By Ayodele Oni
The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has ratified 2,053,061 registered voters to participate in next week Saturday Governorship Election in Ondo state.
Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, disclosed at a stakeholders’ parley in Akure on Thursday that the electoral umpire has done everything within the law to ensure conduct of a free and fair election.
He also revealed that the Commission has accredited 111 domestic and international organisations, that are expected to deploy 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.
“We have also accredited thousands of agents representing candidates and political parties for all the polling and collation locations across the State.
“I want to assure you that the accreditation cards for all categories of stakeholders are ready. Our State office here in Akure will soon commence the distribution of accreditation tags, including election duty vehicle stickers.
“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. We will hear more from the representative of the Inspector-General of Police shortly.
“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.
“Only yesterday, we conducted mock accreditation in 12 polling units across six Local Government Areas in the three Senatorial Districts of the State. The purpose was to test-run our deployment of technology to safeguard the credibility of the election.
“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.”
While observing that conduct of agents of political parties has always been causing crisis during elections, Prof Yakubu appealed to parties to organize and caution their agents to keep to the rules of the exercise.
“As you are aware, election is a multi-stakeholder activity. INEC has a role to play and we have done so always in consultation with stakeholders. 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.”
