AN ASSESSMENT OF INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION (INEC) AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The INEC was established by section 153 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution. It is responsible for organizing referendums and elections for president, vice president, state governors and deputy governors, and the Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives. The INEC also has power to register political parties and monitor their organization and operations, including auditing their finances and publishing reports for public consumption. It also has power to conduct voter registration, monitor political campaigns and undertake other functions that may be assigned by the National Assembly. The commission is composed of a chairman, who serves as the chief executive officer, and 12 members known as national electoral commissioners; the secretary to the commission is selected from the rank of bureaucrats within the institution. The constitution also provides for a resident electoral commissioner for each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); it maintains administrative offices in all 36 states, the FCT and in all the local governments in the country.
The commission also has a training and research arm known as the Electoral Institute. While there are no special provisions for the physically impaired or quotas for women in the INEC’s management, it currently has three female commissioners. Though relatively autonomous in terms of operational and financial control, the INEC lacks the autonomy to act to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. In the course of electoral administration and management in Nigeria, poor management and electoral violence has become a norm looking at past elections conducted in the country such as 1964, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 elections. Hence the need for this study on the assessment of INEC with respect to the management of 2015 general election in Nigeria.
However, the INEC faces some institutional challenges in the discharge of its responsibilities, including its dependence on (and inadequate control over) ad hoc staff, for which it lacks a nationwide database for recruitment; bureaucratic ‘red-tapism’ and staff attitude; poor delegation of responsibilities and overlapping functions (INEC 2012). These problems often result in late preparations for elections, a lack of teamwork and low-level interdepartmental cooperation and communication gaps. Structural deficiencies, an absence of proper career progression, poor record management, inadequate communication between the commission headquarters and its state offices and the over-centralization of planning also negatively affect the commission’s work (INEC 2012).
