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Attahiru Jega, the
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
yesterday said in Abuja that both local and international observers
would be properly accredited for the voter registration and the general
elections.

He told the News
Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum that: “We are going to naturally allow
observers both domestic and foreign, but there is a process of
accreditation. Any group that wants to observe will need to apply and
to be properly accredited. We are not, this time around, going to allow
anybody to just come and say that they are observers, we have to ensure
that there is discipline in that process,” he said.

He added that a
guideline had been developed for both monitors and observers, adding
that although the law did not allow for monitoring, the commission
could devise an administrative mechanism for it. “I think that some of
the problem of the past is that people were observers but they were
also assumed to be monitors and in the process they created additional
chaos and problems.

No constituency delineation for now

Mr Jega added that
the commission will work with the existing polling units for the voter
registration and the general elections because there was no time to do
proper constituency delineation.

“The former
commission started the process of constituency delineation but had not
finished it but we realised that there was no time for us to do it, so
we have decided to restrict ourselves to the existing polling units,”
he said.

According to Mr
Jega, the commission has done extensive harmonisation of the polling
units with the Geographic Information System (GIS) coordinating and
that about 90 per cent of the polling units across the country had been
properly mapped out.

“There are still
areas in Adamawa and the Mambilla Plateau as well as the creeks in the
Niger Delta and few places that we haven’t got GIS to coordinate,” he
said.

He expressed
concern at what he described as lack of internal democracy in most
political parties. According to him, “Our worry in the commission is
that it does not appear as if our politicians and the political parties
are learning the lessons that we ought to have learnt from our past
mistakes and past errors, unfortunately, these are being repeated.
Internal party democracy is very important in our democratisation
process and in ensuring that there is a credible electoral process in
place but from what we are seeing, there is a serious concern.” Mr Jega
expressed regrets that the commission was receiving complaints that
some parties are not following due process during their congresses. He
restated the determination of the commission to rekindle the confidence
of the populace in the country’s electoral process.

Part of this process is the decision of the commission not to use
vendors for ballot papers and by ensuring that ballot papers are
printed by the best security printers in the world. He said for now,
the commission has put a stop to the registration of more political
parties.