The Independent National Electoral Commission has embarked on the formulation of its Election Project Plan in preparation for the 2027 general election.

A top official in the commission disclosed this to ELANZANEWS.

The official stated that lessons learnt from the 2023 general election were being applied to the planning for 2027.

He disclosed that the commission was already updating its election templates for the upcoming election cycle, with the goal of improving the efficiency and reliability of its processes.

The official said, “The formulation also includes the production of the 2027 – 2031 Strategic Plan to replace the current 2022 – 2026 Strategic Plan, which ends in December next year.

“An important aspect of the current effort is the preparation of another critical document that will act as a bridge between 2026 and 2027 – the general election year – which the current 2022- 2026 plan does not cover. This particular document will provide the foundation for the 2027 EPP document.

“While the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan prioritised the institutionalisation of the commission’s processes for the delivery of its mandate, focusing on capacity building, promotion of professionalism, encouraging synergy among departments and improving efficient mobilisation and utilisation of resources among others over a four-year cycle, the EPP is a comprehensive document that focuses solely on a general election.”

Findings ELANZANEWS revealed that the EPP was first produced for the 2015 general election. Since then, EPPs were produced for subsequent 2019 and 2023 general elections.

Following the challenges faced during the 2023 general election, INEC is refining its processes to ensure smoother operations in future polls.

According to reports, the commission faced a few logistical and technical hurdles during the 2023 general election while managing a voter base of 93,469,008 registered voters across 176,846 polling units.

The election saw the deployment of over 1.5 million personnel, including polling staff, supervisors, and security personnel, along with 182,491 vehicles to facilitate the voting process across Nigeria’s diverse terrains.

Reports indicated that despite the extensive preparations, one of the significant issues during the 2023 election was the difficulty in uploading presidential election results to the INEC Result Viewing portal.

While the system successfully managed uploads for the National Assembly elections, the presidential election results faced delays due to technical glitches.

The root cause of the issue was traced to a configuration problem that prevented the system from properly mapping the presidential results, which are countrywide, as opposed to state-specific elections.

The commission later addressed the issue with software updates, and the first presidential election result sheet was successfully uploaded later in the evening on the election day.

BY ANKELI EMMANUEL, Sokoto

The Sokoto state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have accuses the ruling All Progressive Party  (APC) led government of resorting to overdraft before meeting it’s obligations.

Making the allegation in a press release signed by the PDP’s Publicity Secretary, Hassan Sahabi Sanyinnawal, the party expressed gave concerns on the development saying, this is coming at a time when huge amount of money is coming into the state from the federation account every month.

“”The PDP is constrained to accord credence to the widely held claim that the State Government currently resorts to overdrafts to meet up with its obligations to civil servants and pensioners. We view this as an alarming development, considering the unprecedented funds that accrues to the State from Federal Allocations monthly, without any visible competing expenditure on real development projects”.

While decrying that their sympathy also goes out to all employees in the state who are yet get their February salary, PDP said, as things stands,  some civil servants might not get paid even after fasting.

This, according to the party,  could be linked to the ongoing politically initiated workers verification exercise which has made life very biting for some workers perceived to be apologetic to the PDP.

The release from Hassan Sahabi Sanynnnawal read in part, “‘It is with deep sympathy for state government employees and concern over the condition of the Sokoto State civil service that the People’s Democratic Party in the State wishes to express indignation over the repeated failure of the Sokoto State Government to promptly pay monthly salaries to its employees.

“‘This sad development which reared its ugly head, since the APC administration of Ahmed Aliyu made a belated attempt to pay the national minimum wage, has now become the norm. We note that salaries are now  delayed up til the middle of the new month, along with a backlog of unpaid workers from the previous month.

”The PDP is constrained to accord credence to the widely held claim that the State Government currently resorts to overdrafts to meet up with its obligations to civil servants and pensioners. We view this as an alarming development, considering the unprecedented funds that accrues to the State from Federal Allocations monthly, without any visible competing expenditure on real development projects””.

Continuing, Hassan said, ”Most regrettable is Ahmed Aliyu’s failure to pay February salaries way into the month of March and the beginning of the sacred month of Ramadan, which is the first time in the history of Sokoto State. It is additionally regrettable that many civil servants are still unpaid, as the middle of the fasting approaches”‘.

He therefore submitted that, the development negates the governor Ahmed Aliyu’s pledge of prompt settlement of salaries to show a gross deviation from his lofty campaign promises to the people of the state.