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Okpara Ejimofor is the National Public Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview, he speaks on the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend the deadline for political parties to submit names of their candidates, why political parties should support the Commission to succeed, among others. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:
INEC has extended the timeline for political parties to uploading names of their candidates. Do you have any of such issues during your own process and do you think additional two days will be enough to resolve the issues?
Of course we had our own fair share of glitches and this is technology and of course as a human process it cannot be error-free. So we had our own fair share of it and we’re making use of this window to also accelerate our own internal processes. And as at the last check we’ve uploaded over 200 positions for the Federal House of Reps and over 70 for our Senate. And by the close of work tomorrow before the final expiration, we’re hoping to achieve more and also be able to finish up and be ready for the process.
I recall that INEC insisted that the July 11 deadline was firm, but as someone who represents APGA, like you said, you also had your fair share of some challenges. Would you say that all the challenges that hindered the initial upload have been addressed? Because I’m wondering if some parties might still experience the same challenges that have occurred over time just with an extension.
I think significantly, yes, they’ve been addressed. And of course, the process has been made very seamless for political parties to be able to do this. If you allow this process to go on for the next one year, there’ll still be persons or parties or individuals who will come up to say they were not able to do anything or they couldn’t achieve their supposed intentions. So, it shouldn’t go without regulation. There has to be a time for everything. For us in APGA, I wouldn’t know about other political parties, but I’m very sure, just as we’re up in arms against the timeline, the deadline that is behooving us in the face, I’m sure other political parties are also not resting on their oars. This is not to say that the initial time frame provided by INEC was not sufficient. It was about a two-week period for parties to upload the names of their candidates for election. But most political parties often want to decide what the role of INEC is. But it’s not so, it’s more about INEC is a supervisory and regulatory agency that supervises the activities of political parties. Oftentimes, you realise that parties somehow don’t want to agree with INEC with regards to how things should be done by the law. Some of the glitches you talk about are not just technological alone. Some of them are also procedural. Some of them are also, let’s say, legal. I’m sure by the close of work of July 14th, when the extension deadline will be elapsing, I’m sure most of these gray areas would have been straightened out and everybody will be home and dry.
Speaking of parties that don’t always agree with INEC decisions, the APC, has actually rejected this decision by INEC to issue the extension. It said that this extension underscores the level of tardiness and incompetence of the opposition parties. What do you make of the remarks from APC, especially given how important an extension like this is, as you said, to the democratic process?
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. For me, a system is as strong as its weakest link. So, we all cannot run or move at the same pace. So, what makes us a very perfect system or a near perfect system is our ability to be able to cater for those who don’t have the level of speed that we have. So, while we’re at this, we know it’s a contest, we know it’s a race, and there has to be a winner at the end of the day. INEC, as an unbiased empire, has to show some semblance of fairness. Has to show some semblance of equity. And that’s exactly why INEC is an independent body. It’s not an appendage of any political party, be it the ruling party or opposition party. It’s not there to do the bidding of any other party, any other party, either the opposition or the ruling party. It’s there to do the bidding of Nigerians according to the law. So, if other parties have very meaningful and credible reasons why they beg for an extension, and Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) also, as an umbrella body for every other political party in Nigeria, saw reason for reaching out to INEC to say, our members are having this challenge. Can you help us? INEC, of their volition, and within the ambit of what the law permits them to do, have graciously granted this extension. We believe every other thing within this realm borders on the realm of opinion. Like they would say, we’re entitled to our opinion. It doesn’t really mean that the opinions are factual.
Some might definitely beg to differ about how you’ve portrayed INEC. You refer to it as an unbiased umpire, not an appendage of the ruling party and the likes. We saw what happened just a few weeks ago with Lere Olayinka having access to a back-end and exposing Emeka Ike’s information and all the likes. We’ve also seen the allegations of the INEC chairman linked to the ruling party. Are you concerned about how the electoral body is going to carry out this very crucial process when you compare it to what the expectations were in 2023 and how that fell flat for most Nigerians, especially regarding Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVSA) and INEC Result Viewing ( IReV) portal?
The truth is that this is politics. And politics is a contest. As a contest, people go with their different strategies. That’s exactly how things are. The other bit about people getting access and whatever, I won’t believe that people who make themselves available are no longer so confidential, as it were. If you’re giving your credentials, the particulars that the INEC themselves are obligated to make public for public scrutiny, I don’t see how that amounts to any breach of privacy or any issues that anyone should begin to raise eyebrows for. But that’s just to settle that. I’m an incredible optimist. I always see the glasses half full. I believe that INEC, if they continue to do as they say that they would do, and they continue to follow their own guidelines, as they’ve stated, what matters to us is the transparency of the process. If you’re going to do A, show that you’re going to do A. Don’t show that you’re going to do A and the next time you’re doing B. So if there’ll be any reason for a change of guideline or a change of strategy or a change of approach, this is life. In this temporal space, things are subject to the vagaries of time and chance. So if there’ll be any reasons for a change of approach or a change in the guidelines, the onus is on INEC to ensure that everybody concerned, every political party concerned, has to be duly carried along and has to be duly informed. So what we seek is just transparency. I’m not part of those who take every opportunity to begin to vilify the system. You cannot completely vilify a system that you want to improve. You must understand that this is a work in progress. At every point in time you must ensure that you’re better than you were yesterday. We all are running systems. Even as political parties, we’ve had our own evolution. We’ve moved from one stage of development to another. There are certain problems we had in our developmental stages. And now that we’re becoming a bit more advanced, those problems will no longer or may be taken for granted that they can no longer resurface. The same thing happens to the broader spectrum of our democratic journey. There are times within these democratic systems that we’ve had situations that made us begin to doubt if going back to the Egypt where we came from wasn’t a better alternative. But other times, we also look back and begin to see the silver linings within the sky. And we know that it can only get better. So that’s exactly how I want to actually keep the conversation around INEC and its continuous improvement on its own system. So all they need from everyone is support.