By JOHN ONAH, Osogbo –
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has promised to conduct a free, fair, credible, inclusive and conclusive Gubernatorial election in Osun come 16 July, 2022.
The INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this on Tuesday in Osogbo at the stakeholders meeting, assured political parties, candidates and the electorate that the choice of who becomes the next Governor of Osun State was entirely in the hands of voters.
“As I have repeatedly said in previous engagements with stakeholders, INEC will not take any action to the advantage or disadvantage of any political party or candidate. Our focus is on the processes and procedures as provided by law”.
According to him, the commission has taken every step and made every arrangement for the successful conduct of the Governorship election this weekend.
“We held consultative meetings with political parties and their candidates. We had several engagements with the security agencies at national, State and Local Government levels. We consulted with stakeholders. We sought for, and received, the blessings of Royal Fathers and religious leaders. We have recruited, trained and carefully screened all categories of ad-hoc staff to be deployed to the field”, he said.
Yakuku appealed to all registered voters that are yet to collect their PVCs to seize the opportunity of the additional measures to do so, adding that many of the PVCs have already been collected by citizens.
“Of the 1,955,657 registered voters in Osun State, 1,479,595 (or 76%) have collected their cards as at Sunday 10th July 2022. We are also updating our records to provide detailed breakdown of PVCs collected by polling units. This will be concluded and made available on Friday 15th July 2022. This is important because the total number of PVCs collected will be used to determine the margin of lead principle, as against the total number of registered voters in line with our Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections 2022 derived from the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022”.
In his welcome address, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Abdulganiy Raji said that the main objective of the meeting was to intimate the general public of the state of readiness of INEC towards the 2022 Gubernatorial elect in Osun State.
According to o him, to ensure that Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conduct a free, fair, credible, inclusive and conclusive Election come July 16, the 2018 Gubernatorial and 2019 General Elections were reviewed, and also future elections which include 2022 Governorship Election and 2023 General Elections were previewed.
“Consequently, flash points have been identified and strategies mapped out to resolve issues that can truncate Election Process, conversion of Voting Points to Polling Units were done to ensure expansion of Voter Access to Polling Units, this increased the Polling Units in Osun from 3010 to 3763”.
“To ensure adequate security and peaceful elections, Polling Units were moved away from often contested places such as the front of houses of Politicians, Palaces, Religious centres to Public buildings or open spaces”.
“As I speak to you, all non-sensitive materials have been received, distributed to the LGAs, sorted and batched to Plling Unit Level and ready to be conveyed to the Registration Area Camps (RACs)”, he said.
“Any moment from now we expect the delivery of the Sensitive materials. We have produced Maps of all Polling Units in the State both electronically and hardcopy for ease of movement and location to Polling Units by the Poll Officials, Staff of INEC and Election Monitors, Observers and the Security Agents. Poll Officials have been adequately trained and ready for deployment, Security Personnel and other election stakeholders in the State have equally been trained”, he added..
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