The news of the torching of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State is disturbing not just because election materials were destroyed in the burnfire but because it sign-posts a bigger treat to the electoral body’s commitment to hold a hitch-free election next year when electoral materials are seemingly at risk as a result of an inadequacy of security, deliberate or contrived.
The fire incident which was reportedly perpetrated by those the authorities described as arsonists, consumed electoral materials that include ballot boxes, voting cubicles, office furniture and equipment. Even of greater worry to INEC is the safety of voter registration machines to be used in the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise as well as uncollected Permanent Voters Cards which it claimed were locked up in a fireproof cabinet. Already, the Police are reported to have commenced investigation into the matter and we hope that it will not be like the proverbial shutting the stable when the horse is off.
While this is on, this newspaper is worried that such sensitive materials were stored in a place that can be said to be vulnerable considering the ease with which the security men on duty were alleged to have been ‘over-powered’ by the arsonists.
At the risk of sounding presumptuous, we are alarmed that INEC considered a local government headquarters, or any other facility within the vicinity, a safe enough place to store electoral materials of that sensitive nature. This becomes even more worrisome having regard to the security situation generally in the country not to mention the desperation on the part of politicians who may want to behave funny to achieve their set goals of manipulating the process at this early stage.
Furthermore, these security men who were so easily over-powered, were they from the regular security agencies of government or some privately arranged security operatives. It is important to interrogate this so as to put the blame where it belongs. Were the security men armed? If the answer to this is in the affirmative, the claim of over-powering by the criminals, read hired street urchins, leaves a lot to ponder over. But if the answer is to the contrary, then we are inclined to question the judgment of whoever authorised the storing of such sensitive materials in a place that is easily assessable to these miscreants who may have been instigated by those with vested interest, and they are many. with their levels of desperation above normal.
It is from this perspective that we are surprised that INEC facilities can be so accessed by those intent on causing mischief. It is pertinent to emphasise that INEC, in all cases, has the responsibility of securing its materials for election. This point cannot be stressed enough. We know that the commission used to ware-house its materials in places like the banks, especially the Central Bank of Nigeria and some commercial banks. It doesn’t matter if those materials are papers or hard stuff like ballot boxes. What is important is that they are kept safe until ready to be used.
It was recently reported in the media that the commission may desist from storing its materials in those places especially since some of their heads decided to participate in partisan politics. In the light of this development, the commission made public its intention to look elsewhere for places to safeguard their materials. If that is the case, local government is a poor arrangement in the light of this development.
We make bold to argue that if Local Government headquarters is the alternative, then INEC should be persuaded to bear in mind that such a plan is giving signs of failure with what happened in Igbo-Eze North. That is if what happened in that decidedly rural area was not an act of sabotage aimed at stymieing the renewed vigour on the part of the people of the area to take more active interest in the democratic process by participating in the continuous registration exercise.
We are, however, persuaded to point out that with this happening even when no election is yet in sight, the commission ought to be thankful that the arson is providing it the ample opportunity to re-jig its security arrangements to forestall this kind of embarrassing scenario. This will entail a more elaborate arrangement that will have all the state security apparatus making an in put that can guarantee the level of security that is required at this time as INEC carries on with the critical processes that will eventually culminate in the election proper.
