The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said it has commenced the implementation of some of the recommendations made by stakeholders from the 2023 general elections.

 

INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu stated this during the maiden visit of the new European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, to the commission on Tuesday in Abuja.

 

He said that INEC had already commenced work on the review of its planning tools, such as the Strategic Plan and the Election Project Plan, for future elections.

 

Yakubu said that since the 2023 general elections, the commission had received reports from many of the 206 national and foreign groups and international organisations accredited to observe the elections.

 

He noted that the stakeholders, including the European Union Election Observation Mission, EU-EOM, had made a total of 23 recommendations, eight of which required action by the commission.

 

Yakubu stated that 15 of the recommendations also required action from the executive, the judiciary, the legislature, as well as other stakeholders, such as civil society organisations, the media, faith-based organisations, and political parties.

 

“The eight specific recommendations for INEC relate to the dissemination of the commission’s regulations and guidelines for elections, training of election duty staff, and deployment of electoral technology.

 

“Other areas include the result management process, continuous registration of voters, cleaning up of the voters’ register, participation of marginalised groups in the electoral process, and voting by internally displaced persons, IDPs.

 

“On our part, the commission undertook an extensive internal and external review of the 2023 general elections, involving the participation of our own officials and stakeholders across the board.

 

“We produced a 524-page main report and a 74-page review report containing 142 recommendations. The two reports have already been uploaded to our website,” he said.

 

The INEC chairman added that the commission had also commenced the implementation of aspects of the recommendations that required only administrative action.

 

“For instance, in some of the off-cycle, re-run, and bye-elections conducted since the general elections, there has been an improvement in the quality of training for ad hoc staff, including the deployment of more BVAS machines for this purpose,” he said.

 

Yakubu also highlighted the tremendous improvement in the functionality of BVAS machines for voter accreditation, using fingerprint or facial authentication.