FCT Area Council elections: INEC identifies flash points, to invite commissioner of police

By JOHN ONAH, Abuja –

The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said the commission has identified some flash points ahead of FCT council elections.

To this end, the commission has concluded arrangements to invite the FCT Commissioner of Police for dialogue on how to checkmate such points to ensure hitch free elections.

Prof. Yakubu, who disclosed this on Friday in Abuja at a first quarterly consultative meeting with the media, added that there were no election miracle centres in Abuja and such the commission will not conduct elections in a polling unit with zero electorate.

While appreciating the existing strong partnership between the Commission and the NUJ, he also look forward to strengthening such partnership, especially as they continue to conduct more off-cycle and bye-elections this year and implement critical activities towards the 2023 general election which is just 393 days away.

” Some of the critical preparations for the 2023 General Election must be concluded this year. For instance, the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which commenced in June last year has entered the third quarter. As at Monday 17th January 2022, a total of 8,260,076 eligible Nigerians commenced the online pre-registration; completed the registration physically; applied for transfer to new voting locations; requested for replacement of their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs); and updated their voter information records”.

” The Commission has been publishing weekly progress reports of the exercise, including analysis of the distribution of online and completed registration by age group, occupation, gender and disability. Since the exercise commenced in June last year, the Commission has so far published 36 weekly reports which show a consistent pattern of young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34 constituting the largest majority of registrants”.

“In terms of occupation, students constitute the largest majority of registrants which is consistent with the dominance of young Nigerians as voters. There is a lot of information for public enlightenment and sensitization. We seek for the support of media organisations in this regard”, he said.

” Related to the issue of voter registration is the issuance of PVCs. We are aware that Nigerians want to know when their PVCs will be available for collection. We appreciate the role of media organisations in encouraging and mobilizing eligible Nigerians who have not registered to do so. At the same time, we want you to continue to sensitise them that those who had registered at any time previously need not register again. For those who have completed the registration, the Commission is right now undertaking the most comprehensive cleaning up of the data to ensure that only eligible citizens are added to the voters’ register for the 2023 General Election. We will share our findings with Nigerians very soon. The actual dates for the collection of the PVCs nationwide will also be announced very soon”.

According to him, “the next 23 days i.e. 12th February 2022, a major end of tenure election will hold in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to elect 6 Area Council Chairmen/Chairwomen and 62 Councillors. This will be followed by two Governorship elections in Ekiti State on 18th June 2022 and Osun State on 16th July 2022. Party primaries for the Ekiti State Governorship election are scheduled for 4th – 29th January 2022”.

” For the Osun State Governorship election, primaries will hold from 16th February to 12th March 2022. In the case of Ekiti State, all the 18 political parties have indicated their intention to participate in the election and have already served the mandatory notices for their primaries to elect their candidates as required by law. The Commission’s preparation for the three off-cycles elections is one of the issues for discussion at this meeting”.

“On this note, I want to draw your attention to the distribution of voters to Polling Units in the FCT, particularly the fact that 593 out of 2,822 (or 21%) of the total, do not have voters,,”

The INEC boss noted that it was because voters failed to take advantage of the expansion of access to transfer to these new Polling Units.

“The list of Polling Units having 0 – 50 registered voters in the FCT is among the documents in your folders for this meeting.

Prof. Yakubu , however, said the commission looks forward to supporting the media organisations to encourage voters who wish to transfer from their present Polling Units to new ones created as part of the Commission’s expansion of accessing polling units across the country.

“After all, your support was crucial to the success of the recent expansion of voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years since the initial delimitation in 1996”.

“For emphasis, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will be deployed in the FCT elections which is the second major election after the Anambra Governorship election held in November last year. The 68 constituencies cover extensive urban and rural locations sharing border with five States in the North Central and North Western parts of the country. This is yet another opportunity to pilot the efficacy of the BVAS in a different geographical, geo-political and electoral context. The same technology will be deployed in all forthcoming elections across the country. Similarly, for all elections going forward, Polling Unit results will be uploaded in real-time on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal”. He said.

In his response, the NUJ President who was represented by the National Treasurer, ,Atinu ,Bamidele noted that the commission has brought integrity into the conduct of elections in Nigeria.