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INEC’s REC in Lagos, Akin Orebiyi, dropped the hint yesterday in Lagos
during the opening session of a two-day stakeholders’ review meeting on
the role of media in the 2015 elections, organised by the UNDP –
Democratic Governance for Development (DGD) Project II.
Orebiyi, who said the commission could not fulfill some of its promises
to the electorate, expressed hope of a better electoral process ahead
of the 2019 elections.
According to him, production and distribution of permanent voters’
cards (PVCs) could not be delivered to Nigerians as planned by the
commission.
“We promised to do a number of things but we couldn’t deliver all, for
instance, Only 60 per cent of PVCs were distributed in the whole of Ogun
state, while 5.6 million eligible voters were able to redeem their PVCs
in Lagos, out of about 5.8 million who registered, this means that
around 200,000 eligible voters were disenfranchised,” he said.
However, the UNDP-DGD Project II Election Expert, Prof. Bolaji Eyinla,
has suggested that the commission should retain some members of Jega
advisory team for institutional memory and better planning of the 2019
elections.
Eyinla noted that Jega’s effective management of men and resources and
his calmness in the face of opened provocation accounted for the
success of 2015 elections.
“I am also aware that Jega was supported by a body of technical
advisers, it is not out of place to suggest that some of these technical
advisers are retained by the electoral management body for
institutional memories and of course for designing electoral success in
2019, so some of the team members sould be kept.”
INEC spokesperson, Nick Dazang, was quoted to have said that Jega would be in office until the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has said it was
restrained from imposing sanctions on broadcast stations which allegedly
flaunted the code of conduct for broadcasting operations during the
2015 elections due to ongoing court cases.
Director in the office of the NBC’s Director General, Armstrong
Idachaba, who spoke at the review meeting, said over 30 broadcast
stations were sanctioned by the commission for their indiscretions,
majorly on political broadcasts.
He explained that NBC could not act on certain cases due to ongoing litigations.
“When matters are in court, there is little or nothing a regulator can
do, because it restrains the regulator from acting any further, since
NBC is joined as a party in the court. Out of about 400 broadcast
stations in Nigeria, just a few carried out content breaches under the
cover of political advertising, we drew their attention to it and we ask
them to respond. But some of these things take time, where there are
allegations and counter allegations, we have to investigate,” he said.
Idachalla however denied that NBC hurriedly issued warning to certain
broadcast stations upon the declaration of President Muhammadu Buhari as
the president-elect, saying the commission meted out sanctions before
and during the elections.Source: Thisday