Africa
By Christabel Ejenike
PROF. Mahmood Yakubu, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says that the collaboration between INEC, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, is to deal with both vote buyers and the takers according to the law.
“Clearly, vote buying is a threat to our electoral democracy. To discourage the practice, we changed the configuration of our polling units to bring the ballot boxes closer to the voting cubicles and also banned the use of mobile phones and photographic devices by voters while in the voting cubicles,” he said.
He also urged the stakeholders to join the commission in tackling the menace.
Yakubu reassured political parties, candidates and the electorate that the choice of who becomes the next governor of Ekiti State is entirely in the hands of voters and that INEC had taken other measures to ensure that there would be free, fair, inclusive, and successful conduct of the governorship election this weekend.
According to him, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, will be deployed for voter accreditation and uploading of election results to the INEC Result Viewing, IReV, portal on Election Day.
“To underscore our commitment to an inclusive electoral process the commission will be deploying assistive devices for persons with disabilities, PWDs, to have a more pleasant voting experience on Election Day. Magnifying glasses, Braille Ballot Guide and Posters for voters with hearing conditions will be deployed at polling unit level in areas of need based on data collected in collaboration with the PwD community.
“Voter education and sensitisation is ongoing. We have made arrangements for the transportation of personnel and materials to all polling units on Election Day. For a more effective supervision of the process, we have deployed four National Commissioners, eight Resident Electoral Commissioners and many senior officials to support our state office here in Ekiti State to deliver credible elections.
“Voter registration was carried out all over the state, including the devolution of the exercise to the 177 Wards across the State, PVCs have also been printed and distributed to all valid registrants in Ekiti and collection of cards is still ongoing. I am happy to note that many citizens have already collected their cards, of the 988,923 registered voters in Ekiti State, 749,065 (or 76%) have collected their cards as at Monday, June 13, 2022,” he said.
He announced that the collection of PVCs would continue in all the 16 Local Government Area offices until Thursday, June 16, 2022 to allow for one day (i.e. Friday, June 17, 2022) for movement to the Registration Area Centres.
FIRST PUBLISHED- June 15, 2022 @ 17:10 GMT | C.E
Tags: EFCC ICPC INEC Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
