Electoral violence: INEC to train intending security operatives ahead of 2019 elections

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Saturday, disclosed that it would train all the security officials that would be engaged in the forthcoming 2019 general elections so as to forestall electoral violence and ensure free, fair, credible and transparent elections.

It affirmed that the commission alone could not deliver credible elections in Nigeria, because “if we get our processes right, if we get our procedure right, if we get our staff committed to this process, and political parties do not believe in free, fair and transparent elections, there will definitely be problem.”

Its National Commissioner, Barrister Festus Okoye, who disclosed this in Abuja, therefore, appealed to the political parties to recommit themselves and train their members, saying now that INEC was perfecting its own processes and procedures ahead of 2019 elections, political parties should recommit themselves to the electoral processes.

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According to him, we have what we call Intelligence Consultative Committee (ICC) on election security, we will also assist in training all the security officials that will be engaged in the 2019 elections so that we can deliver free and fair elections.

He explained that the commission has mapped out another laudable programme of monitoring the convention and all other activities of all the political parties that were duly registered in Nigeria, and this was to ensure that all political parties conform to the dictate and provision of the Constitution and all the extant laws in Nigeria.

The INEC commissioner reaffirmed that the commission was absolutely committed to delivering free, fair and transparent credible elections in 2019, and appealed passionately to the politicians to also recommit themselves to the electoral process, saying delivery of credible elections was a multi-stakeholders venture.

Barrister Okoye said the era of sending party agents who were just thugs to the polling units is over in Nigeria, urging them to train political parties to train their party agents so as to be able to know the usage of cards readers; the work of presiding officers and also such person(s) would know what was going on at the polling units.

“I just came back from Osun State, as all of you can attest, during the election that was organized on Saturday, September 22, every polling unit in Osun State opened before 8:00 am, which was 100 per cent record, it has never happened in the history of this country before. You would also understand that during that particular election, very few people complained. The challenge we have now is in relation with only seven polling units out of over 3, 000 polling units.

“It is very clear that our people, the voters are committed, interested and really want to vote in a free and fair atmosphere. They want to vote in an environment devoid of violence, they want to vote in an environment where their votes would be count

“If the voters are committed, ready to votes and want their votes to be count; if the electoral management body is committed to delivering free, fair and transparent elections, and political parties are not ready to allow the people to exercise their own right, definitely we are going to have very serious challenges.

“We want to restate that we are getting ready for 2019 elections and committed to transparency and fair elections, we urge all the political parties to train their party agents on the electoral rules and procedures on INEC guidelines and what it contains in INEC manual.

“INEC staff are committed, the voters are committed, our challenge now is to also get political parties to also recommit themselves. We will be proud to be Nigerians committed to the electoral processes that will be the benefit of the Nigerian people and increase our profile within the West African sub-region and International community.” He pleaded.