Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has today revealed that the Commission has identified about 142 recommendations on the electoral process that requires reforms.
According to the INEC boss, the recommendations are those concerning the general preparedness, voter management, voter education and public communication, political parties and candidate management, electoral operations and logistics management.
Others are concerned with election officials and personnel, partnership and collaboration, monitoring and supervision, election technology, voting and result management, election security, electoral offences and the electoral legal framework.
Yakubu made this known during a meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in Abuja on today, Thursday.
The meeting marked the agencies last consultation for the year and was used to thrash on more details of issues surrounding the planning and learning from experience of the 2023 general election, Mahmud revealed.
According to the INEC boss, out of the 142 recommendations identified, 86 of them require an administrative action by the commission itself.
He said this has necessitated the consultation with its resident Electoral Commissioners being the gate keepers of the implementation of such laws at the grassroots.
He added, another 48 of the recommendations are those that require a wider consultative action with stakeholders, security agencies, mobile network operators, political parties, civil society organisation and media to mention but few.
In his statement, it partly reads; “There are eight recommendations that require legislative action by the National Assembly. Very soon, the Commission will make a presentation to the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Electoral Matters as they continue to deliberate on electoral reform.
“Among the major highlights of the Commission’s recommendations is the imperative of legal clarity in result management, with regard to manual transfer versus the electronic transmission of results.
“The Commission also believes that with the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the use of the Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC) as the sole means of identification for voter accreditation on Election Day should be reviewed.
“Those who already have the PVCs can still use them to vote, but going forward, computer-generated slips issued to the voter or even downloaded from the Commission’s website will suffice for voter accreditation.
“This will not only save cost, it will also eliminate the issues around the collection of PVCs and the diabolical practice of buying up the cards from voters in order to disenfranchise them,” Yakubu added.