INEC CONSTITUENCY DELINEATION AND OTHER MATTERS ARISING
Nigeria’s electoral map will soon change for the better if Dr. Maurice
Iwu of INEC succeeds in his current push for a more balanced redistricting
of Nigeria’s skewed constituency districts. Iwu proposes a redrawing of
the electoral map to right the wrongs of the past and also to give teeth
to the constitutional mandate requiring such an exercise every ten years.
Dr. Iwu was in Atlanta, Georgia the week of July 15, 2008 to address and
educate Nigerians in Diaspora and the international community on this very
important policy shift – a paradigm one that surely augurs well for
Nigeria as a young democracy. Maurice Iwu was well received and many of us
who are keen watchers of events in Nigeria (from afar) applauded him for
taking such a bold step geared towards having equitable representation of
minorities and fair balance between constituencies of equal population. It
is a novel step and the first by any national electoral commission
chairman in recent history. We therefore call on all our compatriots back in Nigeria
to support Iwu in this venture and to reject any temptation to play dirty
politics with it.
As Iwu clearly detailed it, this exercise will create and empower more
districts that have more voting population by allocating more electoral
seats to them and redistricting certain contiguous groups together in some
states. Other parameters include homogeneity, proximity, equality of
constituencies and the all important proportional representation. A review
of back issues of press clips on point will show that this is something
that has remained closer to Dr Iwu’s heart for quite sometime. Maurice
Iwu had during the presentation of INEC’s Official Report of the 2007
General Election in December of 2007 at the National Press Club in
Washington DC, pointed out that the current electoral map of Nigeria with
its attendant deficiencies created under the military government;
contributed some to the difficulties INEC experienced in conducting the
last election in Nigeria. Simply put, constituencies of contiguous and
proximate parts are likely to pose fewer challenges to INEC in terms of movement of electoral
materials/personnel and collation of results. Maurice Iwu is right on the
money. A closer scrutiny of Nigeria’s current electoral map suggests
that a great many of them are gerrymandered. This is unfair and
undemocratic to boot.
Thus, considering the difficult terrain and poor logistics it engendered
in the conduct of the last general election, INEC is now working very hard
to change it for the better for now and in the future. In the history of
Nigerian electoral regimes, this current INEC leadership under Dr. Iwu is
the only one that has not only created a positive road map for future
elections in Nigeria, but also has introduced the innovation that
electoral preparation for the next election must begin immediately after
every election. This assures professionalism and competence in the
delivery of elections. Additionally, the current INEC leadership, as
typified by Maurice Iwu, is the only electoral body in Nigerian history
that has upgraded and is creating a futuristic and sophisticated data
mining and information management system to meet international standard
set by the United Nations Organization. All these are admirable and should
be lauded and backed by all Nigerians, regardless of political persuasion. It is all for the common good.
A further review of Maurice Iwu’s many innovations will show that INEC
is now introducing a Business Intelligence model by creating solid
electoral archives, sophisticated data mining technology, instant
references, state by state statistical measurements, data analysis and
logistics, local Government and polling booth on demand information
systems. Under Maurice Iwu, INEC is refining its collation methodologies,
projection forecasting, up to date training of its staff and the deploying
of modern technology to the fullest in the conduct of future elections in
Nigeria. As an example, this is the only electoral body in Nigerian
history that has created a functional customer service system, and
developed an up-to-date website that is user friendly and easy to access
and navigate information and data any day, any time from any where in the
world.
According to the INEC Official Report on the 2007 election at page 92,“elections the world over are not mere events; they are processes
planned over a period of time. Planning, as experience has shown, yields
positive results”. It can not be stated any better than this and Maurice
Iwu has made this part of his new mantra at many public fora where he
addressed Nigerians in Diaspora. We agree.
INEC’s evident hard work and resurgent professionalism as revealed by
the presentation by Dr. Maurice Iwu in Atlanta, is wont to bring better
planned elections, improvement and deployment of cutting-edge technology
in the delivery of elections and many more positive impacts on the polity.
The unalloyed cooperation of all - the government, National Assembly, the
states and local government and international community is necessary for
the proper education of the citizenry on these many innovations. The
Ministry of Information and Orientation as ably led by John Odey can be
trusted to weigh-in on this by deploying its now much improved information
dissemination systems to assist in educating Nigerians. It needs to be
understood and stressed that Maurice Iwu’s plans will curtail corruption
in the nomination process, improve personnel, improve women and minority
participation, upgrade INEC logistics, tighten security for voters and
votes, improve voter education, enhance election observation and monitoring and, above all,
build enduring bulwarks around Nigeria’s delicate democratization
efforts.
Dr. Iwu is right in his postulates that for Nigeria to experience improved
and credible elections in the future there is an urgent need to eliminate
paper-based balloting and to introduce electronic-based balloting. I
believe his prescriptions to hold better prospects than the so-called
Option A4 in which we experienced voters shunting from behind one
candidate to the other or the other bizarre variety where party agents
conspired to overcount or undercount votes. Electronic voting systems
create permanent records with virtually no write-access to the core data,
thus assuring zero tampering. And Maurice Iwu knows better because his
universally acclaimed research at the Walter Reed Military Hospital in
Washington DC exposed him to the application of advanced computer systems
and methods at their very best.
Finally, Maurice Iwu recommended that election staggering should be
encouraged, whereby like in the United States and Great Britain, elections
are held for different offices at different dates instead of the current
logistically nightmarish practice of scheduling all elections together to
be held in one single day. It makes a lot of sense because Nigeria does
not yet boast the efficient transportation regime that could have assisted
INEC to quickly deploy men and materials to far-flung electoral precincts
in real time. The most efficient manner in which INEC delivered on the
by-elections is mainly because all the by-elections did not have to hold
in one day. This is illustrative enough of Iwu’s thesis on this point.
By: Ugo Harris Ukandu
Nigeria Democracy and Justice Project
Washington, DC
Ugo Harris Ukandu is of Nigeria Justice & Democracy Project, Washington DC
abujarock@yahoo.com