Delegates to the 13th National Delegates Conference of the Forum of State Independent Electoral Commissions of Nigeria, in Jos, Plateau State have rejected calls for the scrapping of the State Independent Electoral Commissions, (SIECs).
According to a statement by the European Union (EU) on Thursday, they instead demanded the reform of the State electoral bodies saddled with the responsibility of conducting local government elections.
The conference geared towards analysing the challenges facing SIECs and proposing workable solutions to strengthen local election administration is supported by the European Union through its ‘Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria’ programme.
Prof. Samuel Egwu, Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang, his Nasarawa State counterpart Abdullahi Sule, FOSIECON Chairman, Jossy Eze; and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) representative, Oliver Agundu, who spoke at the event insisted that there was no justification for scraping SIECs.
According to them, reforming the state electoral bodies would guarantee their independence along with their financial and administrative autonomy.
Eze expressed disappointment that despite constitutional backing, SIECs are often under pressure to serve vested interests. According to him, while there are several bills before the National Assembly seeking to abolish SIECs or transfer their mandates, none appears to address the real issues.
Agundu, the INEC representative encouraged SIECs to view elections not as one-off events but as continuous processes.
He also called for deeper engagement with civil society organisations and voter education efforts to better inform the electorate. “SIECs should not treat the conduct of elections as isolated events. Elections are a process, which includes post-election activities. We have observed that many SIECs become active only during election periods”, he stressed.
