EDO GUBER: IGHODALO, OKPEBHOLO, AKPATA, OTHERS TO SIGN PEACE PACT ON SEPT. 12
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Ahead of the September 21 Governorship Election in Edo State, Candidates of the All Progressives Congress APC, Monday Okpebholo; Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Asue Ighodalo; Labour Party LP, Olumide Akpata, and 13 others will on September 12 sign a peace accord in Benin.
The peace pact is being spearheaded by the General Abdulsalami Abubakar-led National Peace Committee, NPC.
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this, yesterday, in Abuja at an extraordinary meeting with political parties.
He said unlike in the past when the NPC organized the signing ceremony very close to the election, the committee has decided to hold the event earlier in order to be able to monitor compliance of parties.
Yakubu said; “After consultations with the National Peace Committee under the leadership of our respected former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the signing of the Peace Accord for the Edo State Governorship election will take place on Thursday 12th September 2024 in Benin City.
“Supported by eminent members of the Peace Committee, the occasion will be presided over by the Chairman, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
“You may notice that unlike the previous peace accords signed a few days to the election, it was decided to do 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 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.”
He restated the decisions of INEC to conduct a Mock Accreditation of voters to test-run the deployment of BVAS for the election as well as the upload of results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal on Tuesday September 10.
On other levels of preparation for the election, he said INEC has intensified engagements with stakeholders at State and Local Government levels, while voter education is ongoing.
According to him, the commission has also concluded the training of security personnel and is finalizing the delivery of the few remaining non-sensitive materials for the election, as well as concluding arrangements with the land and maritime transport unions for logistics.
“The printing of triplicate copies of voters’ register for each of the 4,519 polling units in Edo State is virtually completed. The installation and configuration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines to be deployed on Election Day is completed. Observer accreditation tags are being produced. The portal for media accreditation closes next week and so far, 88 media organisations have applied by uploading the details of 698 personnel (journalists, technicians and crew members) to cover the election. We will soon commence the training of various categories of adhoc staff”, Yakubu added.
He however said after harvesting the details of polling and collation agents uploaded to its special portal for the Edo State election, INEC discovered that there are compliance issues with regards to the quality of uploads, particularly as they relate to the images of 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”, he declared.
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