2023: AU sue for peaceful, credible election

Phlumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former South Africa Deputy President and leader of the African Union Pre-Electoral Political Mission to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has expressed hope that the 2023 general election in the country will turn out very peaceful and credible.

She said the AU was coming as a partner to support and ensure the success of the polls rather than dictate.

“We hope that the election goes well. We are here as partners to do a visit in order to ascertain for the AU that you are on top of it as we anticipate successful elections.

“We will like to hear from you about your level of preparation for this exciting election. How much consensus is emerging on the electoral processes and potential dialogue that you may need to encourage among the contesting parties and the society”

The AU also inquired among other things the existing working relationship between INEC and the contesting parties as well as the various roles and contributions of members of the Civil Society Organization, women, and Young who have shown a strong desire to engage in the process.

Some other challenges which the electoral body is having in the area of the financing of the process are also of importance to the visiting AU delegation

“We would like also to know that the working relationship between yourself and the contesting parties is proceeding as expected. We are also keen to hear about the role and contributions of CSOs, women and young people in particular, which we know as people are very much interested in the process and the outcome of this elections”.

Welcoming the pre-electoral political mission, INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu observed that with well over 93 million voters, 1.4million election duty staff and 700, 000 election personnel in action across the country on the D-Day, conducting an election in Nigeria is a herculean task.

Yakubu however noted that the commission is in a better position than it was four years ago on the eve of the 2019 general election due in part to the lessons learned from the polls and various imputes from observation missions.

He said the coming force of the Electoral Act 2022 has greatly improved the work of the commission and expressed joy at the pace at which preparation has progressed.

“We have done very well indeed. I’m very comfortable to say that at this point with about 3 months to the election, we have 50% of the non-sensitive materials already deployed to locations so we’re making very very good progress indeed.

“The law also requires the executive to make funds required for the election at least one year to the election. So in terms of the disbursement of funds, we’re also in a more comfortable position than we were before the last election and that’s why we have made the kind of progress we have made.

“You specifically requested to know our relationship with the stakeholders, we have been doing very well in that respect, take the political parties, for instance, there is a forum called the IPAC so we meet with political parties just like other stakeholders, the CSOs, the media, the security agencies every quarter. So once every three months, we meet with s/holders whether there is something important to discuss or not.

”So we can meet many times as possible so long as the need arises. And where we want to communicate with the political parties, short of following a full-blown meeting with them, we then interface with the leadership of the IPAC

Despite the progress, Mahmood Yakubu said the commission is still concerned about the security situation and incessant attacks on its facility, maintaining that the situation will not deter the determination of the commission to conduct a free fair poll.

“But I must say that despite the progress that we are making, the commission is still concerned about the security situation generally in the country, particularly the incidence of attacks on our facilities. In the last 3 weeks, 3 of our LG offices were attacked in 3 diffs. states of the federation. And the last one occurred yesterday in the southeastern part of the country.

“Now, although there were no casualties but quite a number of the materials already acquired and delivered for the elections have been lost. Now the good tin is so far, so far, we can recover from all the losses but it’s a source of concern. This shouldn’t be allowed to continue. So we will continue to engage with the security agencies to make sure that these offices as well as personnel and our facilities are protected ahead of the election”