YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN! 2015: Jega Asks Election Observers To Secure Themselves

Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Thursday said that all local and international observers who wish to monitor the 2015 elections must make their own security arrangement.

Jega who said this at a one-day election workshop, Election Observation Outside Nigeria: Lessons Learnt, in Abuja, explained INEC would only be concerned with the security arrangement for the conduct of the poll.

“What we do in Nigeria is to liaise with the security agencies to give security and provide security for the overall conduct of the elections. The observers can make their own security arrangements; we even have some countries like India that do not allow anybody to observe their elections. However, we accept the presence of the foreign observers to add credibility to the outcome of the elections,” he said.

The INEC boss said that “there is no other place where the electoral commission or the state provides security for the observers,” perhaps with the exception of Venezuela, where the state tends to insist on the areas where the observers should visit.

Speaking on other arrangements being put in place by INEC for the 2015 elections, Jega said both the leadership and staff of the commission had visited about 16 countries for peer review and had discovered the importance of planning ahead for the conduct of a project like an election.

He said the application of Information Communication Technology had helped in most countries, especially in the developed world, where “politicians do not take elections as a must-win like what is applicable in some countries, especially in Africa.”

“Technology has helped to remove some logistics problems which INEC will take lessons from; but I must add that the use of technology in Nigeria would be difficult in the collation of results so as to avoid what happened in Kenya where a lot of crisis ensued,” Jega stated.

The National Commissioner in charge of Election Monitoring and Observation, Dr. Ishmale Igbani, said the biggest challenge facing INEC was how to conduct a free, fair, credible, transparent and clean election in 2015.

He said that it had become obvious that conduct of a good election would not be an easy task, especially in view of the rising intimidation, death threats, blackmail and other intrigues. “All that is left is for all the operatives that will play one role or the other in the conduct of the elections is to endeavor to be above board in the discharge of the responsibilities,” he added.

Igbani said it was paramount that INEC continued keeping abreast of universally accepted good practices that were being introduced in many parts of the world.

Source: PUNCH