Twenty-five days to the first in the series of the general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has settled for the Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS) for the conduct of the April polls.
This is one of the high points of decisions taken during a meeting of the hierarchy of the commission with the 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) which ended in Abuja on Friday.
Also the National Chairman of the Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega is putting necessary measures in place to checkmate its officers who might be willing tools in the hands of politician as he is setting up a task force to monitor the RECs and other top officers in the State.
Against the tradition for general elections, the electoral commission, has also resolved to do away with the federal civil servants and school teachers as ad-hoc staff for the elections, as findings by the commission had revealed that these categories of people have ended being potential collaborators for election rigging and sundry electoral malpractices. Instead, the commission decided to continue with the deployment for electoral duties, of corps members, most of whom are serving in states other than those of their origin.
At the end of the meeting to which the RECs were summoned to explore options available to the commission for hitch-free elections as well as credible free and fair, the commission management and the RECs agreed that RECs should be held responsible for any electoral infraction recorded during the election except it has to with security related issues. Another innovation which the meeting agreed to initiate is the appointment of Supervisory Polling Officers (SPO) to monitor clustered wards during elections so as to bring sanity to prevail and ensure transparency. The Polling Officers (PO) and Polling Assistants (PA) at the ward level would report to SPO.
One of the RECs, who spoke on condition of anonymity on the decisions reached at the meeting said the MOBS was adopted for the conduct of the forthcoming elections after extensive considerations and deliberations on various options available and the right and most suitable one in the present circumstance.
It was the thinking of the RECs and other members of management of INEC that the MOBS would stem the tide of collaboration for rigging purposes as the method will frustrate malpractices and guarantee the right and independence of voters to secretly make their choice during elections.
The MOBS, the REC explained was just a modified version of the popular open ballot system used in the June 12, 1993 elections widely acclaimed as the freest in the political annals of Nigeria. “The difference is that while open ballot exposed voters to everyone on their choice, the MOBS, though open but will allow voters make their choice secretly. “While accreditation and release of ballot papers to a voter could be done openly, the voter would thereafter retire to a secret place to exercise his franchise”, he stated.
The electoral commissioner explained further that accreditation of voters has been planned to take place at the same time throughout the federation while voting is also expected to start simultaneously. However, immediately after accreditation, a policeman would be made stand at the back of the last voter accredited so as to prevent non-accredited person to join the queue.
According to him, the meeting resolved that votes be counted and announced at the polling units, before it entered into the Form EC40, which would be signed by representatives of the various political parties, security agents, INEC officials and other relevant stakeholders and pasted at the voting unit immediately.
Said he:“Once accreditation stops, voting commences immediately. Before the commencement of voting, the number of accredited voters would be counted and the number of votes should not be more than accredited voters, it should be less.
A policeman would stand at the end of the queue, behind the last person during accreditation. The result of the election would be announced on the spot and filled into Form EC40 which will be pasted on the wall at the voting units and signed by all relevant stakeholders. “INEC is not going to use primary school teachers and states’ civil servants for the elections.
They are agents of rigging and susceptible to politicians to manipulate. In a situation where youth corps members are not enough, we are going to make use of staff of federal parastatals. supervisory polling officers would also be introduced to keep vigil over the conduct of the elections in two or three wards in a local government area.”
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