permitted to carry arms and participate in the elections reason Corp members are drafted for the exercise because their chance of being partisan is zero percent. Attacking Inec before, during and after the elections is like beating a child for crying, he or she will only cry more.
All the programmes being held by Inec and other concerned bodies are mostly being attended by the few elites and few party officials and I doubt if they relay the message to their teeming members the need to follow the rules and guidelines. The campaigns of Inec the umpire is being neglected while political parties jamboree is commanding large turnout of people.
I sometimes wonder if people realize the importance of listening to the body before the election because I won't be surprised if some parties have their agents rejected on the election day for failing to register their agents on the portal for easy recognition and to hinder impostors who may want to disrupt the process.
And if Inec refuses the unregistered agents won't there be uproar that Inec is partial?
A visit to the Inec office today shows people are more interested in this year's election than the previous years with over 900 thousand eligible voters and women taking 52% percent as at 18th of May 2022.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has therefore, set the stage clearly for a hitch free exercise on Saturday 18th June 2022, it is therefore left for the gladiators to play by the rules and I sincerely hope Dr. Tella Adeniran will have a cause to smile at the end of the day.
Idowu Adebomi
Ado Ekiti
