The Autonomous Public Discretionary Commission (INEC) says the new goes after on its offices won’t stop the direct of the 2023 general political decision.
When receiving a delegation from the Africa Union Special Pre-Electoral Political Mission led by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Monday in Abuja, INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu made these remarks.
Mr. Yakubu stated that INEC would replace some materials for the 2023 general election prior to the election, acknowledging that some of them were lost in the attacks.
In the past three weeks, the offices of the commission have been attacked in Ogun, Osun, and Ebonyi States.
“Three of our local government area offices have been targeted in three distinct states of the federation over the past three weeks, with the most recent incident taking place yesterday in the South-Eastern region of the nation.
“Despite the fact that there were no casualties, quite a few of the materials that had already been acquired and delivered for the elections have been misplaced.
The good news is that we have so far been able to recover from all of our losses; however, this is a cause for concern.We cannot allow this to continue.
He went on to say, “So, we will continue to engage with the security agencies to ensure that these offices, personnel, and our facilities are protected prior to the election.”
Mr. Yakubu stated that the use of the Results Viewing Portal (IReV) and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter accreditation and real-time uploading of PU results would continue.
He stated, “We may express some concern about the attack on these facilities, but it will never deter the commission from proceeding with the election as scheduled.”
According to Mr. Yakubu, the law made it obligatory for INEC to implement those technologies, so there would be no going back.
He stated that the technologies were utilized for approximately 105 off-cycle and by-elections, including the Anambra, Ekiti, and Osun governorship elections, from August 2020 to July 2022.
Mr. Yakubu, the Kogi AD, stated that the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), a political party organization, had also confirmed their effectiveness in conducting elections.
We are pleased with the pilot we conducted, and you can still view the results on the portal.
“We kept asking political parties, in particular, to compare the results we had uploaded to the IREV portal and the hard copy signed by their agents at the time. We have been asking them if there are any discrepancies.
He stated, “We are happy with that pilot” because “so far, all the political parties have confirmed that its 99.9 percent accurate.”
Mr. Yakubu stated that, despite a few minor glitches, INEC was required to proceed with the election overall.
“We are required to proceed in accordance with the law by deploying technology for the accreditation and uploading of the PU’s polling unit level results on election day for transparency.
The good news is that we have heard fewer and fewer lawsuits regarding the commission’s election administration since we began this process.
He stated, “Now we have more litigations arising from the conduct of political parties’ primaries than the commission’s main election.”
In addition, Mr. Yakubu stated that INEC was more prepared for the general election in 2023.