The Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC has called for improved performance and synergy among security agencies involved in election security, ahead of the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election holding this weekend, 18th March 2023.
The Commission expressed appreciation to the security agencies and other members of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) for the professionalism of personnel and the generally peaceful conduct of the elections, the Presidential and National Assembly held on the 25th of February 2023, but called for more coordinated deployment plan in among ICCES members.
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu made the call at an ICCES meeting convened at the INEC Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday to review preparations for the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections holding this Saturday.
Confirming the Commission’s readiness for the election. Prof. Yakubu said “the Governorship election will hold in 28 States of the Federation. As you are aware, Governorship elections in eight States (Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun States) are held off-cycle and therefore not conducted during the General Election.”
“However, elections will be conducted for all the 993 State constituencies nationwide. Our state offices have made available to the Nigeria Police Force, being the lead agency in election security, the delimitation details for both the Governorship and State Assembly elections, including locations of Polling Units and Collation Centres. On that basis, we expect a coordinated deployment plan in synergy with other security, intelligence, law enforcement and safety agencies,” Chairman said.
Speaking further on preparations for the Saturday election, the INEC Chairman explained that “only yesterday, the Commission held a virtual meeting with all the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in which we reviewed preparations for the State elections. In addition to election technology, logistics and a host of other issues, security was also discussed. We will present some of the issues at this meeting for further discussion and, most importantly, appropriate action.”
Commenting on the huge task before the Commission and the security agencies come Saturday, Prof. Yakubu said “the Governorship and State Assembly elections this weekend involves more constituencies than the national elections held about three weeks ago. Unlike the last elections involving 470 constituencies (1 Presidential, 109 Senatorial Districts and 360 House of Representatives seats), the State elections will involve 1,021 constituencies (28 Governorship and 993 State Assembly seats).”
The INEC Chairman used the opportunity to urge the political actors to guard their utterances and ensure their supporters conduct themselves appropriately. In his words; “there will also be more candidates involved and more collation centres to protect. They are also local elections involving keen contests. It is therefore important for parties and candidates to speak to their agents and supporters to see the elections as a contest and not war. They should refrain from acts of violence that may mar the elections or compromise the security of our personnel, observers, the media and service providers.”
He further lauded the directive of the Inspector- General of Police (IGP) to state commands to handle all cases of electoral offences expeditiously. “We look forward to receiving the case files. We will immediately set up a legal team to handle such cases in earnest”, he said.
On his part, the National Security Adviser and Co-Chairman of ICCES, Major- General Babagana Monguno (Rtd), commended the security agencies for their role in the conduct of the February 25th Presidential and NASS elections.
He however, urged them to double their efforts to up the game of securing the electoral space for the conduct of free, fair and credible election on Saturday.
Stressing why more efforts must be invested in this Saturday’s election, the NSA explained that unlike the Presidential and NASS election, this election will be conducted in more constituencies; 28 Governorship and 993 Houses of Assembly seats.
According to Gen. Monguno, “though we do not envisage any threat or issues concerning the Saturday election that is going to be terrible or violent, we must not fold our hands and do nothing at all in case of unforeseen circumstances.”
He continued “we must make sure every Nigerian exercises his or her franchise without hinderance of any kind and we must not allow anyone to undermine the electoral process”.
