Sam Philip
Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) on Thursday organised a stakeholders’s meeting to interface on how to ensure a peaceful election in Ondo State.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, coordinated the meeting attended by all the 17 governorship candidates participating the election, traditional rulers, security agencies and civil society organizations.
The INEC boss said: “The 2024 Ondo State Governorship election is not just a national election, it is also of global interest. The Commission has accredited 111 domestic and international organisations deploying 3,554 observers for the election.
“We have also accredited over 100 radio, television, newspaper and online media organisations deploying about 700 personnel, including 129 female journalists, the largest number for any off-cycle Governorship elections in Nigeria.
“In our various engagements with the security and law enforcement agencies, we underscored the importance of providing security during the election to guarantee personal safety and protection of observers, the media, our own officials (both regular and ad hoc staff), service providers such as transporters and, above all, the citizens that will vote during the election.
“I am glad that the relevant agencies have given us the necessary assurances of security during the election, including unimpeded access to voting and collation locations for observers and the media.
“Let me reassure stakeholders that INEC is ready for the election. We are deploying the BVAS machines for voter accreditation at polling units and for the upload of results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
“I am glad to report that the mock was successful and the result can be viewed on the IReV portal.
“But let me also quickly add that the machines used for the mock accreditation and the training of officials will not be used on Election Day.
“We have sufficient machines for the election which have been configured for voter accreditation and the upload of result distinct from those used for mock accreditation and training.
“We engaged several times with stakeholders at the national level and here in Ondo State. We have made every information about the election available to Nigerians. We have published the list of candidates, the number registered voters and the number of PVCs collected by polling units. We have made available the locations of voting and collation centres across the State. We have accredited observers and media organisations for the election. We have also accredited polling and collation agents and made the details public. On Tuesday this week, we visited many of our Local Government offices to assess their readiness for the election. We have test-run our election technology in preparation for the Election Day.
“We are deploying enough technical support staff to address any challenges that may occur. We have made arrangements for land and maritime transportation of personnel and materials.
“We have arranged for the delivery of sensitive materials for the election to arrive as early as Tuesday next week. We will invite political parties and other stakeholders for the usual inspection of the materials at the Central Bank here in Akure and throughout the movement of sensitive materials to the Local Governments and the Ward centres.
“We have warned our staff that there will be consequences for dereliction of duty in any way or form. Tomorrow afternoon, I am going to address the staff, including the Electoral Officers from the 18 Local Government Areas.
“However, our role has to be complemented by all stakeholders. I urge Political parties to continue to restrain your supporters from any disruptive behaviour. We have produced accreditation tags for all your agents bearing their names, photographs and location of deployment. We have also added a QR code to the tags that can be read even from mobile phone applications.
“The practice of issuing party tags without name, photograph or location of posting to party agents must stop. That is how in some polling and collation locations, we have impersonators where two or more people claim to be agents of one Political Party, sometimes resulting in unnecessary disagreement among themselves or with agents of other parties leading to disruption of processes.
“I urge Political Parties to follow the example of other accredited observers and the media by using the tags issued by the Commission and displaying the same at all voting and collation locations.”
In his address the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, who was represented by the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG Zone 17), Abiodun Asabi promised that the formation would play it’s role adequately to ensure the election is peaceful.
He said: “The Nigeria Police and other supporting security agencies responsible to provide security in the forthcoming election have a responsibility to solidly synergise and work as a formidable team to identify and nip in the bud, all security threats, provide tight security at the polling
stations as well as all the public spaces within the state.
“Security of the voters the electoral officials, the electoral materials and the general public will have to be effectively provided before, during and after the election.
“This can be efficiently achieved by concerted covert and overt operations by the synergized security agencies assigned for the election.
“In order to deliver adequate election security, the Nigeria Police, apart from additional manpower from sister agencies, is going to deploy a total of 22,239 officers for the exercise.”
Speaking one after the other, all the 17 candidates promised to play the game according to the rules and avoid any activity that could led to break down of law and order before, during and after the election.
The Chairman, Council of Obas, the Deji of Akure land, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, who spoke on behalf of traditional rulers, disclosed that the royal fathers had held a meeting and resolved among themselves to appeal to their subjects, particularly the youths to eschew crisis in their individual domains.
He, therefore, enjoined INEC, security agencies and politicians to sustain the existing peace in the state before, during and after the poll.
They political parties are expected to sign peace accord on Friday with a view to ensuring a peaceful, free, fair and credible election in the state.
