Dear Reader:

Some pages of INEC's Official Report of the 2007 General Elections (Updated Version) as distributed by INEC's Maurice Iwu and Company at the Washington, DC briefing of December 18, 2007 are hereby scanned and provided as a "public service."  The hard copy of the full report is appreciated, but INEC would do well to make it also available on its website too.

 That would fulfil all righteousness.

 As to how INEC could have organized free and fair elections under the very environment that it described, only Iwu's INEC and INEC's Iwu can tell the world.

 May we hope for a better 2008 in Nigeria ! [Amen.]

Bolaji Aluko 

December 31, 2007 

INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION
The Official Report on the 2007 General Elections

(INEC 2007 Updated Version)

Page 3 following        

PREFACE

         The annals of Nigeria’s political development in

         its 47 years as a sovereign nation are replete

         with trials and triumphs. The challenges of

         evolution for the dynamic and heterogeneous

         nation have been varied and enormous, but its

         capacity to overcome odds remains

         unparalleled.

         It will surely take a while before the culture and

         institutions of democracy become firmly

         entrenched within the Nigerian state. The reason

         for this is simple; prolonged military rule. Against

         the backdrop of this recent history of prolonged

         military rule, with its attendant corrosive impact

         on democratic values, Nigeria has done

         extremely well as an emerging democracy. Not

         many countries have survived prolonged reign

         of dictatorship and remained remarkably

         cohesive as a democratic state.

         Even for the most advanced of democratic

         systems today, managing elections remains a

         very critical challenge. For an emerging

         democracy in a dynamic, heterogeneous society

         where a crop of deep pockets nurtured under

         the ancien regime is yet to come to terms with

         the limitations of impunity inherent in a

         democratic order, and where the electorate is

         yet to appreciate its powers, the difficulty in

         managing elections is bound to be more acute.

         That is really the greatest challenge of elections

         in Nigeria. As the saying goes, “When people

         are so wrong for so long in the same subject

         and in the same direction, the failure is not of

         intelligence but of will.  For such people, ignorance

         is a strategy; their problems lie not in finding the

         truth but of facing it.”

         Although democratic governance was ushered

         back into Nigeria in 1999 and the country had

         thrived for almost eight unbroken years under

         that order by the time the 2007 election was due

         - a record by the past standard of the country -

         a certain historical reality added weight to the

         challenge of the 2007 General Elections. As of

         the time of the election, Nigeria had not managed

         to transit from one democratically elected

         government to another. The point of transition

         always became the point of rupture.The

         Independent National Electoral Commission was

         mindful of the historical challenge of the 2007

         election and was determined to propel the nation,

         to break the jinx. Preparations for the elections

         were comprehensive and thorough.

         Considerable effort and resources were

         expended in addressing critical issues that

         would enhance the environment of election.

         A new electoral law that derived from component

         elements of the draft, which the Commission

         sent to the National Assembly in 2004, was

         eventually passed into law in 2006, albeit with

         significant limitations. The political space was

         opened up through the registration of more

         political parties, a policy designed to

         accommodate more tendencies and political

         interests in the system. A new regime of voter

         registration was introduced based on an

         electronic platform that not only captured the

         photographs and biometric data of registered

         voters, but has the dynamic feature to curtail

         such grievous loopholes as multiple

         registrations. Permanent voters’ cards that

         incorporate vital biometric data from the

         Electronic Voters Register was introduced not

         only to simplify voter registration in the future but

         to also serve as a voter identification card. The

         use of customized ballot papers for each

         electoral constituency was introduced for the

         first time in Nigeria’s electoral history in order

         minimize ballot-box stuffing. Intensive voter

         education and enlightenment campaigns were

         carried out by the Commission while series

         stakeholders’ consultations and conference

         were organized regularly.

         The establishment of the Electoral Institute in

         collaboration with three Nigerian universities, will

         further institutionalize the innovations an

         reforms introduced for the 2007 elections. The

         Institute will make electoral system reform an

         adaptive management programme, which will

         constantly seek to optimize electoral democracy

         in Nigeria.

         With every sense of humility and service to my

         country, I unequivocally state that in all, the

         Commission went the extra mile in ensuring not

         only that the elections were held, but that they

         were successful, free and fair.

          Even for this comprehensive preparation, the

           Commission had little control over the

           tendencies and actions of the political class, as

           well as the political environment that prevailed

           before and during the elections. Although the

           Commission had taken steps to improve on the

           quality of political party administration through

           organizing relevant workshops, reining in the

           politicians on the field was a completely different

           flatter. As the polls drew nearer, it became

           progressively clearer that the unwholesome

           habits of the past would still prove problematic

           in the process. The negative mindset of the

          political class and their supporters regarding

           lections and fair competition was underscored

           by reported cases of inappropriate behaviour in

           some cases at some of the polling centres.

           Without any power of enforcement of its rules,

           the Commission relied mainly on peoples’ ability

           to do the right thing and the willingness of the

         relevant authorities to enforce the rules. Even

         where there were cases of imperfections in the

         conduct of the elections, the Commission lacked

         the legal authority to intervene with the results

         as declared by any returning officer.

         A major and unprecedented political crisis, in

         which a ruling party split, with an incumbent vice

         president contesting for the presidency under

         another party platform, threw up not only a heavy

         political dust but also serious constitutional

         questions. The legal tussle that emanated from

         this unprecedented development was not

         resolved till five days to the presidential election.

         The Commission was compelled to print a new

         set of ballot papers for the presidential election,

         which arrived in Nigeria only hours to the

         commencement of polls and had to be

         distributed to the more than 120,000 polling units

         located in 8,800 wards of the country, some of

         them located in extremely difficult terrains.

         The elections were also framed by widespread

         skepticism about the government’s commitment

         to the process - a disposition largely informed

         by the two failed attempts to amend the Nigerian

         Constitution; first, at the Political Reform

         Conference and more divisibly at the National

         Assembly debate on constitutional amendment.

         The effort by the legislators to amend the

         Constitution was heavily politicized by the

         allegation that the executive branch of

         government had planned to extend the tenure of

         office of the president and some of the

         governors. The political intrigues and maneuvers

         generated by what came to be known as ‘The

         Third Term Agenda” further contributed to the

         pollution of the political environment before the

         elections.

         If the charged political environment in which the

         elections were held was unprecedented, the

         enormous effort and resources committed by

         some interest groups to distract and discredit

         the Commission before the election were

         unimaginable. No electoral body any where in

         the world had conducted an election under the

         prevalent atmosphere leading to the 2007

         elections. The assault on the Commission was

         total. Hitherto neutral bodies such as civil society

         organizations, international election observers,

         sundry NGOs and sections of the media were

         infiltrated and then mobilized to undermine the

         credibility of the Commission and the election

         even before it was conducted. Foreigners may

         never fully understand the excessively adverse

         influence of money on the Nigerian polity. For

         the uninformed, it is important to stress that some

         of the forces that sponsored the attempts to

         destroy the Commission and individuals

         associated with it, were not only active politicians

         but extensively wealthy entities with very

         sophisticated political machineries that

         carelessly incited mayhem and then retreated

         into the anonymity of their wealth.

         The successful conduct of the 2007 Elections

         remains an abiding tribute not only to the

         personnel of the Commission, but to the

         resilience of the Nigerian society which proves

         itself very discerning at crucial junctures. With

         the 2007 election, Nigeria finally succeeded in

         breaking the jinx of not transiting from one

         democratically elected government to another.

         As the comprehensive report of the conduct of

         the 2007 General Election shows in the

         subsequent pages, there were logistics

         problems, sundry operational difficulties and

         lapses here and there in the conduct of the

         elections across the states. Most of these were

         beyond the control of the Commission.

         Nonetheless, the elections were successful by

         any sober analysis and the outcome reflected

         the intent of the Nigerian electorate.

         The official report of the 2007 General Election

         provides the authentic insight into the election

         that Nigerians and all those with interest in the

         progress and democratization of Nigeria will

         surely find useful. The results summarized in

         the report are as presented by the Resident

         Electoral Commissioners and their field staff.

         For the presidential election, field results were

         also independently transmitted directly to INEC’s

         headquarters in Abuja through the Commission’s

         secure and dedicated electronic network.

         Even for the comprehensiveness of this official

         report, it does not and cannot contain details of

         numerous difficulties or better still, nightmares -

         many of them man-made which the

         Commission had to contend with in the process

         of conducting the 2007 General Elections. This

         Report does not contain the detail of a distracting

         and strange challenge to a tug of war presented

         to the Commission by the department a the

         Finance Ministry charged with the straight

         forward task of ensuring that the Commission’s

         major electoral expenditure meets due process

         standards.

         Nor does the Report contain the nightmare

         experienced in the registration of voters’ exercise

         where three international companies in three

         different continents awarded the contract to

         supply Direct Data Capture equipment for the

         registration failed as one to deliver the needed

         items on the date the registration exercise was

         billed to commence. The situation saw the

         Commission commencing the registration

         exercise with only 1000 DDC equipment as

         against the 34,000 it ought to have taken

         possession of.

         There is also the story of how the Commission

         printed fresh 65 million ballot papers for the

         presidential election within three days following

         the ruling of the Supreme Court. This Report

         cannot contain full details of the drama

         experienced in solving that logistics nightmare.

         There was, for instance, the story of the aircraft

         that was chartered in Nigeria to convey the ballot

         papers back from the printers in South Africa.

         The aircraft dutifully traveled to South Africa and

         having landed there simply parked at the airport

         and refused to convey back its prized cargo. The

         reason for the strange conduct of the airline pilot

         may not be far from the all- engrossing politics

         of the 2007 elections.

         But there were also uplifting cases, such as the

         heroic role played by the various services of the

         Nigerian Armed Forces in distributing the ballot

         papers across the country the night preceding

         the election and in the early morning of the

         Election Day. Had the Armed Forces not helped

         to fly ballot papers across the country on that

         fateful night, it is doubtful that the presidential

         election of April 21, 2007 would have held

         successfully.

         Such other incidents as the determined efforts

         by some politicians and their groups to secure

         judicial orders at every juncture in the electoral

         process to halt the process abound, but may

         not be fully recounted in this Report. Up till the

         morning the result of the presidential election

         was announced there were still some elements

         searching for judicial means and any other

         means to halt the transition to a new government.

         the determination in some quarters to

         undermine the transition process was that high.

         Fortunately, the Commission was more

         determined and God was on the side of the

         nation.

         Conducting election does not tantamount to

         going to war. It is not supposed to be so. But the

         Commission had some of its personnel shot

         dead and some others seriously wounded in the

         course of conducting the 2007 elections. Under

         such a setting, the distinction between being in

         a war front and conducting an election becomes

         blurred. It is of utmost importance that in

         analyzing the 2007 elections, the environment

         of the elections and the prevalent mindset of the

         political class as critical factors in the character

         and outcome of elections be properly focused

         on.

         It would be remiss if I fail to acknowledge and

         commend the dedication of majority of Nigerians

         to the democratic development of their

         fatherland. I owe immense gratitude to the

         members of the Commission, staff and

         volunteers for their hard work, dedication and

         the discipline to remain focused under extremely

         tasking circumstances.

         Democratization is undoubtedly a process.

         Democracy, as some experts have argued

         remains ‘an essentially contested concept’,

         which we can never all agree to define in the

         same way because every definition is crafted

         within a specific cultural matrix with inherent

         social, moral, or political agenda. In practice,

         however, there exists some congruence

         between democracy, perceived as a set of

         societal values and democracy perceived as a

         set of institutional arrangements. One cannot

         advance the cause of democracy without the

         essential attributes of both institutional capacity

         and a healthy social order.

         Nigeria’s journey towards a smooth electoral

         process and stable democratic society of our

         aspiration may still have some distance to cover,

         but the 2007 General Elections constitute a

         push forward. For one, the jinx of transition has

         been broken for good in Nigeria’s political

         evolution. For another, invaluable lessons and

         experiences have been garnered from the extra-

         ordinary circumstances of the 2007 elections

         and these can only lead to improved conduct of

         elections in the future, all of which will be to the

         interest of the nation and the glory of God.

        [Signed]

         Prof. Maurice M. Iwu

         Hon. Chairman,

         INEC

         Abuja

         September2007.

Page 11 Following…….

         AN ABNORMAL POLITICAL SETTING

         Since the re-establishment of democratic

         governance in Nigeria in 1999, the Peoples

         Democratic Party (PDP) has held a firm con-

         trol of both the executive branch and the leg-

         islature at the centre. Gradually, however, es-

         pecially after the 2003 general elections, the

         PDP began to experience telling internal dis-

         content and quarrels which pitched its promi-

         nent leaders against themselves.

         Differences and quarrels within a political

         party under a democratic order are not en-

         tirely strange occurrences. Steadily ,however,

         the quarrels within the ruling party degener-

         ated into a crisis. It was but a matter of time

         before what ordinarily was an intra-party af-

         fair became a national burden. The Indepen-

         dent National Electoral Commission and other

         agencies involved in the preparation for the

         2007 elections soon found themselves con-

         fronted with a new set of problems which had

         their roots in the crisis within the ruling party.

         The more the Commission tried to distance

         itself from the problems within the ruling party,

         the more efforts were made by some groups

         to link the Commission with what was the

         headache of a political party.

         In 2006, an Administrative Panel of Inquiry set

         up by the Government to investigate the ap-

         propriateness or otherwise of the manage-

         ment and use of public funds by senior gov-

         ernment officials in some sensitive public

         enterprises indicted the Vice President, Alhaji

         Atiku Abubakar, for acts of impropriety. The

         Government accepted the Inquiry’s report and

         proceeded to issue a White Paper on the in-

         dictment. Thereafter the indictment was

         gazetted as public record.

         The indictment of the Vice-President had a

         definite and serious implication, especially for

         someone with political aspiration. Section

         137-(1) of the extant 1999 Constitution of

         the Federal Republic of Nigeria which outlines

         the condition which renders a person ineli-

         gible to contest for the office of President

         clearly states one of such disqualifying

         grounds to include if the person “has been

         indicted for embezzlement or fraud by a

         Judicial Commission of Inquiry or an Ad-

         ministrative Panel of Inquiry or a Tribu-

         nal set up under the Tribunals of Inquiry

         Act,a Tribunals of Inquiry Law or any

         other law by the Federal or State Govern-

         ment which indictment has been accepted

         by the Federal or State Government re-

         spectively”.

         The office of the Attorney General of the Fed-

         eration subsequently informed the Commis-

         sion of this legal development. Thus the Com-

         mission was confronted with a provision of

         the law of the land which it had no choice but

         to comply with. The Vice-President and his

         supporters would wish, however, that the

         commission turned a blind eye to his indict-

         ment and its place under the law. The inability

         of the Commission to bend led to its being

         subjected to such a massive and unrelenting

         assault as no Electoral Commission has

         borne before, whether in Nigeria or else-

         where.

         As the differences within the Presidency

         turned into a confrontation and further ex-

         ploded into full blown political war of attrition

         between the Vice-President and the rest of

         the Presidency, preparations for the 2007

         elections were confronted with a new and

         grave problem. In due course, the Vice Presi-

         dent left the ruling party and joined one of the

         new political parties where he easily picked

         up the ticket for the presidential election. He

         remained in office as Vice President though,

         further highlighting the complexity and awk-

         ward political circumstance in the nation in the

         days and weeks leading up to the general

         elections.

         The split within the ruling party and the Presi-

         dency was not all the problem that confronted

         preparations for the 2007 elections from the

         ruling party. The party and especially the

         Presidency inexplicably found themselves in

         the thick of what came to be known as the

         ‘Third Term” plot — a highly volatile controversy

         triggered off by wide suspicion and cel-

         ebrated allegations that the Presidency was

         seeking ways to amend the Constitution to

         pave way for elected officials of the Federal

         and State governments whose second and

         last term in office was to expire with the 2007

         elections to gain a new tenure.

         The strong suspicion of the “Third Term”

         agenda led to the unfortunate total rejection

         at the National Assembly of a wholesome ini-

         tiative to amend the Constitution. The failure

         of the initiative to amend the Constitution also

         killed very important draft recommendations

         on reform in the Commission and the elec-

         toral process which were part and parcel of

         the proposed amendment. Once more, the

         Commission found itself a victim of political

         intrigues and maneuvers it had no control of

         or were privy to. The controversy and finger-

         pointing over the “Third Term” issue further

         polarized the already divided sides within the

         PDP and created a huge, albeit unnecessary

         air of public doubt over preparation for the

         elections.

         The process of preparing for the conduct of

         the election suffered tremendous distraction

         and bruises from this split at the Presidency

         and the high political temperature it engen-

         dered. With this development, the Commis-

         sion was infiltrated and some of its members

         became thinly veiled moles for the political

         belligerents in the very charged political

         arena. It became extremely difficult for deci-

         sions and strategic plans of the Commission

         towards the elections to be secured. Indeed,

         every effort was made to drag the Commis-

         sion into the political fray.

         CRISES IN POLITICAL PARTIES

         The crisis within the PDP was symptomatic

         of the problems and dissonance in most of

         the political parties in the crucial period lead-

         ing to the crucial election. There was very little

         in the bearing and internal order within the

         political parties to show that they were seri-

         ously organizing to contest and win elections.

         All there seemed to be in large dose were

         ego play and selfish maneuvers by the lead-

         em of the parties who defined the interest and

         goal of their respective parties simply in terms

         of personal interests.

         With the ruling PDP already encumbered by

         its bitter internal crisis, the other big parties

         were not in any better condition. The linger-

         ing dispute that had bedeviled the All Nigeria

         Peoples Party (ANPP) over the years got

         more malignant, leading to the leadership of

         the party splitting into two. One part indeed

         proceeded to form a new political party.

         The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA)

         was bogged down by leadership disputes too,

         a situation which made it extremely difficult

         for the party to get focused, select candidates

         properly and meaningfully prepare for the

         elections.

         Many other Parties experienced similar inter-

         nal problems. The Alliance for Democracy

         (AD) for insténce, had been in turmoil since a

         the 2003 election. The two leadership factions

         that emerged in the party were determined

         not to reconcile again. The situation was not

         any better in the newly formed and registered

         parties.

         This setting did not in any way enhance the

         climate and preparations for the elections.

         While so much bad blood, tension and confu-

         sion were thrown up in the system, very little

         positive light was shone by the parties in terms

         of elevating ideas and meaningful manifes-

         toes for development. As a matter of fact, there

         were not much of real election pitches and

         enlightenment campaign by the parties. In-

         deed, not until the eleventh hour did virtually

         all the political parties pick their candidates.

         Aspirants who lost out in the flawed party pu-

         manes continued to scout the terrain looking

         for other parties that will give them ticket.

         As key stakeholders in the electoral process,

         the political parties were found seriously want-

         ing in the preparations for the elections.

         In the larger society, professional associa-

         tions, civil society organizations, non-govern-

         mental organizations, labour unions, media

         organizations and even religious groups were

         compromised and mobilized by some of the

         feuding political gladiators to weigh in on the

         political warfare. It became difficult to have

         neutral and objective views on the elections

         and national politics.

         Perhaps one of the most unfortunate aspects

         of this development was the infiltration of the

         folds of civil society organizations and the

         transformation of some of the vocal groups

         therein into political action committees, spon-

         sored and promoting partisan political agenda

         even as they still pretended to be civil society

         organizations.

         In this setting, comments and assessments

         of aspects of the elections were suspect.

         Few, if any, of the comments were objective.

         Unfortunately, various international organiza-

         tions and groups who did not realise the ex-

         tent of the corrosive nature of the political con-

         flagration in the country, and how partisan

         seemingly neutral groups had become, found

         themselves led into assuming partisan posi-

         tions on the election. The main channels

         through which much of the distortion and

         coloured perception of the electoral process

         and the system were fed to the external bod-

         ies were the compromised civil society groups

         and a section of the media. These were still

         perceived abroad as unbiased, but in reality

         they were no longer the neutral conscience of

         the society. They had become participants in

         a highly charged partisan contest.

Robot  # 1 | 31.12.2007 21:29

Some pages of INEC's Official Report of the 2007 General Elections (Updated Version) as distributed ...Read the full article.