Make INEC competent election management body – Experts tell Jega

Posted by admin Headlines, INEC Politics Friday, January 6th, 2012

A team of experts constituted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to review its operations in 2011 ahead of the 2015 general election, on Thursday, urged its chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, to intensify efforts at the ongoing restructuring of the commission to make it a competent election management body.

The team, christened “Registration and Election Review Committee” (RERC), made up of university lecturers was inaugurated in August last year under the chairmanship of a Professor of Political Science, Adele Jinadu.

Submitting the report of the committee to INEC chairman in Abuja on Thursday, Professor Jinadu declared that the committee discovered that much still needed to be done to make the commission a competent election management body that would conduct free, fair and credible elections in the country.

According to him, “there is need to proceed much more expeditiously with developing a medium-to-long-term strategic plan for INEC, in partnership with key stakeholders in the states and the society, the imperative of a transformative leadership at all levels of INEC’s leadership hierarchy, which evidences collegiality, defined by mutuality and reciprocity not only among the leadership but also between the leadership and the rank and file.”

He further said that there was need for “the reconstitution of the commission’s Electoral Institute and strengthening it as an in-house training, research and development institution on various aspects of electoral governance and political behaviours.”

The panel equally stressed the need for the commission to embark on massive voters’ education which it described as vital in strengthening the democratic principles in the country.

While commending Professor Jega for setting in motion a process of critical self-examination by putting the committee in place, Professor Jinadu declared that the recommendations of the committee “are designed as inputs in the ongoing internal review of INEC’s administrative, financial and operational processes.”

-Tribunewp_posts