INEC over promised, under delivered; and lessons of logistics management

After Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared the winner of the presidential election which held on 25 February, the opposition parties and their supporters accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of “lack of transparency” in the electoral process. This is actually an old story because there’s no election in Nigeria that has not been rocked by controversies. Even in 2027, allegations of rigging will not go away. What is important is for us to improve on the process with each election cycle.

We have had 24 unbroken years of democratic rule since 1999 which is a major achievement – despite our imperfections. I was not expecting INEC to tick all the boxes even after its chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, assured all Nigerians that they were fully ready. As some commentators rightly noted, Yakubu “over promised and under delivered”, whereas it should have been the other way round. Understandably, some hopes were dashed with the outcome of the presidential election result. As bad as INEC’s role may have been portrayed, we should not crucify the electoral body.

But what exactly were the splintered opposition parties expecting? In a sense, when compared with the APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was no longer a “dominant” party against the backdrop of the following breakaway groups: Peter Obi of the Labour Party; Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party and the G5 governors, led by Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state. PDP scored an own goal when it gave Atiku Abubakar its presidential ticket against the party’s zoning principle. The expectation was that power should shift to the South after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.

Secondly, it will be foolhardy to believe that the political capital that the president-elect, Tinubu amassed over the last 30 years – including the risk to his life when he joined other democratic forces to fight General Sani Abacha, a tormentor and dictator, to a standstill – would not count for something. The APC presidential candidate was always going to be a formidable force despite the wide-ranging and stinging efforts by his traducers to damage his chances.

Thirdly, Tinubu, in my view, had the best resourced campaign in terms of stakeholder management, messaging, media outreach, mobilisation and broad appeal. He also achieved more top-of-mind awareness than the other candidates.

Peter Obi benefitted largely from the protest votes – mostly from young Nigerians – against APC and politicians who generally do not keep their promises. He represented an organic and vibrant third force that was not his creation. OBIdients believed strongly in him as the much-awaited “messiah”. After 16 years of PDP and eight years of APC, the general feeling was that life was not getting better but it was doubtful if Obi was ever going to achieve the critical mass needed for a pan-Nigerian mandate at the first attempt under a new party. He should have stayed back in PDP and worked with others (North and South, Christians and Muslims) for the presidential ticket to be zoned to the South East region.

Maybe, the story could have been different.

But Obi must note that other parties also have their supporters and followers in a country where identity politics is the main meal on the menu. There are so many OBIdients who are disappointed that Obi did not win after investing raw emotions into his campaign. Chimamanda Adichie, a prolific writer and our highly respected “global brand ambassador” whom I admire greatly as a public intellectual, is one of them. I want to assure her that Nigeria will not remain in a “hard place” forever.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo (Baba Iyabo); and Pa Ayo Adebanjo, the Afenifere chieftain, are also disappointed. Overall, Labour Party recorded impressive and significant victories that the party and OBIdients can build on in the future.

In a typically dysfunctional environment in which we operate, how was it possible for INEC to score 100 percent with the process of accreditation and collation of results? I concede that INEC’s overall score of the entire process could have been better, especially in the area of logistics management. But have you tried to transfer funds lately to see the gravity of the failure of the banking tech platforms? What of telephone calls that are usually frustrated by “poor networks”?

Nonetheless, these shortcomings should not be excuses for the delayed delivery of election materials to any part of Nigeria for the exercise because getting the job done does not require rocket science. If voting commenced at the same time nationwide which is possible, it would have earned INEC a huge approval rating.

Even if we account for unforeseen circumstances, delayed voting can still be managed to the barest minimum. Report after report condemned the late deployment of election materials and the incompetence of some INEC officials and those that allegedly compromised the voting process.

There are professional event management and activation agencies that INEC can work with under the auspices of the Experiential Marketing Agencies of Nigeria (EXMAN) to achieve a seamless experience with voting materials arriving on time for 93 million voters at all the 176,606 polling units nationwide. Using a mapping model and optimisation theory, 45 EXMAN agencies with excellent track records of performance – working with INEC as consultants – can manage the entire voting process where all the polling units will serve as “experience touch points” in the 774 local government areas. Each agency may be assigned a cluster of 18 Local Government Areas and 4,000 polling units. If you break down these figures further, you will have an average of 223 polling units for each LGA and 550 voters for each unit.

INEC needs to correct the anomaly whereby some polling units had less than 300 voters and by the time you walk a few metres away, the next polling unit will have over 1,000 voters. That is poor distribution that disregards the law of averages and cluster mapping. No polling unit should have more than 550 voters each – based on 93 million registered voters across 176,606 polling units – so that voting can start and end within schedule. It means there will be no late night voting where torch lights or headlamps of vehicles are used or extension of the exercise to the following day

The primary objective is to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised in the absence of violence. By the way, who recruits thugs? Is it INEC? Your guess is as good as mine.

From available data, less than 40 per cent of registered voters usually turn up to vote. Voter apathy is still a huge challenge in our elections. Assuming 50 per cent of the registered voters show up (for the 2023 general elections, that would be about 47 million voters), each polling unit will not have more than 275 voters which will reduce logistics management of election materials and voters by half.

I am aware the president of EXMAN, Tunji Adeyinka is willing to lead his colleagues to make a formal presentation at the invitation of INEC to sort out these re-current logistics nightmares in subsequent elections. To illustrate the point further, there was a time a well-known milk brand sold in every part of Nigeria sponsored a national Mathematics competition for secondary schools for 15 years back-to-back. The examinations had the distinction of being scandal-free – including leakages that would have compromised the integrity of the competition and damage the image of the brand.

One of the EXMAN agencies was tasked with the organisation of the competition. The Mathematics exam was for junior and senior secondary schools in two parts (theory and objective) in line with the syllabus of the West African Examinations Council. The first stage examination held for both categories in all the 36 states and Abuja at the same time on the same day in more than 200 centres nationwide. Each state had a minimum of three centres based on the senatorial zones.

It meant that sealed question papers and answer sheets were distributed a few days to the examination weekend with Non-Disclosure Agreement signed by all the relevant partners. The answer sheets were then sent to the examiners in Lagos. After assessment, the best two students in each state and the FCT – one each from the junior and senior categories – and their teachers were invited to Lagos for the second stage examination. Usually, they would arrive on Friday and depart on Sunday.

From the 74 students (37 students from JSS and 37 from SSS), the top 10 in each category and their teachers were invited to Abuja for the national prize-giving ceremony and lodged at Transcorp Hilton for two nights. It was an experience the students always looked forward to. Parents were also free to attend at their own cost.

Were there challenges? Oh yes, the agency had a lorry load of them. Some school principals who wanted to win the top prizes at all cost hired mercenaries to write the examinations. Such cheating efforts were anticipated and the affected schools were blacklisted. Now, if such school principals could devise schemes to cheat in much the same way some parents shamelessly procure question papers for their children in an equal-opportunity exam, is it surprising that some bad eggs may also have been recruited by INEC?

We cannot set a different standard for INEC in a society where the prevailing code is to cut corners amid a culture of widespread impunity. The people INEC hires are our friends, brothers and sisters, colleagues and associates; they live with us and did not drop from the moon. If Nigeria is going to become a better place, everyone must take responsibility for his/her actions and not blame others. It does not matter whether the anomaly is voter suppression, ballot box snatching, vote buying or cheating in an examination – what is bad is bad.

Individually and collectively, let us stand up for what is right because no section of Nigeria is immuned from egregious behaviours that have eroded our values and damaged the moral fabric of society. Let us wait and see the improvements INEC will make on Saturday March 11 when the gubernatorial and state houses of assembly elections take place.

Braimah is a public relations strategist and publisher/editor-in-chief of Naija Times (https://ntm.ng)