28042019 - No delaying minimum wage, go ahead and pay, FG tells MDAs, states, others

PAGE 4 — SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 28, 2019
L-R: CEO, Jumia Nigeria, Mrs. Juliet Anammah; Chairman, Senate Committee on
Works and a former governor of Kano State, Kabir Gaya; Nigerian Agent Manager,
Xiaomi, Kevin Zeng; and Head, Regional Marketing, Xiaomi Global, Steven Wang,
during the official launch of Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Phone in Lagos.
L-R: Mr. Seun Oloketuyi , Founder, Best of Nollywood Awards; Mr Tunde Fatuntele,
CEO, Kobz Media; Ajuka Peniel, General Manager, Media Panache Nigeria; Mr.
Michael Makinde, Managing Director, Passion Broadcasting Television Services
Limited; Mrs Toun Okewale-Sonaiya, CEO, WomenFM 91.7, and Mr. Tolu
Olorunmoteni, Sports Analyst, during a press conference by Passion TV Provision of
Entertainment Programmers in the UK, US and Nigeria held in Lagos on Friday.
CONTROVERSY
2019 PRESIDENTIAL POLL: The Story
Of INEC’S IT Server
•Facts •Fiction •Myth
By Jide Ajani
If there is anything, or a
combination of things, that is
fanning the embers of doubt
about the credibility of the 2019
general elections, it is to be located
in the response of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, to the
petition of the presidential
candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar.
Perhaps, whether owing to a lack
of understanding of the letters and
the spirit of the 1999 Constitution,
as amended, or a lack of
understanding of the powers of the
Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, “to make its
own rules or otherwise regulate its
own procedure (which) shall not be
subject to the approval or control of
the president,” or a cognitively
distant syndrome that appears to be
very pervasive now, or deliberate
mischief, or a combination of all of
the above, the recent brouhaha
about the authenticity,
appropriateness or otherwise of
some social media content, wherein
officials of INEC were explaining
the intendment of its decision to use
ICT to ensure the fidelity of the 2019
general elections, signpost the very
reason why Nigeria remains both
undeveloped and underdeveloped
(depending on which you choose to
apply).
A recent voter education video
recorded before the 2019 general
elections, which has been trending
on the social media, explaining the
use of e-collating officers, has
created doubts about the status of
the Commission’s IT Server used
during the elections. This does not,
in any way, validate or debunk the
claims made as part of Atiku’s
petition before the Presidential
Election Tribunal. What the videos
merely do is to create a
recapitulation of what was said
before the elections as a basis to
either defend INEC or crucify it as
an Election Management Body.
In one of the videos, INEC
Chairman, Professor Mahmood
Yakubu, said INEC “…will deploy
a new platform for electronic
collation and transmission of
results.”
In another video, INEC’s Resident
Electoral Commissioners, RECs, for
Akwa Ibom and Ekiti States, Mike
Igini and Agbaje, gave hints of an
existence of a server, explaining the
potency of same to guarantee free,
fair and credible elections. In fact,
in another video, the INEC
Chairman gave details of how and
why the platform may not be fully
used, citing problems of ICT nonconvergence.
Unfortunately, responses from
APC, particularly Festus Keyamo,
its presidential election committee
spokesman, are only providing
more fuel for those opposed
to the election of
P r e s i d e n t
Muhammadu
Buhari. This, too,
does not mean
Keyamo is
wrong on his
score that
only the
Supreme
Court,
and not social media videos, would
determine the success or failure of
Atiku’s petition.
Inquiries made within INEC, to
unearth why the Commission was
denying the status of its IT Server
and the election results compiled by
it, revealed some distinction
between the purport of the videos
and the actual claims made by the
PDP regarding results purportedly
obtained from the server. According
to sources in INEC, they have never
retreated from the fact that the
Commission made plans and
procured facilities for electronic
transmission.
In fact, information available to
Sunday Vanguard suggests that
this has been ongoing since 2011
and the Commission had put
everything in place prior to the
elections to kick-start the use of
electronic transmission of election
result.
However, all the procurements
made and the hardware that were
used had been done with the hope
that the enabling law will be signed
in the form of the new Amended
2019 Electoral Act, but when assent
for the Act was not obtained, the
Commission had to downgrade the
full implementation of the electronic
transmission back to pilot status.
What this then meant was that it
resulted in asymmetrical use of the
electronic transmission in some
areas more than others, hence the
Commission realized that any data
emanating therefrom could not be
wholly relied on, which was why it
relied more on the hard data
compiled directly in the old format
for compiling the final results of the
2019 general elections.
Taking this explanation by sources
within the Commission, it can be
evinced that the INEC is not
denying the existence of data from
its IT server but is only trying to
clarify that the data that the PDP
may be referring to, in their
reference and supporting with the
trending videos, refers to the ongoing
pilot the Commission hopes
to use fully in future elections when
the enabling law is assented to.
However, there is the decision of
the Supreme Court regarding some
governorship elections of 2015, that
the Card Reader is alien to the 1999
Constitution, as amended, because
electronic identification process was
not included. By the same token, the
refusal to give assent to the amended
Electoral Act, wherein details of the
processes of electronic transmission
of result had been captured, poured
cold water on all the efforts to have
it used in the 2019 elections.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on
politics continues to trump the
need for a solid jurisprudence
that would enthrone a culture
of civility in a growing
democracy like Nigeria’s.
Section 52(2) of the
Electoral Act, that was
signed into law some few
days before the 2015
general elections, an
amendment which, in
more ways than one, paved
the way for an APC victory,
but which is now being
junked by the selfsame
APC, specifically,
states:”Voting
a t
•Mahmood Yakubu,
INEC Boss
an election under this Act shall be in
accordance with the procedure
determined by the Independent
National Electoral Commission.”
What this provision does is to remove
the prohibitive clause(s) earlier
placed on the path of INEC in
ensuring that its electoral guidelines
are given effectuation, specifically,
in the area of ICT.
Now, the question to ask is, did
those Supreme Court justices who
gave judgment regarding some
elections held in 2015 not know
about this clause?
Contrary to the hoopla generated
when President Muhammadu
Buhari did not sign the amended
Electoral Act into law, the absence
of a new Electoral Act couldn’t have
been basis for Nigerians not to have
free, fair and credible elections in
2019.
Section 153 of the 1999
Constitution, as amended,
guarantees INEC the latitude to do
as it wishes in the area of regulating
its activities.
Under paragraph 15 of the Third
Schedule, the power to “organise,
undertake and supervise” conduct
of elections into certain offices is
listed in the Constitution.
Section 160 of the same 1999
Constitution goes ahead to state
categorically that “… any of the
bodies may with the approval of the
president, by rules or otherwise
regulate its own procedure or confer
powers and impose duties on any
officer or authority for the purpose
of discharging its function; provided
that in the case of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, its
powers to make its own rules or
otherwise regulate its own
procedure shall not be subject to the
approval or control of the
president”.
Those who granted INEC this
unfettered powers to determine how
best to regulate its affairs regarding
elections appeared to have done so
with a view to ensuring that the
Commission is able to conduct
elections that would be free, fair,
credible and devoid of
interference.
The truth that needs to be told
now, according to sources from
INEC Chairman’s office, is that
when the negativity, occasioned by
President Buhari’s refusal to sign the
Electoral Act, cast a pall on the
entire process, the Commission
needed to explain that its processes
were still unique and secure
enough to guarantee free, fair
and credible 2019 polls.
The question that
INEC is tongue-tied to
fully explain to
Nigerians now is:
Why did the
Commission go
to town to
promise electronic transfer of
results, particularly when its election
manual captured the training of e-
collation officers - mind you, at the
ward collation centres, INEC had
two officers, one for manual
recording and the other for
electronic transmission of result?
Only INEC can answer truthfully
what happened.
On President Buhari’s part,
nothing would hurt his reputation
and electoral victory if he engages
a Blue Ocean Strategy to admit
- as did late President Muar
Musa Yar’Adua - that an election
result process that was televised
live, where figures didn’t add up
in some instances, is not the best
for Nigeria. He can also swing
into action by signing the
amended Electoral Act.
Furthermore, he can prevail on
some loquacious party members,
who continue to pour cold water
on his manifest humility, to stop
fanning the embers of division
and hate, but help the process of
healing the nation by avoiding
comments that only continue to
divide, rather than unite
Nigerians.