Ondo By-Election: INEC Explains Why Election Was ‘Inconclusive’

The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in Ondo State, Akin Orebiyi, on Monday explained that declaring an election inconclusive is … Continue reading Ondo By-Election: INEC Explains Why Election Was ‘Inconclusive’


Sunrise INEC OrebiyiThe Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in Ondo State, Akin Orebiyi, on Monday explained that declaring an election inconclusive is not an indication of an insurmountable problem.

Appearing as a guest of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, he revealed that the commission’s declaration of Ondo State’s Ilaje Ese-Odo Federal Constituency by-election inconclusive simply meant they could not declare a winner yet.

He said that this was so because “from the result so far, the margin of votes between the leading candidate and the next candidate is smaller than the total number of registered voters who did not have the opportunity to cast their votes.”

He said that the problem the commission had was that it was unable to hold elections in some places on that day “simply because politicians went aboard with violence, and under-hand methods to disrupt the entire process.”

For example, “If your ballot materials are stolen, the next thing is to cancel election there, or if thugs invade your polling station and polling officials had to run away, you cannot return any results in such places.”

As such, it was not possible for the commission to have results or conclude elections in a number of polling units.

According to Orebiyi, the total number of registered voters who could not vote was 28,952, while the margin of votes between the leading candidate and the second placed candidate was less than 1,300; a figure which indicated that if only 30% of those who couldn’t vote on that day had voted, the result might have been different.

He explained that the idea behind this guideline by INEC was to dissuade politicians from using foul means to win elections. He said that politicians, when they realise that they are not strong in some areas, usually cause chaos in those places to prevent people from voting.

He stated that this guideline is clearly written in the INEC manual, which the commission used to train politicians ahead of the Ilaje Ese-Odo by-election, but the nature and conduct of politicians had created a situation whereby there are no safe places during elections.

Militants Stopped INEC

The INEC man maintained that the commission did everything right as regards its logistics on the election day, noting that the restiveness among youths in the Niger-Delta region was a major factor behind the commission’s inability to conduct elections in some places.

In Arugbo Ward 2, for example, as early as 5.30am, the INEC officials were about to leave for their assignment when according to Mr Orebiyi, they were surrounded by militants who insisted that no election would be allowed to hold because they had not benefitted from the amnesty programme of the Federal Government.

He asked, “What does INEC do in such a case?”

He advised that Government, despite its efforts already made, would still have to take the needs of youths in these region more seriously as some of those efforts made in the past were cosmetic measures.

He, however, also revealed that the case of Ilaje was peculiar as the disruption of elections was a calculated move to probably prove a point.

He alleged that after INEC officials had been prevented from setting up election for many hours, the youths came back at 3pm to instruct the INEC officials to write on their result sheets that no elections held, and as soon as the INEC men did this, they were released.

He further emphasized the “desperate nature of politicians” as being one that puts a demand on the country to create stricter laws for electoral offences, adding that the responsibility for credible elections was not on INEC alone.

Although, INEC had been accused of not prosecuting electoral offenders in the past, Orebiyi said that the INEC had been quite helpless in this regard as the commission could not have done this without the support of the courts.

He recalled the case of an INEC staff that was caught with over a thousand voters’ cards ahead of the 2012 election and was taken to court by the commission but whom the court found a way to discharge, only for the commission to recently receive a letter instructing it to reinstate the person as a member of staff.

He also cited incidents of violence during the elections and this brought the militarization of elections to the fore. He, however, refused to support the militarization of polling units, especially since in his opinion, the culture of violence had been going down.

He revealed that the rise of more consultation would make the difference, as well as more measures by the electoral commission.

The Commissioner hoped that the supplementary election in Ondo State would turn out better as he already had a meeting set up with stakeholders from all the parties involved, in order to resolve issues pertaining to the INEC decision and plan ahead of the supplementary election.

He reminded the Sunrise Daily crew that INEC’s credibility had risen in the past years with more politicians beginning to trust the commission and the electoral process, thereby cutting down on their desperate measures and seeking fairness. He expressed optimism that this would be a continuous progress.

He, however, noted that the situation in the past had been very bad and as such would not change overnight.

Mr. Orebiyi also admitted that funding for the commission had improved since the leadership of Professor Attahiru Jega and this has reflected in their quality of work.