The 9 things Jega will be leaving INEC with

Things Jega will be leaving INEC with : Attahiru Jega inherited a trashy INEC when he was appointed chairman five years ago. The commission was a real failure at the time. Maurice Iwu had organised one of the worst elections in Nigerian history a few years before Jega came on. The elections were simply horrendous.

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Rigging was blatant. Polling booths were like riot scenes and people had certainly given up on elections.

But one thing that’s clearly today is that elections have improved in Nigeria and much of the credit has to go to Jega and his team for the reforms they brought to the system. Jega has clearly left some very important legacies.

His tenure ends this June. So in remembrance of his remarkable work as INEC chairman for the past five years, here are nine important things Jega has done to make INEC better:

1. Biometric voter register

One of the first things the new INEC did was to cancel the voters register used for the previous elections and create a new one from scratch. This was a crucial step for building credibility.

The commission rolled out its personnel and direct data capture machines between January and February 2011, and over 73.5 million voters registered. Now the commission has a proper biometric voter record that it didn’t have before Jega came on board.

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2. NYSC Corpers

Under Jega, INEC began using corpers for their ad-hoc work for the first time ever. The corpers did the fieldwork and conducted the elections on the ground. This use of corp members have instilled confidence in the voters that the election staff are neutral and trustworthy. Now people have more faith in the system by virtue of this innovation.

3.Introducing the Remodified Open Secret Ballot System (REMOBS).

One recurring problem in previous elections was that it was easy for people to voting multiple times without being detected. So after Jega was appointed, the commission decided that a major way to check this would be to have two distinct phases on election day.

The first phase is for voters accreditation and must be completed before the actual voting phase starts later in the day. This system makes multiple voting difficult since only accredited voters can vote and no accredited voter can do it twice. It worked during the 2011 elections and has been in use since then.

4. Using university staff for collation and returning.

INEC have hired senior academic staff to work as collation officers at all levels and also as returning officers since Jega became chairman. Their involvement has given the results some more credibility and substantially addressed fraud issues that used to be associated with declaring election results.

5. Introducing Registration Area Centres (RACs)

This is another strategy that Jega introduced.

The RACs are points, usually public schools, where overnight camping facilities are provided for officials who would be out working on election day. The RACs are close to the polling booths, so officials can pass the night, charge their equipment and get to their respective polling booths early. This strategy has helped to make sure elections kick off on time.

6. Working with a hybrid collation strategy

As part of the strategy to secure the integrity of results recorded at the 2011 elections, INEC tried to reform the procedure for managing election results through a hybrid plan involving manual and electronic parts.

The manual procedure is that all results must be displayed at the polling units and collation centers once votes have been counted and results declared. Then the papers would be transferred to the state office for safe-keeping not later than 48 hours after each poll.

The electronic procedure is that, at least for the presidential election, collation at the state and federal level are subjected to accuracy checks by using an excel spread sheet application to eliminate computation errors. So all results are projected on a screen and publicly displayed as they are announced.

E-copies of the results are also transmitted electronically from the state collation centres to the presidential returning officer using a secure email address in order to prevent tampering with the manual copies while in transit.

7. The verification of polling units

Before the 2011 elections, INEC visited every polling booth in the country to physically confirm that they exist and confirm their exact location. This provided the commission with a reliable guide and compendium of polling unit locations nationwide.

8. Restriction of movement

The new INEC uses security personnel to restrict movement on election day in order to forestall violence and fraud. This has worked very much. Now you don’t have to worry that someone will shoot you at the polling booth.

Some people don’t like the shutdown and heavy security on election days. However, the truth is these things have hugely contributed to making elections safer and better in Nigeria.

9. Card readers

This is INEC’s latest technology, and it’s been controversial this year with the elections. But it’s apparently worked for the most part and a lot people of attest that it’s a timely initiative.

There’s been some bad cases of course, but if we give the card readers some time and step up the logistics, it’s predictably going to be one of the most important legacies of the Jega leadership.