Muhammed Haruna, a veteran journalist is a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) representing the North Central.
In this interview with Voice of Liberty Abdull-Azeez ahmed Kadir, Haruna speaks about the Continues Voters Registration (CVR), insecurity and 2023 polls, monitoring of campaign funds by political parties, the stand of the commission with regards to CBN Governors decision to go to court to decide his fate on 2023 presidency.
Voice of Liberty: Lets start with the issues of Continues Voters registration. How far has the Commission gone?
Haruna: We have gone very, very far. I cant give you figures, but I can tell you that it has gone far and very well. You know the biggest innovation is this pre-registration; online registration. It has helped us. The kind of congestion we saw ahead of 2019 elections, we didnt see it now.
Voice of Liberty: Another issue is the Central bank of Nigeria CBN Governor Godwin Emefieles controversy. Buying form not buying form. Being a card carrying member of APC or not. The CBN is a custodian of INEC sensitive materials. How would you reassure Nigerians of the non-compromise, safety and impartiality of the apex bank?
Haruna: It is not an answer I can give you off head as a National Commissioner. Even the Chairman himself cannot give you a straight answer because the commission would have to meet to deliberate on it.
But it is a serious matter. We take it serious enough because we think the integrity of elections hinges on a lot of things, including, of cause, where we keep our sensitive materials and those who keep custody of our sensitive materials.
Though the case is before the Supreme Court, it will even be subjudice to even say anything about. He has dragged us to court to say we shouldnt stop him from participating. Ours as the commission is to obey the law. Whatever the law says, even if we think it is an ass, we still have to obey it.
So far now, there is a contention in the interpretation of the law. The only arm that can interpret correctly is the judiciary. So once the Supreme is done, we can ably tell you exactly what our position would be.
Voice of Liberty: Another controversial issue is the creation of additional polling centres. There are some misconceptions that it was done to favour some parts of the country?
Haruna: I am surprised to hear that. Because for the first time since the last twenty five years, when controversy has trailed the creation of polling units, this time around, nobody has talked about one section having advantage over the other.
Because they were familiar with what we used to call voting points. They were familiar with them, and all we did now is to make those voting points autonomous so that they now became polling units. And we added about roughly fifty thousand to them. You know the old number was roughly one hundred and twenty thousand; about one hundred and nineteen thousand. If you round it up you have about one hundred and twenty thousand.
If you add fifty thousand, that is about one hundred and seventy thousand, which is very good achievement for INEC. Because for twenty five years the mandate that we have, to create polling units, we were unable to because of a lot of politics. But the INEC under Professor Mahmud Yakubu consulted very widely long, long before the thing; we didnt keep anything under the table. We keep everything on the table. So that people were now happy, they are satisfied.
There are some places they were saying why are you consulting, just go ahead and do it. If we did that, it means we didnt leant lessons. We have leant those lessons and we created them.
The problem we have now is what you call populate them. We expected people, anytime these units are created, any polling unit nearer your place, you just automatically, anytime you come to do registration, weather it is pre-registration or you want to do physical capturing, you pick that polling unit for the CVR.
But we have a lot of cases now where the polling units have not been populated. It couldnt be for want of awareness because we did a lot of awareness sensitization we were expanding those units in those areas. In fact, in a lot of cases we involve community leaders, religious leaders. They were the ones who were telling us we want it here, we want it there. So we expect them to help us to let people know that you now have a polling unit closer your place. You dont have to drive two, three miles, you just walk and just go there. So that when you come to register, you register your name in those polling units.
So hopefully, by the end of the registration exercise; you know we are going to suspend it June 30th, because there is lot of backroom things. We have to clean up the data, print PVCs and so on and so forth. And you need time to do that.
So, what we have done, our decision to suspend from June 30th is within our laws, there is nothing absolutely illegal. So that we have enough time to do other things and people will get their PVCs ahead of the elections in February 2023.
Voice of Liberty: Another contentious issue has always been conduct of ward, zonal, local government, delegate congresses and primary elections by political parties. This is often where the legal battle begins. What can you say about the conduct of the political parties so far?
Haruna: I think they have all leant their lessons to some extent. The Kaduna REC was in Zamfara and they said the beginning of wisdom now is to learn not to be Zamfarad. We have warned them, warned them and warned them: that was APC ahead of 2019 that they didnt have any congresses and conventions to select their candidates. Thy said no they did.
And of cause, the matter went before the courts, up to the Supreme Court. And it ruled that they didnt have any candidate. So we have been telling them and reiterating that.
But you know, Nigeria we are a very funny place. You know, instead of people thanking us that we give them sufficient time to prepare for things; we announced time table long, long time ago, almost a year now since last year, I think December or so. It is now they are saying we dont have enough time please extend it. And we have told them again and again and again that we will not extend it.
The rules are there and we have not violated any rules. In fact, they had more than five months to do these things. So, each one of them, I think they are playing cat and mouse. Each one is waiting for the other one to do, especially the smaller parties so that they can benefit free from the fall outs. That is why they keep shifting and shifting and shifting.
But the rules are very clear. Give us three weeks notice. If you dont give us sufficient notice we wont monitor it. And when they go to court and they ask for report, we will tell them we didnt monitor and we cant say anything about it.
If you give sufficient notice, there are other requirements; give us the names of your delegates if you are doing it indirectly. Gove us your partys membership register if you are doing it directly; all those things.
Some of the parties have complied. But some havent. But I think out of the eighteen parties, I think five of them said they are going to do congresses. The others are consensus.
Probably gather in a party secretariat and what have you. It doesnt violate any law. Once you meet our deadline; which is that all conventions and congresses must finish by June 3rd. Anything that goes beyond that; if you start in the daylight of June 3rd and it goes to the following day, you dont have a convention as far as we are concerned.
Voice of Liberty: For a political party that is going to have a consensus, would INEC supervise that?
Haruna: Yes, it is part of the law now; because the law has three options now instead of two. You know the electoral law before was direct or indirect. Even the constitution as a far as I know is direct or indirect. But along the line they added this consensus thing.
It is in the electoral law. And the electoral law now says; that is why they ousted it in the section 84 subsection 12 where they say you have to resign if you are a public officer. But a lot of them didnt want to resign. But when they realized that they cannot qualify to be candidates, some of them have withdrawn their resignations and gone back to their offices.
So, our deadlines are our deadlines. We are not going to shift anything.
Voice of Liberty: The issue of insecurity is another. Today there is virtually no part of Nigeria that is free of security challenges. How concerned is INEC about that to conduct free, fair and seamless elections?
Haruna: I think we should be asking outsiders. But we are concerned. We are absolutely really concerned and we have said it consistently, we would not toy with the live or limbs of our staff; weather they are adhoc or permanent. Anywhere we see any sign of insecurity, we would not deploy.
But a lot is been done. But even just last week we met our stakeholders, we met the four major stakeholders. You know there are lot and lot of stakeholders. But the political parties we started with them on Tuesday. Then we met with civil societies. Then we met with the media. Finally we met with the security services, headed of cause by the Police because it is a law and order thing, it is not a war thing.
It is the Police that head that security and we made it very clear to themthat we are really, really concerned that they should secure the environment for us, sufficiently for us to mobilise and have a peaceful election.
They have given us assurance that they will do everything possible. And you all know, the National Security Adviser is the Co-Chair of the ICCES (Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security). He is the one that coordinates all the security services, of cause including the Police, the Army, the Navy, Immigration and others.
And of cause hes been consistent. Hes being attending all our meetings or sends representatives. And he has always assured us that they will do everything possible to ensure things are safe for people to go out and vote and be voted for.
Voice of Liberty: How about the issue of campaign financing. For instance, the cost of nominations forms. Is INEC in a position to determine the limit of such financing and how confident is the commission through monitoring?
Haruna: You know; it is tricky. The law is quiet clear. It has limit, I dont know what those sums are now for this; that is for the party itself to campaign.
But there is no limit, and this is not just peculiar to Nigeria. It is an issue; Supreme Court in America just had a ruling, I think just last week. One Senator, they just have a way of by-passing laws.
Because if me, as an individual says I am helping you with one hundred million naira, it is not part of that limited fund.
So, it is a tough one. But what is clear is that the party itself, there is a limit what it can spend and we are very strict on that. We monitor that to make sure that you do not exceed that limit.
But if there are other ways in which they go round, those one would be for the courts to determine.
