While the debate on who chairs the
Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) continues, an electoral
assessment report has slammed the Commission for the current dearth of
public confidence in Nigeria‘s voting process and urged the executive
arm of the government to immediately change its leadership.

The report made 10 major
recommendations to improve Nigeria’s electoral processes, ahead of the
2011 elections. The recommendations, two which require legal reforms,
include reconstitution of INEC chair and board, transparency on the
part of INEC, and a call for support from the media and civil society
groups to ensure accurate reportage of elections. The report also made
recommendations for the police and the judiciary.

According to the report, commissioned
by the United States and United Kingdom governments, Nigeria will only
be able to conduct credible elections next year if some reforms were
urgently carried out, while specifically decrying the “profound and
widespread lack of trust” in INEC.

“Most critically, the crisis of
confidence in INEC must be addressed urgently for credible elections to
be possible,” the report said, adding that the agency had failed to
take “critical reform initiatives to improve its own performance and
public confidence in the process”.

The group which carried out the
research, Independent Electoral Assessment Team, comprised five members
and chaired by Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the Chairman of the Ghana Electoral
Commission, was convened by the US and UK diplomatic missions in
Nigeria on the request of President Umaru Yar’Adua, late last year.

Between 9 January and 29 January, Mr.
Afari-Gyan and his team carried out the research in Nigeria and a final
draft of the report was obtained yesterday.

The other members of the team are Denis
Kadima, executive director of the Electoral Institute of Southern
Africa; Darren Kew, a professor of International Dispute Resolution at
the University of Massachusetts; Hannah Roberts, an election
consultant; and Margarita Aswani, a democracy and governance consultant.

The new and the old

While accepting
that some legal reforms are necessary for a change in Nigeria’s
electoral process, especially as espoused in an earlier assessment in
2008 by the popular Electoral Reform Committee (ERC), led by Muhammadu
Uwais, former Chief Justice, the team paid more attention to the poor
administrative processes in INEC.

“Electoral reform
is strengthened and secured through legal reform. While such legal
reform is outstanding, key administrative actions under the current
legal framework could provide for the possibility of credible elections
in 2011,” the report said.

The group observed
that Nigeria’s electoral process has been further complicated by the
sheer size of the electorate in comparison with available
infrastructure.

“Holding elections
in Nigeria presents many challenges, not least the large size of the
electorate, the limited infrastructure, low literacy levels, and an
environment that is characterised as violent and corrupt. There are
also complex ethnic, religious and geographical divides,” the team said.

Commissioning an International Team

It is not clear why
Mr. Yar’Adua decided to commission another team to carry out an
assessment of electoral processes in Nigeria last year, especially as a
previous report, which was submitted in December 2008, was yet to be
implemented.

According to the report, the UK and US came in to help following the president’s request.

“At the request of the President of Nigeria, the UK and US
diplomatic missions arranged for an independent international electoral
assessment team to make recommendations for holding credible elections
in 2011,” the report said.