By Princess-Ekwi Ajide, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says it is working with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure the prosecution of persons arrested in the recent Ekiti Governorship election.
The Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this at a special meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, ICCES, in Abuja, appreciated the role of the anti-corruption and security agencies in apprehending some of the perpetrators of what he called brazen assault on our democracy.
According to him, said vote buying remains a major area of concern and action against perpetrators will commence as soon as the EFCC completes its investigation.
Professor Yakubu, appealed to all security agencies to continue to partner with the Commission to tackle the menace.
He reassured all Nigerians who applied for Certified True Copies (CTCs) of documents arising from the recent party congresses, primaries and nomination of candidates that all their requests are being attended to expeditiously despite the huge quantities of documents involved.
The INEC boss, noted that Nigeria elections, especially the conduct of primaries for the nomination of candidates by political parties, remain one of the most litigated in the world.
He stressed that as at the evening of Friday 1st July 2022, two hundred and sixteen requests involving the certification of over One Million Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand (1,650,000) pages of documents have so far been processed.
Professor Yakubu, said, there are now far more cases challenging the breach of internal democracy within political parties than those involving the conduct of the main elections by INEC promising that the Commission will continue to work round the clock, including the weekends, to ensure that they attend to all applications received at the headquarters of the Commission promptly.
Representing, National Security Adviser, NSA, Sanusi Galadima, commended INEC, members of ICCES and other strategic stakeholders in the electoral process for their immense contribution towards improving the electoral process in Nigeria.
According to him, the Commission is currently undergoing tremendous transformation through re-calibration of the electoral process in the areas of voter’s registration/voter education, screening of voters at the polling units (using BVAS) as well as election result collection and transmission.
He noted that records from the conduct of the last Ekiti State Governorship election indicated an impressive performance by the INEC as well the ICCES member agencies as there were no any major incident of security concern recorded during and after the election but cautioned that more still needs to be done in terms of enlightenment campaign to encourage voters to come out and cast their votes on the day of the election owing to the low turnout recorded during the election compared to the total number of registered voters in the State.
The NSA enjoined INEC, to redouble efforts ahead of the Osun State Guber election and the forthcoming general elections in 2023 and also urged ICCES members to build on the successes recorded from the Ekiti election as some politicians may attempt to sabotage the process for their selfish gains, through vote buying and other forms of voter inducement as well as political thuggery.
He also commended the INEC for the extension of the Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, exercise which hitherto had officially stopped on the 30th June, 2022. A development which he said would enable eligible voters obtain their voters card.
