…Says Transporting Election Materials to 120,000 Polling Units is a Huge Challenge

Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu says the Commission will deploy one million electoral officers for the 2019 elections. INEC will also be spending N85 billion on logistics.

At a meeting with representatives of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) and National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Yakubu who was represented by National Commissioner, Prof Okechukwu Ibeamu, says the election officers will comprise some INEC staff and security agents

Also speaking at the event, INEC’s Head of Health Infrastructure, Dr Amina Zakari says the cost of logistics is always huge in any election, disclosing that it will cost the commission a whooping N10 billion in logistics to conduct a single election.

Explaining that the commission will use the Military and Air Force for the election in difficult terrains, she says:

“We have earmarked N85 billion for logistics for the 2019 general elections. For a two-day election, which is the least number of days to conduct election, it costs about N10 billion in logistics. You can imagine what will be involved if we have to take the elections in more than one day like the presidential separately, National Assembly and even the cost of conducting five elections separately”.

Says Zakari, “These costs exclude leasing of boats in the riverrine areas, additional gunboats for security, hiring helicopter for other areas affected by insurgency and difficult terrain. Moving of personnel and materials in those areas is very challenging and these must be done at the same time nationwide. It is worst because about two-third of the country’s territory is covered by difficult terrain.”

“The window for the deployment of electoral materials is too short especially as it must be delivered between 5.00am and 8.00am. You can imagine the enormity of the task, considering the size of the country, difficult terrain and poor road network where the elections have to be conducted.”

“We are not even considering the supplementary elections that may come up, the run-off elections and the possible suspension of areas where violence may disrupt the poll which we normally suspend and reschedule.”

“The logistic cost is really enormous and it will be good for the country to find a more cost efficient manner at which elections can be conducted,” she opines.

On the use of the military in difficult terrains, Zakari says: “Security is of paramount importance and if there is no violence, elections can be done seamlessly.”

“The commission has also enlisted the services of the Air Force and the Navy for deployment especially to these difficult terrains. Recently, a Logistics Advisory Committee was set up with membership drawn from the commission, security agencies and other partners that will help us achieve a seamless transportation of the materials from the sea or airport to the polling stations.”

“With over 120,000 Polling Units, the biggest challenge the commission will encounter is the Election Day logistics. Our problem will be transportation in terms of movement of electoral materials,” she says.

In a related development, the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) says it is training over 100 INEC staff in the South-East on Election Monitoring and Support Centre (EMSC).

Declaring the workshop open on Thursday in Enugu, the Senior Legal Expert of ECES, Ms Maria-Teresa Mauro, says the aim of the EMSC workshop is to ensure credible, free and fair elections.

Mauro explains that EMSC is an effective tool for INEC to manage field assets, resources, constituencies and a chain of electoral activities needed in the organization of elections.

According to her, it is also an innovative way to monitor electoral plans and implementation of electoral activities that can assist INEC in evaluating its readiness for an election.

“The workshop goals include to provide better understanding of the EMSC concept, goals and objectives, ensure better understanding of timeliness, activities and reporting frequencies.”

“To sensitize implementers on ESMC operational structure, roles and responsibilities in the management of state EMSC secretariat”.

The ECES officer says the workshop will also build capacity of implementers on the use of data collection and reporting tools, validation process and general usage of EMSC platform.

The workshop, Mauro says, will provide participants with requisite knowledge and sensitize them on their expected roles before, during and after elections, thereby laying a solid foundation towards the conduct of credible elections in 2019.

In an address, Secretary of the Center, Mr Jameel Elyaqub, explains that the EMSC indicators were meant to assist task owners and managers as well as supervisors to monitor and track compliance, election readiness, performance and threats/risks to election plan.

He says the exercise was to maintain the quality and credibility of the electoral processes.

In his goodwill message, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Enugu State, Dr Emeka Ononamadu, urge participants drawn from Enugu, Anambra, Abia, Imo and Ebonyi states, to utilize the gains of the training during the general elections.

“We have very experienced staff in INEC, however, there is a danger because of the multiple innovation introduced by INEC headquarters already. So, due to new innovations, we must open our minds to absorb these fresh ideas.”

“We cannot keep recycling our old ways of doing things and expect a different result. We must embrace innovations and change to get more positive results and outcomes from our elections,’’ he says