INEC should rethink new polling units

PUNCH
BY PUNCH EDITORIAL BOARD

INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega

ADDITIONAL polling units proposed by the Independent National Electoral Commission recently, barely six months to the 2015 general election, have been generating noxious debates. A polling unit, according to INEC, is where a citizen can register to cast his vote. And, in doing so, a voter is advised to select a polling unit close to his or her area of residence due to the usual restricted movement on an election day. But as inconsequential as this appears in the electoral process, the country’s politics is boiling over the electoral body’s redefinition of the polling units across the country. INEC should handle the controversy with utmost care to regain the confidence and trust of all stakeholders.

Four out of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones have read sinister political motives into the arrangement, triggering alarm bells that all may not be well with planning for the polls. Out of the 30,000 new units, the three zones in the North got 21,615 units as against 8,412 ceded to the South. As a result, aggrieved stakeholders in the South have asked the Chairman of INEC, Attahiru Jega, to resign.

In theory, the location of polling stations is primarily to ensure that they are as close as possible to the voters’ residence; have a minimum/maximum size; serve the need to maintain the secrecy of the ballot and to perform complex electoral operations; are accessible to all voters; are in an ideologically neutral site in order not to discourage the free expression of the vote and have adequate logistical facilities. In some environments, the need to establish separate polling stations for women on religious grounds is also considered.

What really informed Jega’s figures in practice? Some polling units, he says, contain more than the required maximum 500 voters; just as he underscores the need for “severe demographic shift”, or population pressure in new settlements, to be taken into consideration. “The exercise was done to ease congestion of polling centres,” he stresses. It seems that under this constraint, the general elections in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 were conducted, hence, the necessity to increase polling units from the existing 120,000 to 150,000.

However, the harder the commission tries to justify its action, the more political interest groups sense perfidy in its logic. For instance, it is difficult to comprehend its judgement in allocating 1,200 new units to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, whereas only 1,167 units were shared among the five South-East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

Leap in demographics is not peculiar to certain sections of the country as INEC’s permutation suggests. Given the country’s present security challenges, which have forced many Nigerians to relocate from the North-East and North-West zones to the South, it beggars description that the North-West alone has additional 7,906 polling units, which nearly equal the 8,412 units for the entire South-West, South-South and South-East zones. Though in functioning democracies, nobody cares a hoot about the geography of polling units, but their accessibility. Here, a political storm of this kind re-ignites the country’s primordial cleavages.

Public confidence in INEC’s ability to play its role is critical now. No matter its justification for the action, the timing for increasing the polling units is patently wrong, just as it does violence to the political sensibilities of not a few. Amid the howls of protest and acrimony, at least one point is clear: the criteria used in proposing the new polling platforms lack logic.

As an umpire, the commission must be sensitive to anything that is capable of dragging the country back. Its main goal should be how to foster public confidence and participation in the democratic process, by promoting integrity, involvement and effectiveness. Since returning to civilian rule in 1999, according to the United States-based National Democratic Institute, the quality of elections had progressively declined in Nigeria. The resultant effect? The people have had little to celebrate.

But as the 2015 poll approaches, INEC is off to a poor start. We are contending with these trial issues because INEC is not doing enough to simplify and modernise the electoral process. It is shameful that INEC has not moved us to the point where voter registration, for instance, can be done anytime and through several methods and voting does not necessarily have to be a stressful exercise. Today, most electoral bodies around the world use new technologies with the aim of improving the electoral process.     All of these efforts aim at ensuring the credibility of the democratic process and the reliability of election results.

Cool heads and measured thinking are needed in sorting out the delicate issue. INEC must not only be fair and just, but it must be seen by all to be so. Jega’s realisation that his office, is arguably, the most sensitive and unenviable in a country cast in the furnace of tribal, sectarian and cultural divisions; and mutual distrust, should make him think twice or retrace his steps.

There is perhaps a way in which the situation can be rescued. The commission should cancel the jumbled figures and keep to the existing polling units.

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The Synagogue building collapse

BY PUNCH EDITORIAL BOARD

Scene of the collapsed buiding
| credits: File photo

THE collapse on Friday of a six-storey building at Synagogue Church of All Nations in Ikotun, Lagos, was a triple tragedy. Not only were lives and property destroyed, it also demonstrated the failure of state institutions to protect citizens by simple adherence to rules. Worse, it exposed the prevailing culture of impunity as demonstrated in the bizarre reaction of church officials.

The tragedy was only the latest in frequent building collapses in the country. According to press reports, the six-storey building suddenly caved in, burying hundreds of persons in the rubble. Conflicting accounts say the four upper floors were still under construction and that neighbours had noticed it sway in recent times, claims that can only be established by a thorough investigation.

But the human cost is undeniable and its true extent is still unfolding. Latest figures by the National Emergency Management Agency indicate that 70 corpses, many of them foreigners and mostly women, had been recovered by Wednesday, while 131 had been rescued alive, including a 45-year-old woman who survived after being trapped four days under the rubble.

The Lagos State government cannot escape censure for this tragedy. For a state that has suffered numerous building collapses in recent years, the Synagogue tragedy, except investigations uncover deliberate sabotage, is a ringing indictment of the inadequacy of its building control and monitoring enforcement. It calls into question its capacity to ensure strict compliance with its building codes and the efficiency of its agencies to monitor and prevent such disasters. The building was being built in full public view at the densely populated Ikotun area of the city and effective monitoring by physical planning and building control officials ought to have noticed and acted accordingly.

Unless they change their narratives, the General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency, Abimbola Animashaun, and the officials of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, have told reporters that the church did not have approval to add three floors to the original two-storey building, a grave infraction. “We have investigated and found that they (SCOAN) had no approval for the additional structures,” Animashaun told reporters at the scene. The state Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Planning, Olutoyin Ayinde, added, “We have no proof that the church had permit to add to the existing structure.” LSBCA and the Council of Registered Engineers have commenced investigations but, already, preliminary findings show that the church may have tough questions to answer. Requests to SCOAN to show the approvals have not been met.

The behaviour of the church officials has been bizarre and sickening. Reports say that, rather than quickly mobilise help, church members were hostile to rescuers and indeed initially prevented neighbours and officials from fully securing the disaster site. Public Relations Officer of the National Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Farinloye, said, “The church members have been very aggressive and hostile to us; they attacked us and we had to withdraw our services. I was attacked; officials of LSBCA and the general manager of LASEMA were also attacked…” There were also reports of attacks on journalists and smashing of cameras.

Confronted with such a tragedy, even the conduct of the head of the church, Temitope Joshua, was not initially helpful. First, he and his members sought to downplay the number of dead, giving the figures as “only three”, and later, as the bodies piled up, “less than 10”, as if the death of even one person is acceptable in the face of suspicions that the church might have been careless. South Africa alone has since lamented that it lost 67 of its nationals in the disaster.

Joshua added a fresh twist by showing a video clip of an aircraft purportedly hovering over the building shortly before its collapse and alleged sabotage and threats against the church and his person. Although this sounds rather diversionary, investigators should examine all angles to unravel the cause or causes of the collapse and with a firm resolve to punish all those found culpable, to prevent the frequent collapses.

Experts say buildings collapse due to use of low quality building materials, incompetent artisans, weak supervision, non-compliance with specifications/standards, poor design, poor maintenance and weak foundations. More crucially, corruption and laxity at state and local levels allow builders to erect structurally weak buildings that may eventually end up collapsing when subjected to natural or man-made stress.

We cannot continue to lose lives and property to building collapse. The problem is largely due to lack of strict enforcement rather than an absence of laws or regulations. There should be no sacred cows. The state government should have seized the site immediately as it had done to other disaster sites in the past. Those who obstructed rescue efforts should be quickly fished out and prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to impunity. Religious organisations should demonstrate a higher level of responsibility than the unruly behaviour put up by SCOAN.

Should investigations confirm the failure of Synagogue to obtain permits before adding new floors, all those responsible should face criminal prosecution for manslaughter, including state officials who might have connived or may seek to conjure up backdated documents.

More importantly, this should instruct Governor Babatunde Fashola that much more needs to be done to compel greater efficiency by state agencies and officials and ensure strict compliance with building codes to end repeated buildings collapse.

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Contact: editor@punchng.com