Ahead of the general elections commencing from February this year, the Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mr Olusegun Agbaje has rolled out strategic plans towards having free, fair and credible elections that would be acceptable to all stakeholders in the State.
Speaking with the Tribune Online on the state of preparedness of the Commission in the State ahead of the All important polls, Mr Agbaje stated that the strategic plans included but not limited to the reactivation of the Operations Situation Room directly in his office where complaints would be received directly from the stakeholders and the members of the public through three dedicated mobile telephone numbers
According to him,” the three telephone mobile lines are MTN 08168963080, Glo 07057789656 and Airtel 07086575910″.
Others are, ” sourcing of ad hoc staff from members of the National Youths Service Corps, NYSC and staff the Federal Government Agencies, training of ad hoc staff and security agencies
” Comprehensive and targeted voters education in collaboration with relevant stakeholders to engender more inclusive participation in the elections
” Publication of the list of nominated candidates for Presidential and National Assembly Elections on 17th January this year and governorship and State House of Assembly election on 31st of January
” Engagement with Civil society Organisations, CSOs, heads of Security Agencies, Youth groups, Traditional, Religious leaders and others on the need for all citizens to support the Commission for peaceful elections in the State
” Market outreaches, road shows, use of traditional means and pasting of posters among others “.
Agbaje disclosed that the Commission is to take the collection of the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, to the Registration Areas, RAs, in all the 30 local government Areas in the State for collections by their rightful owners between January 18 and 21st this year and declared that there would no room for collection by proxy.
The REC said that 428,446 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) have not been collected in the state few weeks to the general elections and that the commission received 1,681,930 PVCs from the national headquarters and gave out 1,253,484 as at January 8, this year
On the increasing cases of selling and buying of PVCs, ahead of the elections, Agbaje warned those involved in the act to stay away from the state as the security agencies have been duly mobilised to deal decisively with anybody caught engaging in such illegal act anywhere in the state