SIR Patrick Otu, two-time Chairman Cross-Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), in this interview with Vanguard  speaks on the challenges the commission had in the last local council election, controversies arising from the merger of the APC and its non-participation in the election and how to strengthen SIECs among others.

CHALLENGES CROSIEC faced during the recent local council election
The challenges of the election had to do with the terrain of the place, the issue of ad-hoc staff, the issue of registration of the All Progressives Congress, APC and its participation in the election.
Controversies over APC’s non-inclusion

The merger of parties had never happened in Nigeria. And what we have today is a novelty. It’s for Nigerians to learn.

When we started the process of election (local governments) on the 18th of March 2013, ACN, ANPP, CPC were all there. They followed us gradually to the point. In fact, we relied on them.

And the contest was on the way when APC got registered. And even though we were carrying on with the process, our intention was that whether APC comes, they will still allow CPC, ACN, ANPP to continue to the end before they now got into the alliance. But the moment APC was registered; INEC withdrew the certificates of those parties. Which meant everything that happened with those parties got terminated midway. And APC was not there when we started on the 18th of March. And the registration of APC came up one month and 21 days to our election. I had printed materials, we had finished everything. In fact, the journey was up for the election because it’s not one and half months to election that you print materials.

That is why you will see ACN, ANPP, and CPC on our ballot papers. And for Cross-Rivers State, we don’t always print our ballot papers in respect of the parties that are doing business in the state. We put all the parties because we don’t want anybody to accuse us of exclusion. So we did that, but by the registration of APC, even INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega came up and referred Nigerians to the Electoral Act, that APC can only participate in elections after 90 days of registration. We don’t make the laws. CROSIEC was founded by the law and there is nothing in our laws that cover mergers. We don’t have powers to postpone elections. It’s not only CROSIEC; none of the States Independent Electoral Commissions has powers to postpone the total election programme. When we can postpone is when election is under-way and there’s violence in a particular local government, or if there’s any imminent violence in a ward or a local government we say let us not do it. Even when we did this election, we suspected one ward and we shifted it by one week; that is the law not that because a party has been registered, then the whole process has to wait. It’s not in our law and we can’t do anything that is outside our law.

Did you hold a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss these issues with all the political parties?

Yes, I held meeting with all the political parties.

And what did they say?

They argued and even the national body of APC wrote to us pleading, asking that we should find a way to accommodate APC.

And what did PDP say?
PDP sat there and never argued the matter. They said well, let the commission sit and think of what to do. They said so because they know that there’s no legal ground for that. The process of registering APC started on March 18, they were registered on July 31, and the election was held on September 21.

What is the APC accusing you of?
They alleged that I told people that PDP and the state government were mounting pressure on me not to allow APC to participate. And I said how? For example, in our law, it’s only a question of security that will make us postpone elections. And it’s not us that will raise the issue. In 2005, Governor Donald Duke raised the issue and we called stakeholders throughout the state, addressed them that we are postponing elections because of insecurity, everybody was aware and the election got postponed. But there’s nothing like that this time around. What they want us to do, the commission can’t take the political decision.

How long have you been the head of CROSIEC?

I have been there since 2005 and I’m doing my second term. So, by 2015 my tenure will elapse. So you realize that

The 1999 AD and APP experience

Then, those parties were still there as registered parties in spite of the alliance. But now, the certificates of the merged parties have been withdrawn.

What’s the way forward?
You see, like I said, it’s lawmakers and the court that will determine the issue. And I keep telling them that the commission is a legal entity and whatever the court says, the commission will abide. All the things we are talking are based on the legislation we have on ground. The question of the government of the state having influence on us is not true.

Cross River State has never had care-taker committee since 1999. If not the only state, it’s one of the few states which have had democracy at the grassroots level since 1999. It’s ACN and ANPP that used to measure up with PDP but because this scenario has led them out of the election that is why the election became a one-party affair.