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On behalf of the Commission, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our third regular quarterly consultative meeting for this year. You may recall that our first meeting for the year was held on Wednesday 20th March 2024 while the second took place two months ago on Tuesday 14th May 2024. You may also recall that the last meeting focused mainly on the forthcoming Edo State and Ondo State Governorship elections. Today, we will furthermore brief you on the bye-elections that occurred since our last meeting.
It is now 52 days to the Edo State Governorship election coming up on Saturday 21st September 2024. Our preparations are going on in earnest. I am glad to report that we have recovered from the torrential rainfall that resulted in the severe flooding of our State Headquarters in Benin City two months ago. The damage to the physical infrastructure as well as movable and immovable facilities are being fixed or replaced. We have delivered additional Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines to Edo State for the training of election duty personnel as well as contingency for Election Day support. We have once again published the final list of candidates in compliance with the recent Court Order mandating the Commission to replace the running mate to the candidate of the Labour Party. The amended list is already published on our website.
Following the conclusion of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), the display of the register for claims and objections by citizens, and further data clean-up using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), the final register for the forthcoming Governorship elections is being finalised.
Before the end of this week, the Commission will publish the final figures of new voters in the two States as well as their distribution by gender, age, occupation and disability. Thereafter, the timetable for the collection of uncollected Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) from previous registration, and new registrants from the latest CVR, will be published. Based on the information provided by the Commission, we look forward to your partnership in encouraging citizens to collect their PVCs.
As the Edo State Governorship approaches, I wish to remind CSOs to submit the list of your observers by uploading the required information, including photographs, to the dedicated portal. As at yesterday, Monday 29th July 2024, 56 organisations have uploaded the details of 894 observers for the Edo State Governorship election representing 33.6% of the expected 2,660 observers. The deadline is Wednesday 31stJuly 2024 when the portal automatically shuts down at 6pm. I urge you to ensure that you meet the deadline so that the Commission can produce the accreditation tags and deliver them to you for distribution to your observers in good time.
At the same time, the Commission is aware that some organisations have not only responded in good time, but have also requested for additional slots for observers to deploy across the two States. The Commission will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis depending on the organisation’s previous experience, size, capacity and record of compliance with the guidelines and code of conduct for election observation.
Campaign by political parties and candidates is in full swing in both Edo and Ondo States. We urge you to intensify your advocacy for peaceful elections, including engagement with stakeholders. The Commission finds the recent event in Edo State resulting in the death of a security personnel worrisome. Happily, there has been no incident known to the Commission since then. Nevertheless, the Commission will meet with the security agencies as early as Friday this week under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES). I want to assure you that security in Edo and Ondo will be a major issue for discussion at the meeting. We are as concerned about the safety of candidates, agents and supporters as we are about the security of our own officials, observers, journalists, service providers and, above all, the voters.
At the same time, I wish to remind you of your obligation as observers to comply with the objectives of election observation and the Code of Conduct contained in the Commission’s rules of engagement for accredited election observers. A concise summary is contained in the 22-page document entitled “Briefing for Observers” available on our website www.inecnigeria.org. I wish to reiterate that the Commission reserves the right to revoke the accreditation of any individual observer or observer group that violates Code of Conduct for election observation.
Turning to the issue of bye-elections, you may recall that at our last meeting, the Commission informed you of the existence of vacancies in four States, involving three State Constituencies and one Federal Constituency. Since then, two more vacancies have been declared by the Honourable Speaker of the House of Representatives following the death of the members representing Ibadan North Federal Constituency of Oyo State and the Chikun/Kajuru Federal Constituency of Kaduna State. The Commission will soon announce the dates for the bye-elections.
Once again, I welcome you all to this meeting. I thank you and God bless.
