The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it has the capacity to handle the local government elections.
However, the commission said the law has to be amended before it could take up the responsibility.
INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, stated this on Thursday when he appeared before the joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters on preparations for the upcoming governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States.
He said: “You wanted to know the position of the Commission on issues surrounding the Supreme Court judgement and local government elections, the position of the Commission.
“So far we have had three broad positions canvassed. One, the transfer of responsibility for the conduct of local government elections to INEC. The question is if that is done, can INEC cope? The second proposition we have had is that there should be a new federal electoral commission for local government elections and thirdly there is another argument that says leave the state electoral commission to conduct local government elections in the spirit of federalism but find a way of ensuring that they improve on the conduct of local government elections.
“Right now the law has not been amended. The same Constitution that creates INEC also creates the States Electoral Commissions. So it is up to the National Assembly to amend the law to transfer that responsibility to the INEC. If the responsibility for the conduct of local government election is transferred to INEC, can INEC cope? The answer is yes! INEC can cope.”
Yakubu explained that the Commission had been conducting area council elections in the Federal Capital Territory which had been devoid of the problems associated with the conduct of local government elections.
He said some advantages of INEC handling elections include that there would be regular elections as when due, stability of tenure, and also that there has never been a caretaker committee in the FCT.
Yakubu also noted that there has never been a time one political party has won all the seats at the elections as is common in the states.
He noted: “What are we? By definition, INEC is the Independent National Electoral Commission but right now we do national elections, we do state elections, we do local government elections. A national electoral commission may be expected to handle only the Presidential and National Assembly elections but we also do governorship elections, we do State Assembly elections and do the Area Councils Elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the only part of the country where INEC conducts local government elections.
“So, if we are asked to do these elections, yes we can and actually our track record actually proves that we can do it. Check the case of FCT and I would like to say one or two things about the FCT local government elections.
“There are six Area Councils in the FCT. Like I said there are six chairmen in the FCT, there are 62 wards in the FCT. Each Ward is a councillorship Constituency for the election of Councilors and this is one part of the country that INEC has conducted local government elections and it has resulted in the following:
“Number one, it is perhaps only part of the country where local government elections are held regularly as at when due, elections are held in the FCT. Number two, there has never been a Caretaker Committee for any Area Council in the FCT, INEC has been conducting the election regularly. Number three, there is stability of tenure, it used to be three years but in 2022, the National Assembly amended the Electoral Act to provide for a four year tenure for Area Councils in the FCT.
“Number four, no single political party has ever won elections in all the constituencies in the FCT. In fact, what is interesting now is that out of the six chairmen of the FCT; APC has three Area Councils, PDP has three Area Councils. So there is no election where one party has dominated.”
Yakubu maintained that the same Section of the Constitution that creates INEC also creates the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC), saying there is need to amend constitution and transfer the responsibility to the INEC.
“In any case, if you transfer local government elections to INEC what it means is that you are going to transfer almost 10,000 Constituencies to INEC. We have 8,809 wards, each ward is a councillorship constituency. We have 774 local government areas and each local government has a chairman. So if you add this to the existing 1, 591 constituencies where INEC conducts elections is well over 11,000 constituencies but the election may not be held all in one day,” he said.
Yakubu also said it was more challenging to conduct off-cycle elections than general election.
He also raised security concerns in the Edo State election with the likely deployment of the Edo State Security Network for the polls.
The INEC said the flood that affected the Edo office soaked their BVAS machines but that they managed to recover most of them.