INEC Signs MoU with Road Transport, Marine Workers’ Unions to Ease Movement of Electoral Materials

•Group charges Buhari to walk his talk on transparent elections

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) to ease logistics on the lifting of election materials and staff during the general elections next year.

This came just as a group known as the Vote Buying Disruptor have urged President Muhammadu Buhari to walk his talks on avowed plans to ensure a free and fair general election next year.

In his speech at the signing of the MoU with the road transport and marine unions, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said signing of a revised MoU with the road and marine transport unions’ was a demonstration of its determination to implement key recommendations of the review exercise in order to enhance logistics in the electoral operations.

According to the INEC chairman, “The 2023 general elections will involve the nationwide deployment of over one million personnel and massive quantities of materials twice within a period of two weeks from our state offices to 774 local government areas, 8,809 electoral wards and 176,846 polling units across the length and breadth of our country.

“It will require over 100,000 vehicles and about 4,200 boats that will be accompanied by naval gunboats. This is a huge undertaking that must be accomplished in the next 66 days and we are resolute in doing so to give Nigerians a pleasant voting experience.

“Let me assure Nigerians that we are determined that all polling units nationwide will open at 8.30am on Saturday, 25th February 2023 for the presidential and National Assembly elections and on Saturday, 11th March, 2023, for the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections,” he explained.

Yakubu said in order to ensure that personnel and materials would be at the polling units on election days awaiting the arrival of voters rather than the other way round, “INEC requires large numbers of vehicles, including motorcycles, tricycles, boats and canoes in the riverine areas which cannot be met from its internal resources.

“It was for this reason that the Commission signed the first MoU with the NURTW in January 2015. In order to expand the pool of our service providers to meet the requirement for the increasing number of vehicles, the MoU was reviewed in December 2018 to incorporate NARTO.

“Over the years, the Commission has come to rely on the partnership with the NURTW and NARTO to provide vehicles for the successful deployment of electoral personnel and materials.

“However, we did not incorporate the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) within the ambit of the MoU, a situation which has often resulted in logistics nightmare in the deployment and retrieval of personnel and materials to the riverine areas of the country.

“This oversight is now addressed by the revised MoU to include MWUN comprising of sailors, dockworkers and those in related trades in our electoral logistics planning and delivery.”, he said.

 He explained further: “The MoU we are about to sign today is a general framework. The contractual agreement between and Commission and the actual service provides will be worked out at the state and LGA level between officials of the unions and our Resident Electoral Commissioners and electoral officers.

“The agreement which is legally binding will be based on the actual breakdown of the number of vehicles, tricycles, motorcycles, boats and canoes per state. It is therefore significant that our Resident Electoral Commissioners are present here today to witness the formal signing of the framework that will enable detailed work at State and LGA levels.

“I am also glad that the unions are represented by their national leaders and as many of their zonal and state officials.

 “It is our expectation that the leadership of the unions will effectively supervise their members in the various chapters and branches for the full implementation of the MoU. In doing so, you will be required to work very closely with our Resident Electoral Commissioners and collaborate with the Federal Regulatory and Safety Agencies to ensure that the objectives of the MoU are fully realised in terms of required road/sea worthiness and safety standards of your vehicles and boats”, he assured the transport unions.

Furthermore, the INEC chairman said the knowledge of transport union members of the routes and topography in various parts of the country was especially important for ease of movement and safe delivery of personnel and materials, especially to areas with difficult terrain.

According to him, everyone involved in election duties must subscribe to the INEC Oath/Affirmation of Neutrality.

Thus, he said, “We will therefore require your members to swear and strictly adhere to this oath and the INEC Code of Conduct for Electoral Officials as your participation in the delivery of electoral logistics requires absolute neutrality and non-partisanship.

“The security agencies shall not only be available to escort all vehicles and boats to locations, they will also ensure the safety and protection of all election personnel and materials. As usual, we shall track the movement of all vehicles and boats electronically and in real time to ensure that election personnel and materials are not hijacked or diverted,” he explained.

In a related development, the Vote Buyers Disruptor (VBD) have appealed to the president to walk the talk and give a matching order to the Inspector General  of police and the NSCDC to encrypt all security personnel participating in elections and ensure any misconduct are punished to safeguard the democracy he enjoys.

In a statement, the group signed, they said, “we also condemned in strong terms the anti-democratic act of destroying INEC facilities across the country as we asked those involved to stop such dastard act.”

The VBD identified and recommends solutions that could lead to a transparent general election next year.

On vote buying, they said the launch of VBD was to dislodge proponents of vote buying menace from source and makes it difficult even when electorates aid such heinous act.

They recommended to INEC that Voting Cubicle Reform (VCR) which was to review/ensure vote thumbprint and casting were done simultaneously inside the same cubicle as against short-spaced distance always provided which gives opportunity for votes thumb printed to be ‘seen, viewed and verified’ by the bystander buyers while transiting to being casted into the ballot box, for the purpose of cashing out as no politicians will give out money if he/she cannot verify he was actually voted for.

“We recommend for simultaneous accreditation and actual voting be done the same time as against performing accreditation and staying back to cast voter at later time. This will curb invading of polling units after voters’ have concluded accreditations and process manipulated.

“We recommend for BVAS Location Tracker (BLT) which will detect if any voting action takes place in different location aside configured exact location.

“This will stop thugs who invade the polling units from carting away ballot boxes to an unknown different location, thereby making the polling unit result invalid,” it added.