We’ll register 70 million voters in two weeks – INEC

Written by The Punch Thursday, 29 July 2010

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday said that it could register 70 million voters if the basic requirements, including funds, were put in place for the compilation of a new voter register.

It also said through its National Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, that in spite of the outcry against the posting of Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo to Ondo State as its Resident Electoral Commissioner, she would remain in the Sunshine state.

Jega, at two separate fora with journalists and the Senate Committee on Inec in Abuja, added that INEC would spend N36.8bn on the 120,000 Direct Data Capture machines it needed to conduct the voter registration.

Speaking with journalists, he explained that the challenge before INEC now was to have the relevant agencies of the government to approve money needed for the exercise.

He said, “If we deploy all the equipment and all the logistics that are required, in two weeks we will have the capacity to register up to 70 million registrable voters.

“That is the planning we have made. So, the challenge now is to have the money and to give the contracts and get everything ready before or latest by the third week of October. Of course, this is not a formal announcement but for planning purposes, that is what we are working on.

“If we are able to have a procurement process and, say by the first or second week, we have all the equipment deployed, obviously, we may want to do it earlier. I don’t want to start reading headlines tomorrow that INEC will do registration of voters on so, so date.”

On the agitation for the removal of Adebayo as REC in Ondo State, the INEC chairman argued that the postings of all the RECs were done without malice.

He said that the commission would not bow to pressure to tinker with the postings.

Jega said, “The person (Mrs. Adebayo) that people are talking about was in Ekiti. Originally, she is from Ogun State. So, clearly she cannot be taken back to Ekiti or Ogun. If she is taken to Lagos, it will be contiguous to her state of origin.

“The only way visible for me was to post her to Ondo and I posted her to Ondo. As far as I am concerned, Ondo is not Ekiti; it is a different place.

“But then, people are saying that INEC is conniving with the Peoples Democratic Party and that it is now posting people to a states where there is opposition. They are alleging that this lady, who was alleged (a wild allegation yet to be proven) to have done some dirty work in Ekiti State now is being taken to Ondo State so that she can also do another job dirty there.

“What I can tell you is that nobody has spoken to me to request for the posting of any REC. I am very glad that nobody did so because I had already resolved that whoever requested for posting, I would never do it.”

At his meeting with the Senate Committee, Jega explained that if the 120,000 DDC machines needed by the commission for the voter registration were to be bought directly from their manufacturers, a unit would cost $2,000, at an exchange rate of N152 per dollar.

But if the 120,000 are bought from vendors, the electoral body will spend about N55bn on them.

He also told the committee that N74bn and not N72bn widely reported in the media was required to conduct the voter registration.

The INEC chairman said, “If you multiply $2,000 by 120,000 units of machine at N152 per dollar, you will get about $240m. That alone gives you N36.8 bn just for the equipment alone.

“If you are going to go through the vendors, which is an option we are trying to avoid, then you have to factor in at least 30 per cent profit margin; so, that in itself, raises the cost of the equipment which will be laptop-based to N55bn.

“If you take the cost of the training, which we have considered; the cost of voter education which we have done; the requirement for logistics in terms of transportation; and also the allowances that have to be paid to the personnel, whether they are for training purpose or for actual exercise, it comes to a lot of money.”

“From our own calculation, we will need N74bn. We realise that there was even an error in the calculation. We have corrected it and made it available to the executive where we first made that.”

On how the equipment would be delivered since time was not on the side of INEC, Jega said if funds were made available before the second week of August, the commission would be able to commence the procurement process.

He said, “We are under a very tight time frame; but it is possible to procure all the 120,000 units of DDC machines which we need and we will be able to prepare for the training, for the deployment; and for the production of all the necessary materials as well as voter education.

“We are hoping that latest by the third week of October, we should be able to deploy all of these equipment and the personnel who are appropriately trained to be able to undertake this voter registration so that latest by the the last week of October, we can commence the registration and we will finish it by the end of the first week of November.”

He said INEC went for 120,000 units of the machines because it did not have enough time, adding that it would ensure that quality job was done.

“I can guarantee Mr. chairman and other members of the Senate committee that in whatever we do, we will be very, very transparent and accountable. There will be no problems in terms of following due process, both in the procurement and the actual deployment of resources for this exercise.

“For purposes of planning, given the short time frame, we just have to assume the worse and we have to prepare for the worse; and that means that we have to procure new machines directly with better softwares and with better components than the ones that were procured earlier on.

“With regard to the machine that are available, it is true that there are machines that are available, but we have been in INEC now for 29 days and it is difficult to have a clearer appreciation of how many machines are there and out of this machine how many are actually functional.

“We also know from the briefing we have received that some of the equipment that were procured in 2006 are substandard and we also know for a fact that equipment such as laptops have a life-span of not more than five years. Even under optimum circumstances, if they are five years old, you should replace them.

“Taking all of these into consideration, we feel that if we don’t want to run into the same problem that the previous exercise had run into where you deployed equipment and then there were problems of either the software or the fingerprinting or the web camera, we don’t even know the number that is serviceable that can be used – we felt that the best thing is to plan for fresh procurement.”

He also assured the committee that INEC was prepared to ensure prompt deployment of the machines and personnel during the exercise.

Jega said, “With regards to DDC equipment alone, we want the best machine which is laptop-based and not hand-held, which has a very good resolution work camera and which has very good standard fingerprinting accessory and which has an extra power pack, just in case the battery runs down.

“We have also factored in some generating capabilities. We have to take a lot of measures to see how we can improve on the situation. If N74bn is allocated and in the end we can only spend N55bn, it is saving for the government.”

Jega warned that if funds were not made available early enough, Nigerians could as well forget the registration process.

He said, “There is need for a fresh voter register. The present one appears obsolete, but we can use it if that is what Nigerians want. We will do our best to ensure a voter registration that is qualitatively better than the one in the past.

“The big issue is getting the funding when we need it. If we can’t get the funds when we need them, then we had better forget it … I am sorry, because if we begin to miss the timelines, then we cannot meet the target. We can do better if we have time.”

Chairman of the committee, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, said that with the present circumstance, INEC would need waivers in terms of following the procurement process.

He said the National Assembly would be disposed to a selective tendering, because of the peculiar challenges facing the commission.