By John Onah, Abuja

The Report of two Committees set up by the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to produce the official account of the
conduct of the 2019 General Election and to review the election based
on the outcome of the Commission’s Retreats and Stakeholder
Engagements held from 28th May to 12th July 2019 have been released
to the public.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony Friday, the INEC Chairman Prof
Mahmood Yakubu said the report  is presented in 13 Chapters covering
the major issues associated with the conduct of the election.

It also touched on the lessons learnt from the conduct of over 170
off-cycle governorship elections and bye-elections, the review of the
2012-2016 Strategic Plan (SP) and Strategic Programme of Action (SPA),
the 2015 Election Project Plan (EPP) and the design, formulation and
implementation of the 2017-2021 Strategic Plan, Strategic Programme of
Action and the 2019 Election Project Plan.

The report  also examines in detail the key activities, preparations
and challenges associated with the conduct of the 2019 General
Election ranging from registration of new political parties, conduct
of continuous voter registration, monitoring of party primaries,
candidate nomination process and party campaigns, the recruitment and
training of ad-hoc staff and the accreditation of election observers
and party agents.

The report further discussed the processes and procedures for the
conduct of the General Election, including the deployment of personnel
and materials, the operation of the Situation Room and Collation
Centres and the organisation and management of the Counting, Collation
and Declaration of results at National, State, LGA and Registration
Area levels.

Again, the report deals with pre-election and post-election
litigations. The last section of the report focuses on the preparation
and delivery of the election in the 36 States of the Federation and
the FCT. The concluding part of the report dwells on the critical
issues and challenges associated with the preparation and conduct of
the election, lessons learnt and specific recommendations for
addressing them.

Speaking further, the Chairman said that the Second report was about
the review of the 2019 General Election based on the outcome of the
Commission’s Retreats and Stakeholder Engagements.
“It covers the outcome of internal debriefing meetings and external
engagements with electoral stakeholders held from 28th May to 12th
July 2019. The aim was to evaluate the Commission’s actions, processes
and procedures before, during and after the election”.

“While the internal review involved the Commission’s debriefing
sessions with its Electoral Officers, Administrative Secretaries,
Directing Staff and Resident Electoral Commissioners to critically
appraise its performance in the conduct of the election, the
engagement with external stakeholders involved meetings with leaders
of political parties, members of the Inter-Agency Consultative
Committee on Election Security (ICCES), Civil Society Organisations
and the Media”.

According to the chairman,the engagements which consisted of a total
of 12, in six separate internal and external meetings.

He disclosed that the review exercise enabled the Commission to listen
to its officials, receive feedbacks from relevant stakeholders and
learn vital lessons in the continuing effort to improve the conduct of
elections in Nigeria.

“Presented in 16 Chapters, the Report identifies the main issues
discussed in the review exercise and provides detailed assessment on
the opportunities and challenges associated with each of the issues as
well as actionable proposals for resolving them. Although the
Commission has undertaken such a review in the past, this is the first
time that the report is published and disseminated with the public”,
he added.

“It contains 180 recommendations that either require administrative
action by the Commission or amendments to strengthen the existing
electoral legal framework by the National Assembly. Some of the
recommendations that require administrative action by INEC are already
being implemented resulting in improved management of the electoral
process as seen in the recent off-cycle Governorship elections in Edo
and Ondo States. We are similarly engaging with the National Assembly
on aspects of the recommendations that require legislative action’.

He assured all Nigerians that the hard copies of the two reports will
be widely disseminated while soft copies will be uploaded on our
website on Monday, November 9.

Earlier in his welcome remark,  the National Commissioner, Elections
Operation and Logistics, Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu said the report
represents the commission’s sense of accountability and the and
analysis of the 2019 elections.

The report according to him, also represent the story of the
commission on the election and its quest to build strong virile
institutional memory as well as a reference gift from the commission
to researchers and the general public.

While thanking the international partners for their support, he called
on the public to rally round the commission noting that elections is
not just the business of the commission alone.