Subjecting INEC to TSA will cause disaster, says Jega By Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze and Segun Olaniyi, Abuja

Jega

Former Chairman of Independent National

Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega,

has cautioned that implementation of the Treasury

Single Account (TSA) policy of the Federal

Government will be a recipe for disaster.

Jega spoke at the 2015 e-Nigeria International

Conference and Exhibition organised by the

National Information Technology Development

Agency (NITDA) in Abuja. The theme was ‘Towards

an Effective Electoral Process in Nigeria: The Role

of ICT Local Content and Information Security.”

According to him, the effectiveness of electoral

processes is dependent on availability of financial

resources to deliver efficient services consistent

with international minimum benchmarks and

global best practices.

“Electoral processes cannot be effective if an

Electoral Management Boundary Delineation (EMB)

is starved of funds and/or has to go cap in hand to

an incumbent executive begging for funds before it

can conduct an election. The financial autonomy of

INEC needs to be strengthened.

“It should continue to be on first line charge and

have all its funds released through the statutory

transfer fund as appropriated by the National

Assembly. Subjecting an electoral commission to the

so-called single treasury account, I believe, is a

recipe for disaster,” Jega said.

While stressing the importance of ICT to a

country’s socio-economic development, Vice-

President Yemi Osinbajo, in his remarks, said

President Muhammadu Buhari would rely on it to

address good governance, adding that no nation

can develop its potentials without recourse to

taping its IT resources.

Osinbajo, who was represented by the Deputy Chief

of Staff, Mr. Ade Ipaye, said arrangement was

being made to empower the youth segment of the

population through deployment of ICT

infrastructure across the country.

The former INEC boss acknowledged that Nigeria

had for long been in constant search for effective

electoral processes, adding that the long history of

badly or poorly conducted elections had, until

recently, created profound skepticism among

ordinary Nigerians about the utility of electoral

democracy.

The relative success of 2011 and, especially, 2015

general elections, seems to have revived hope

among Nigerians that with determined effort, their

votes could indeed count.

“However, more efforts are required from all

concerned to ensure that this hope is kept alive and

that the renewed positive expectations and

democratic aspiration of Nigerians are not ever

again dashed,” he said.

In his welcome address, the Minister of

Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, said the

annual conference has become a platform for

creation of ICT awareness and development of

appropriate framework for government to deliver

on good governance.

He charged the agency to develop a concise

framework for effective ICT deployment in

Nigeria’s quest for sustainable national

development.

The Director General of NITDA, Mr. Peter Jack, said

Nigeria would get its Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

boosted by 2020. He noted that with the ongoing

deployment of ICT across ministries, departments

and agencies (MDAs), Nigerians would be better off

because of the transparency that comes with the

deployment.