The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disputed a media report claiming that 94% of the elective positions up for election in the general elections in 2023 will be decided by the tribunal.
This was said in a statement by Sam Olumekun, National Commissioner of INEC and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, on Thursday in Abuja.
The commission’s attention, according to Olumekun, had been drawn to a newspaper’s front-page article on Wednesday with the headline: “INEC’s credibility sinks as 94% contested posts await tribunal.”
He claimed that if the report had not come from one of our nation’s most prestigious and well-known publications, the panel would have disregarded it.
However, he said that the report in question had false data and a confusion of cases from before and after the election.
The report’s headline and skewed comparative perspective, he continued, show that election petitions are influenced by INEC’s actions or inaction.
According to Olumekun, a simple fact check of the data regularly released by INEC and accessible on its website would have revealed that no elections were held in 2023 in 1,280 constituencies, including 782 seats for state assemblies.
On the other hand, there were 1,491 constituencies around the nation that held elections, including 1 for the presidency, 28 for governorships, 109 for senators, 360 for the house of representatives, and 993 for state assemblies.
In a similar vein, the assertion that there were only 28 States with State Assembly elections is based on the sloppy premise that there were none in the eight States of the Union with off-cycle executive elections.
“As every attentive Nigerian knows, the tenure of legislators is tied to the legislative houses which is a fixed term of four years from the date the Assembly is inaugurated unlike the term of office of the executive which begins from the date they take the oath of office,” he said.
Olumekun criticised the report for assigning INEC responsibility for the pre-election cases brought about by the way political parties conducted their primaries.
He claimed that despite INEC not holding political party primaries, those instances included party members who joined INEC and sought redress that was binding on the organisation.
Thirdly, many litigants in Nigeria mistakenly submit election petitions regarding the most implausible cases and later withdraw them or have them dismissed by the tribunals in an effort to enforce their legal rights.
“The report would have learned that out of 1,196 petitions, 712 were dismissed and 179 were withdrawn if it had taken the time to study the outcomes of the cases determined thus far by the tribunals.
“This means that in 891 cases (or 74.4%), the tribunals rejected the petitions as having no merit and upheld the outcome of the INEC-conducted elections.
When petitions are indeed an essential component of the democratic process, Olumekun added, “it is surprising how the mere filing of petitions constitute a blot on the integrity of the recent elections conducted by INEC.”
He continued by saying that, without taking the specifics of the cases into account, the aforementioned analysis also examined the overall number of petitions as though they had been submitted challenging the results of the elections in 94% of all elected seats.
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According to Olumekun, candidates and political parties each filed a number of petitions in a single constituency.
“For instance, eight petitions challenging the governorship election were submitted in one state in the country’s south-south geopolitical zone; seven of them were dismissed, and one was withdrawn.
“As a result, there will undoubtedly be more election petitions submitted for all elective posts than there are constituencies or elective offices combined.
“To spread them across the constituencies and then proceed to calculate the percentage is to count some constituencies several times, which is methodologically problematic and statistically illogical,” he claimed.
He continued, pointing out that it was important to remember that under Section 134 of the Electoral Act of 2022, there were other reasons for contesting an election’s results in addition to the commission’s handling of the election.
According to Olumekun, an election could be challenged on the grounds that the victor was ineligible to run due to his age, academic background, or other factors.
Many of the petitions, according to him, disputed the candidatures’ eligibility or the political parties’ right to nominate them rather than the way INEC conducted the elections.
As only the courts have the authority to disqualify candidates, he said, INEC is not authorised by law to screen candidates.
Sixth, a comparison analysis would have taken into account the report’s deliberate attempt to portray the 2023 General Election as regressive due to litigation without empirical support.
“While the number of election petitions may be increasing over the past three electoral cycles, the number of contested elections has not. In 2015, there were 663 cases filed with the tribunals; 87 (13.1%) of the cases resulted in the commission ordering a rerun in some polling places or entire constituencies.
“In 2019, 807 petitions were submitted, however only 30 (3.71%) of the 807 constituencies (three senatorial districts, 13 federal constituencies, and 14 state constituencies) had their elections rerun.
“While the 2023 post-election litigations are ongoing, all five petitions filed in respect of the Presidential election were dismissed while three are pending on appeal,” he stated.
According to Olumekun, as of Monday, October 16, out of 82 petitions for the governorship race, 72 (87.8%) have been either rejected or withdrawn by the petitioners.
“146 petitions for senate elections were submitted, of which 100 (68.5%) were rejected or withdrawn.
“For the House of Representatives, there were 413 petitions filed, out of which 309 (74.81%) were dismissed or withdrawn, while there were 550 petitions filed for State Houses of Assembly, out of which 468 (82.4%) were dismissed or withdrawn,” he stated.
The number of petitions filed by litigants, who in any event have the legal right to do so, was not the only factor that should be considered when evaluating the INEC’s credibility or the conduct of the general election in 2023, according to Olumekun.
While reiterating our commitment to working with the media, he said: “In particular where basic statistics demand that we should be circumspect, it is prudent to state that the pen should be used to strengthen rather than impugn the integrity of public institutions.” (NAN)
