Ref:
INTERSOC/SE/03/04/015/FGN/ABJ/FRN
1.
Air Chief Marshal AS Badeh
Chief of Defense Staff, the Armed
Forces of Nigeria
The Defense Headquarters, FCT,
Abuja, Nigeria
2.
Lt. Gen Kenneth Minimah, Chief of Army Staff of Nigeria
The Nigerian Army Headquarters
Plot 1092, Mohammadu Buhari Way
Area 7, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria
IGP Suleiman A. Abba, Inspector
General of Police
The Nigeria Police Force
Headquarters
Louis Edet House, Shehu Shagari Way
Garki, Abuja, Nigeria
3.
Mr. Ita Ekpeyong
Director General, State (Department
of) Security Services
The SSS (DSS) Headquarters, Three
Arms Zone
FCT, Abuja, Nigeria
4.
Senator Anyim Pius Anyim
Secretary to the Government of the
Federation
Shehu Shagari Secretariat Complex
Three Arms Zones, FCT, Abuja,
Nigeria
Sirs,
Beyond
INEC’s Corruption & Bastardization Of PVCs Distribution: Conditions For
Secured & Rogue Free Polls In Nigeria (Edited & Updated)
(Democracy, Public Security &
Safety, Onitsha Nigeria, 20th March 2015)-On 10th February 2015, the leadership of International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) wrote your
respected public offices including the Chairman of Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) and excluding the Chief of Army Staff and the
Inspector General of Police. The referenced letter was titled: Healing
The Wounds Of Aborted Scientific Rigging Of 2015 General Polls In Nigeria: What
Your Respected Authorities Must Do. The letter follows shift in
the dates of the 2015 general polls from 14th and 28th
February to 28th March and 11th April 2015 owing to
security concerns in the Northeast and INEC’s unpreparedness, particularly as
it concerns gross lopsided distribution of PVCs to registered voters in
Nigeria.
On 15th March 2015
(updated), we wrote the Chairman of INEC and the letter was titled: Consequences
Of Importing Ethnic Cleansing Into The Distribution Of Permanent Voters’
Cards In Nigeria. Copies of the latter were sent to the trio of the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Chief of Defense Staff and
the Director General of SSS (DSS). Copies of the said letter are hereby
attached for the Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector General of Police. All
the referenced letters have been successfully delivered to their recipients.
The overall aim of the letters under reference is to expose INEC’s
incompetence, ethno-religious bias and other anomalies as well as pinpointing
election security loopholes with a view at ensuring that they are remedied and
nipped in the bud; leading to violence and rogue free polls in the country’s
2015 general elections particularly the presidential segment.
Understanding
Demographic/Electoral Contract Between INEC & Nigerians:
In accordance with relevant
provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 with its
last amendment in 2011 as well as the provisions of the INEC Establishment Act
of 2004 and the Electoral Act of 2010; the civic and electoral duties and
obligations of Nigerians of voting age start and end with the carriage of their
human persons to centers designated by INEC for registration of voters and
revalidation of voters’ cards; for the purpose of volunteering demographic
information about themselves so as to be captured as registered voters as well
as to periodically re-validate their voters’ cards. Once this process is completed,
the citizens have fulfilled their demographic and electoral contract with INEC.
Issues of articulation and
incorporation of the citizens’ information, biometric processes including
capturing of required fingerprints and photographs, verification of information
supplied by the citizens, printing and issuance of temporary or permanent
voters’ cards, voters’ cards transfer, theft or cloning of permanent voters’
cards, etc are solely the responsibility of INEC. The Commission takes
full responsibility of their failure or the otherwise. For instance, it is not
the responsibility of a voting registrant to ensure that he or she has his or
her fingerprints fully captured; it is solely that of INEC.
Same thing applies to registration
of under-age voters and double or multiple voters’ registration. INEC takes
full legal and moral responsibilities of such exercises. If INEC is truly ICT
compliant, its system should have been designed to instantly spot and reject
double or multiple registrants and to an extent under-age registrants. In
crime, for instance, ICT makes it possible and easier to detect repeat
offenders including repeat traffic offenders. Also
the policies, procedures and actions of INEC determine the level of response of
the registered voters in the collection of PVCs or TVCs. Same thing applies to
registration of voters proper as well as voter’s card transfer and general
management of the National Register of Voters by the Commission.
Therefore, it saddens and sickens
our heart to observe the INEC’s consistent attempts to shift blames to
Nigerian registered voters and those of voting age over its huge failure in
competently managing the country’s National Register of Voters including
voters’ registration and revalidation as well as custody and safety of the
permanent voters cards. INEC under Prof Attahiru Jega is a monumental failure
in these regards.
The stark truth is that the
Commission has woefully failed Nigerians in its 2015 electoral midwifery; yet
the Commission led by a number of BBC academicians including its
headship finds it very difficult to admit its failure, which stems from the
fact that they embraced ICT without caution and expertise having been born
before e-computer (BBC). For instance, Prof Attahiru Jega was born in
1957; long before the advent of the Information Computer Technology and after
the advent of computer typewriter technology. In other words, it
is correct to say that they are typewriter computer generation
who still see and treat ICT in typewriter computer perspective.
In advanced ICT compliant
countries including Greece, ICT is superbly managed in addition to its side by
side use with manual technology. Instead of INEC looking inwards so as to remedy
the flaws under reference, including disenfranchisement of whopping 12.4
million registered voters of pastoralist and minority ethnic backgrounds, by
way of non issuance of PVCs to them, which ought to be remedied by the use of
TVCs (temporary voters’ cards); the Commission and its cronies in the CSOs
(CSOs Poll Situation Room) and opposition parties has gone out uncontrollably
in image laundering including getting influenced and supportive comments from a
number of foreign missions favoring the so called “Card Reader Technology”;
while ignoring or trivializing the fundamental issue of distribution and
issuance of permanent voters cards to all Nigerian registered voters
irrespective of their tribe, sex and religion.
Till date, over one million PVCs
including 500,000 awarded to a local firm in Abuja have not been produced by
INEC. Also, 12.4 million registered voters have been disenfranchised and denied
their rights to vote in the referenced crucial national polls by the
Commission. There are also widespread complaints by pastoralist ethnic
nationalities and other minority populations in the country of deliberate
denial of their PVCs by INEC, which the Commission blatantly refused to address
because of its capability of upturning the Commission’s perceived ethno-religious
desire to appropriate presidency to its headship’s ethno-religious origin. The
Commission and its cronies in the CSOs and opposition parties has spent more
time and resources diverting public and international attentions from its in-house
rigging through fundamental and systematic disenfranchisement of
registered Nigerian voters of over 12 million; to the Card Reader campaign. The
Commission has moved from strong accusation of its hitherto parasitic linkage
with the ruling parties to parasitic linkage with the opposition parties and
conformist CSOs.
Further, over one million PVCs
have been stolen in the country under INEC watch since August 2014. While there
are widespread denial of PVCs to over 12.4 Million registered voters of legal
and qualified citizenship; there are millions of under-age voters issued with
PVCs by INEC particularly in the Northwest and the Northeast zones especially
among Muslim population.
While INEC says it has
resources and provisions for IDPs of Northeast States of Yobe and
Borno with dominant Muslim population to vote; the Commission
claims it has no resources and provisions for other IDPs (dominated by Igbos
and other Christian minorities) to vote. The number of Nigerian
citizens of voting age denied voting registration by INEC owing to its
stringent and discriminatory policies and actions; particularly in the South
are in millions. Instances of flaws or anomalies inherent in the INEC’s 2015
electoral midwifery are too many to be exhausted in this letter.
Conditions
That INEC Must Fulfill To Ensure Secured & Rogue Free Polls:
To ensure secured and rogue free
polls on 28th March and 11th April 2015 particularly the
presidential poll, your respected offices particularly the offices of the Chief
of Defense Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Director General of DSS and the
Inspector General of Police, as a mandatory condition to INEC, should ensure
that the Commission does as follows:
1.
That INEC must compile and send to your respected offices the names, locations
and number of all the popularly recognized polling units in Nigeria (119, 973)
for terrain, terrestrial, aquatic, data, securitization and surveillance
studies; for the grand purpose of ensuring maximum poll security and counter poll
rigging operations.
2.
Your respected offices must demand from INEC to clear air with statistical
breakdown, on the possible existence of two sets of National Polling
Units (119, 973 (120,000) and 150,000) in Nigeria. This
is to block the possibility of second official rigging using officially created
criminal polling units.
3.
INEC must pledge to your respected offices of its readiness, willingness and
ability to apply and enforce to the letter and evenly all voting accreditation
procedures throughout the country’s popularly recognized polling units. In
other words, INEC’s reported age long method of lowering some voting procedures
in the North particularly in the Northwest and the Northeast owing to
instigated mob action or group violence; and tightening of same in the South
must be eliminated. That is to say that the use of Card Readers and PVCs in the
referenced polls must be uniformly applied and enforced to the letter
throughout the country irrespective of landscape or ethnic grouping.
4.
INEC must pledge to your respected offices to turn back from the voting centers
and areas all facially and commonsensically identified under-age voters
particularly in the Northwest and the Northeast zone. Your respected offices
also have a constitutional duty to disallow any under-age voter to queue for
accreditation or voting not minding the validity of his or her voter’s card.
What Your
Respected Offices Should Do:
5.
The Northwest and the Northeast zones as well as Plateau and Niger States in
the North-central zone should be designated by your respected offices as the
poll security hotbed and poll rigging nipping points.
6.
All youths and street urchins particularly in the Northeast and the Northwest
as well as in Niger and Plateau States in the North-central; other than those
with valid voters’ cards, must be kept off the streets and voting areas on the
voting dates.
Those with valid voters’ cards must
be searched and all daggers, pencil machetes and violent sticks in their
possession must be recovered and impounded.
7.
Politicians and religious leaders in the Northwest, the Northeast as well as
Niger and Plateau States in the North-Central and Rivers State in the
South-south; other than those with valid voters’ cards heading to voting
centers nearby; should be barricaded and bottled till the end of polls.
8.
Mosques, churches and houses of leading politicians in the Northwest and the
Northeast zones as well as Plateau and Niger States in the North-central should
be roundly monitored.
9.
It is also the constitutional duty of your respected offices, in collaboration
with INEC to ensure that any citizen with fake or proxy voter’s card in and
around any polling unit particularly in the Northwest and the Northeast zones
is arrested and detained. In the plain language of the Constitution and the
Electoral Act, it is unlawful to allow any citizen below the age of 18 to vote.
10. While field
personnel and commanders of your respected offices are not expected to be found
in the polling units especially with arms; the Constitution and duty guidelines
still empower your respected offices to be proactive and extremely mindful of
any early warning signals. In other words, your respected offices are empowered
constitutionally in the context of protective and preventive policing. This
constitutional empowerment is beyond any judicial distraction or
interpretation.
11. All the entries and
exits in the country’s borders particularly in the Northwest and the Northeast
zones must be tightly monitored on polls’ dates.
12. Your respected
offices must beware of false alarmists particularly in the TV and online media,
CSOs and politicians/parties capable of creating confusions and breaching
public security and safety.
13. The insurgency areas
of the Northeast zone require thorough monitoring and securitization by your
respected offices. Going by INEC’s recent magical PVCs distribution in the
area, there is no doubt that they are potential rigging warehouses of
compromised INEC staff and their desperate accomplices in some political
parties. Extra efforts must be made to thwart such immoral and unlawful plots
as well as ensuring maximum protection of lives and properties from insurgents
and other killer citizens and groups. If it becomes evident that holding polls
in the areas or any part thereof, will endanger lives and properties and
compromise national interests including public security and safety; then such
polls should be put off.
14. In carrying out your
constitutional duties, national interests and public security and safety of
Nigeria and Nigerians must remain your pivotal goals during and after the
polls, not minding their religious and ethnic divides or groupings.
15. To actualize the
foregoing 14-point recommendations, there shall be robust and cohesive
inter-agency arrangements put in place by your respected offices in association
with the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Yours Faithfully,
For: International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law
41, Miss Elems Street, Fegge,
Onitsha, Southeast Nigeria
Emeka Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons.)
Criminology & Security Studies
Board Chairman, International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
+2348174090052(office)
Uzochukwu Oguejiofor,
Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Campaign & Publicity Department
CC:
The Chairman of Independent National
Electoral Commission, Abuja, Nigeria
Intersociety wants secure and rogue free polls in Nigeria 2015 elections
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Thursday, March 26, 2015
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