August 30, (THEWILL) – Political parties and their candidates for the September 21 governorship election in Edo State would be committed to a peace pact on September 12 in Benin City, the state capital.
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this in Abuja during an extraordinary meeting with political parties to acquaint them with its level of preparation.
He said the decision was made after consultation with the National Peace Committee (NPC) under the leadership of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Yakubu said it was resolved “to do the peace accord so early this time around to enable the Peace Committee to monitor compliance with the code voluntarily signed by parties, candidates and other critical players in the electoral process such as INEC and the security agencies during the remaining days to the election”.
This, he said, “will add further weight to the Peace Accord beyond mere ceremony as demanded by many observers and even some of the political actors themselves.
“The signing of the Peace Accord will be preceded by the INEC stakeholders meeting to be held on Wednesday 11th September 2024 in Benin City. As usual, the meeting will be addressed by the INEC Chairman and the Inspector-General of Police.
“It is an open forum for political parties, candidates, observers and the media to interact with the Commission and the security agencies ahead of the election.
“I, therefore, urge you as leaders of political parties to note the dates for the INEC stakeholders meeting and the signing of the Peace Accord and mobilise your state chairmen and candidates to participate.”
On the polling and collation agents uploaded to the portal by parties for the Edo State election, Yakubu noted: “We discovered that there are compliance issues with regard to the quality of uploads, particularly as they relate to the images of the polling unit, ward and local government agents.
“This problem cuts across all political parties despite the fact that this is not being done for the first time. And in keeping with our practice before major elections, we trained officials nominated by political parties. We also set up a Help Desk in the event of any political party needing assistance.
“I want to emphasise that there will be no going back to the manual process. It is gone for good. Already, observer groups and media organisations are in full compliance with the digital procedure. Political parties cannot be an exception.
“You must do the needful instead of constantly complaining of shortfalls in the number of accreditation tags supplied for your agents. We will only produce tags for uploads that meet the requirements of our regulations and guidelines.
“The Commission is determined that your agents at polling units and collation centres must be identified by name and their photographs clearly printed on their accreditation tags duly authorised by the Commission.
“We have also added a QR Code to each tag for easy authentication and verification of your agents at the polling and collation centres. Matters arising from the recent uploads will be discussed at this meeting.”
