INEC AND THE CONDUCT OF 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

The process of election administration in many developing democracies continues to generate a lot of controversies; particularly with regards to the level of independence of Election Management Bodies (EMBs), their professionalism and the acceptability of the elections they conduct. In Nigeria, the election administration process since the country gained political independence from the British has always resulted in controversy and crisis; arising mostly in part from the perceived collaboration of EMBs with the successive military and civilian regimes of the country’s post-independence era. The implication is that the history of election administration in Nigeria has been a history of controversy engendered by electoral malpractices. A total of six different EMBs were established at various times to conduct the elections that have taken place in Nigeria’s post-independence history. Over the years, the autonomy and capacity of EMBs in Nigeria have been suspect as reflected in its endless renaming and restructuring by successive Governments. The General Abubakar Abdulsalami regime established the current Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which has conducted an unprecedented number of five quadrennial general elections in Nigeria from 1999 to 2015. While INEC is the longest serving EMB in Nigeria’s political history, the elections it has conducted has generated varying degrees of controversy and violent conflicts; particularly at the Presidential level. The 2015 Presidential election conducted by INEC was historic for two major reasons. First, the introduction of an electronic accreditation process in spite of challenges encountered, seemed to have remarkably increased the credibility of the country’s election administration process. Secondly, it was the first time in the history of the country that an incumbent President will lose elections and conceded defeat to the opposition (Egobueze and Ojirika, 2017). Yet, the 2015 general election administration process as in the previous four general elections held from 1999 to 2011 was not without controversy. Indeed, the election was generally, described as the most keenly contested election in the history of Nigeria. The INEC itself came under severe criticisms for the decision to introduce an electronic accreditation process which critics described as too premature, given the country’s poor state of infrastructure particularly with regards to power supply.