The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has again reassured Nigerians of its commitment to credible polls in 2023.
The chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu who reiterated this, at the opening ceremony of a retreat for for National Commissioners in Lagos, noted that the Commission has concluded work on the Strategic Plan 2022-2026 and Election Project Plan for the 2023 General Election and will soon finalise work on the Regulations and Guidelines for elections taking into consideration the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
According to the Chairman, three documents will be published and presented to the public in April 2022 and further reassured Nigerians that they have identified the challenges associated with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) during voter accreditation.
He noted that in the recent bye-elections in six constituencies in four States of the Federation across four geo-political zones, the BVAS functioned optimally in rural, sub-urban and urban areas of Cross River, Imo, Ondo and Plateau States and they received no complaints from voters and no reports of glitches from observers in these bye-elections.
Professor Yakubu, promised that they will continue to perfect the system in the forthcoming bye-elections and the end of tenure Governorship elections in Ekiti State on 18th June 2022 and Osun State on 16th July 2022.
He however cautioned the National Commissioners that though the innovations and stakeholder engagements are critical to preparations for elections, they should also@aaaaaaaa bear in mind that equally critical to the conduct of successful elections is their credibility as election managers: impartiality, dogged adherence to rules, commitment to the sanctity of the ballot and sound knowledge of the electoral process.
This according to the Chairman, is why the retreat is important, especially as it is coming shortly after they released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Election in which party primaries are scheduled to commence on the 4th of April and end by the 3rd June 2022.
He said the Commission is also working on the distribution of voters to polling units across the country following the successful expansion of voter access to polling units and will roll out the plan for achieving a more balanced distribution of voters to the polling units and will as well engage with stakeholders across board to ensure a more participatory approach so that the exercise is seamless and voters will have more pleasant experience at polling units on Election Day.
The Chairman expressed optimism that the response of citizens to the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise where Millions of Nigerians have registered so far as they have been giving Weekly updates of the progress of the exercise for the last nine months adding that they have not made the PVCs available because of the robust system of cleaning up the registration to ensure that only genuine registrants are added to the voters register using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) for fingerprint and facial clean up.
He however, reported that the Commission has completed the ABIS for the first and second quarter of the CVR and will announce the detailed dates and locations for the collection of PVCs next week.
Also present at the retreat were the former Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Professor Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, the country Director, IFES, Mr. Spray Jah among others.
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