By Balarabe Oshiafi
While he sojourned planet earth, a renown legal luminary, Lord Denning posited in one of his intellectual outpourings: “If we fail to do what has not been done before, we will never get anywhere”. This could very well be the fulcrum on which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) anchored it’s Kano e-learning and workshop to boost public confidence in the conduct of elections.
While giving his opening remarks at the on-going workshop in Kano, the chairman of the board of the electoral institute, Professor Abdullahi Abdu Zuru said ” INEC always endeavours to be amongst of the best Election Management Bodies in the World, while serving the interest and aspiration of Nigerians. Driven by this spirit and vision, INEC has and is consistently taking giant strides toward the improvement of its performance in conduct of elections. Accordingly, the 2023 General Election witnessed a paradigm shift in the deployment of technology in the management of elections from voter registration using INEC Voters Enrolment Device (IVED), to voter accreditation and uploading of election results on INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) using Biometric Voters”.
The electoral institute (TEI) which is the training arm of INEC has organised the workshop in collaboration with the International foundation for electoral system (IFES).
Professor Zuru started by saying “I convey to you the goodwill and greetings of the Hon. Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the Commission and entire staff of the INEC”.
He also hastened to add that lessons learnt from the Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi off-circle elections, helped to enrich the curriculum of the Kano e-learning and workshop.
With the benefit of hindsight that Edo and Ondo off-circle elections are knocking at INEC’s door,
ExpressDay sought the opinion of some electorate in Edo State who are waiting in earnest to elect Governor Godwin Obaseki’s successor in September this year.
Noble Okhidemeh is an attorney at law, a voter and public affairs analyst. He had this to say about the improvement of election management: “Everything that INEC needs to do to avoid hitches in Edo Governorship elections must be done. In this regard, I praise them for retraining their permanent and adhoc staff. ICT is it and e-learning is the order of the day”.
ExpressDay sees this e-learning as succeeding in achieving an equilibrium between the mood of voters and INEC’s mustering of moral strength to give them what they want.
The TEI confirms this: “that the Commission has announced that the Off-Cycle Governorship Election in Edo State will take place on Saturday 21st September, 2024 and that of Ondo State is scheduled for Saturday, 16th November, 2024. INEC E-school will, like all other INEC’s Electoral Technologies, be deployed for training of election officials for both elections and you will be the key drivers.
Consequently, I implore you to consider this review as quality assurance process and participate attentively and actively in order to master the hosting, deployment and management of the E-Learning Platform. I enjoin you to take advantage of this opportunity to reposition our training programs where necessary to give credence to the Commission’s attested reputation of conducting free, fair, credible, inclusive elections”.
Some citizens further opined their views on how to make elections more credible.Okayi Victoria is a legal practitioner and an advocate of the exercise of civic duty by the citizenry. She admonishes INEC to show near perfection in the coming elections by ” giving enough sensitisation on voting and making the voting process stress free and more secured”.
And INEC used the opportunity of the Kano e-learning to douse the apprehensions of Victoria, Edo and Ondo voters: Sa’ad Umar Idris is the Director General of INEC training institute. He said this at the TEI/IFES workshop:”This recent innovation is worthy of commendation as it lends continuity in knowledge enhancement, encourage flexibility in learning as well as improved time management. This affords participants the privilege to learn at their own pace. When election officials are effectively trained via the INEC e-School, it rubs off on their capacity to professionally deliver on the conduct of the electioneering process as well as boosting public confidence in the Electoral process”.
He continues: “As the countdown to the 2024 Off Cycle Governorship Elections draws near in Edo and Ondo State in September and November respectively, the Commission is developing an integrated training plan for its staff at both the headquarters and the states through TEI, such as the INEC e-School, Training BoT, and the recent integration of the INEC e-Attendance into Training activities. All of these can only be managed by well-informed practitioners, hence the essence of this workshop”.
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