Former chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, has called on the commission, to improve the electoral processes before the 2023 general elections.
Speaking at Tell Magazine’s 20 years of democracy conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Jega noted that if care was not taken, the prediction of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on the disintegration of Nigeria will come to pass.
The former INEC chairman also admitted that the country has witnessed some “reversals” in the progress it made during the 2015 elections.
“The CIA thought that 2015 was the do or die period for Nigeria, that there would not be a Nigeria in the way you know after the 2015 general election – that has come to pass, but I think if we do not take care, a lot of these predictions will come to pass that is why we need to do quite a lot, much more than we have ever done in order to protect the integrity of the electoral process before 2023,” he said.
Jega also added that there is “remarkable” trust deficit, by the electorate in Nigeria’s electoral process.
“Perhaps, the clearest evidence of this loss of trust and confidence in the electoral process is the declining voter turnout in elections since 1999. The reported data of voter turnout as a percentage of registered voters for elections are 52.3 per cent (1999), 69.1 per cent (2003), 57.3 per cent (2007), 55.4 per cent in 2011, 44 per cent in 2015 and 37 per cent in 2019,” he added.
“For example, people have argued that in 2015 the generalised insecurity was a result of the activities of Boko Haram have been responsible for the low voter turnout regardless of the improvement in the electoral process.
“The postponement of elections both in 2015 and 2019 may be some explanations as to why there was low voter turnout,” Jega added.