… says power to appoint INEC chairman, commissioners should be removed from President

Samson Itodo, Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, has suggested that Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) are now obsolete. Speaking on Channels Television’s Morning Show during the week, the activist for credible elections emphasised the need for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to have full autonomy. He also provided in-depth analysis on the causes of low voter turnout in Nigerian elections. The interview was monitored by OLADIPUPO AWOJOBI. Excerpts:

Former president Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) went back to 1993 presidential elections in his book, what can you say about this?
The June 12, 1993 Presidential Elections stand as the most credible election in the history of Nigeria. If you compare the turnout for the 1993 general elections to date, the highest we have had was in 2003, when we had 61% turnout. So, when you think about turnout for the 1993 presidential election, it wasn’t as high as that of 2003, but if you look at the process, it had the best procedure to guarantee that citizens participate and the outcome of the election was a reflection of the will of the people. Yes, former head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, admitted that the late Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, who contested the 1993 presidential election under the Social Democratic Party (SDP), won the election, but a very devastating action was taken to undermine Nigeria’s democracy and it’s really unfortunate. I think that the admittance should not be swept under the carpet where the votes and the will of the people were wished away by a military government. This is totally unacceptable. That election produced a leader that had the support of the majority of Nigerians. Though it is late in the day, I don’t think that it’s something that should be swept under the carpet.

What did you discover about what drives turn out during elections in your recent research?
We need to acknowledge that Nigeria’s democracy is the biggest in Africa, but it has the lowest turnout, this is not a good development at all. What we did in the research is to propose a theoretical framework for voters turnout. We need to look at certain factors. There are factors that make voters to make individual choices either as a result of their interest, choices or motivation. One of them is confidence in the electoral process. If people don’t trust that their votes would count, they would not show up during elections. The second is access to voting processes. In the buildup to the 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) introduced a lot of reforms. One of the paradox that we have to explain is how come that despite BVAS, irev and other reforms, we still recorded 27% turnout at the last election? So there is a disconnect between the number of voters that registered for elections and the turnout for elections. Another one is the concept of inducement. The recommendation of the report is that even though theoretically you can say vote buying and inducement enhance voters turnout, what the study discovered is that vote buying and inducement do not deliver turnout as expected. Lastly is the concept of responsibility, which refers to what duty voters think they owe candidates and parties. What our study discovered was that candidates influence voter behaviour. If a party presents a popular candidate, the chances that people would show up at elections is very high. But there are issues relating to ethnic and communal affiliations. We have seen that both the ethnic extractions of voters and their identity determine. how they come out for elections. So, these are some of the factors that drive voters turnout. We also discovered some of the challenges that impede the ability of people to show up at elections.

What is the reason for the decline of number of voters in our elections?
There is a range of factors that drive the decline in the number of voters. The first one is the disillusionment of the people with democracy. People are unable to connect their participation on election day with the quality of their livelihood. How do you explain the fact that people go through a lot of harrowing experiences to cast their votes during elections and even if they believe that the process was manipulated or not, the outcome of the elections does not lead to improvement in their lives. People are asking question why they need to go out on election day, when their livelihood would not improve. The second reason we found out is that there are fundamental problems with our voters register. It is believed that our voters register is over bloated that we do not have 93 million registered voters. Yiaga Africa developed a statistical model for accessing whether our voter register is over-bloated or underpopulated. Our findings showed that there are unqualified persons in the register, there are errors on our voters register and INEC need to audit the register. Even if the voter register is okay, we would still have low turnout of voters, but INEC needs to work on our voters register. The other issue is trust in our electoral process. The greatest challenge for the 2027 general elections is that people wonder if their votes would count, and it is not certain that people still have confidence in the technology we are using. There is a great need to restore public confidence in our electoral system and it begins with a new INEC that is composed of individuals that do not have partisan leanings, individuals with impeccable integrity and individuals that have competence. From our recent experience, we discovered that integrity and non-partisanship are not enough, we need people who can manage and deliver quality electoral services that inspire confidence in the people to vote. The other thing is electoral transmission of results. Nigerians are saying that if you do not transmit elections electronically, if you don’t embrace technology, it would not inspire confidence that would drive people to cast their votes. Our study discovered that a majority of Nigerians believe that electoral technology can fix some of the challenges on our electoral system, it can inspire trust and can drive them to cast their votes. But electoral technology can also be used to undermine people’s votes.

You said we need a new INEC, what does this look like, we know we have had some electoral commissioners that have compromised?
A new INEC is one whose process of appointment should be reformed. You need to remove the power of appointing the Chairman of INEC and electoral commissioners from the President. That is part of our recommendation for the constitutional review. The President can call on Nigerians to make proposals on the individuals to be appointed into INEC. Also, the process of appointing people into INEC needs to be reviewed. Non-partisanship and impeccable integrity are important and I have also talked about the need to look at competence and skill. We need a process where when people raise objections about nominations, we should listen to them. You can’t have a situation where an electoral commissioner was a member of a political party in his or her previous or recent life. Nigerians want to see individuals in INEC that are not members of political parties or former members of political parties. They want individuals that have integrity. A situation where we have INEC being infiltrated by people who have partisan leanings does not inspire confidence in Nigerians and it also de-legitimises the outcome of elections. When you have individuals whose integrity is tainted, all you simply do is having elections that are managed by politicians. We hope the President and members of the National Assembly would listen. When the Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, leaves office in December, 2025, we would be practically one year to the 2027 general elections. So, the President needs to ensure that the appointment of a new INEC Chairman is done early so that the National Assembly can confirm him so that we don’t have any delay between the curren INEC Chairman and the next Chairman.

So, how do we address low voters turnout?
We need to audit our voters register so that we can have the accurate figure of the number of people in the register. Secondly, we need the government to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people. We need improved governance. We also need to jettison the use of PVCs. Nigerians have said that you can use legally acceptable means of identification. The use of PVCs is obsolete. BVAS has voters register, Nigerians who have identity cards and international passports should be allowed to vote during elections. This issue of no PVC no vote that is used to disenfranchise people although the initial reason is to sanitise the process, is obsolete. Let’s drop that and ensure that once your name is on the voters register and you have a means of identification you can vote, you will see that more people would show up to cast their votes.

Can you speak more on the independence of the electoral body in West Africa?
The independence of the electoral body is central to democracy, it’s also central to political legitimacy. You cannot have an electoral body that is subject to the dictate of the incumbent and have a credible election. What we have seen across the region is the excessive use of incumbent power. If you assess the last 10 years, many things have happened to the INEC. Number one, its financial independence has been undermined. You would be shocked that as we speak, INEC has not received the full money for the 2023 general elections, two years down the line. The way to undermine an electoral commission is to starve it of funds for elections. It’s not just about appointment, it’s also financial independence. We need to look at the operational and financial independence of the commission. We are worried that one way that the INEC is being captured is to deprive it of funds. The second relates to appointment. Former president Goodluck Jonathan said recently that when the head of an electoral commission faces too much pressure from the incumbent, the most honourable thing to do is for him to resign. But we don’t have a culture of resignation in our own context. We need individuals who have the courage to resist political interference from the incumbent and political actors. If INEC is independent, the kind of leaders that should not be in public office would not be there.