We will not postpone the presidential election for any reason – INEC

… While the UK pledges to impose a travel ban, prosecute the instigators of the violence

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA – The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, announced yesterday that it would not change the date of the presidential election, despite the recent fires that have destroyed several smart card readers configured at the same time. origin for the 2019 polls.

2019 surveys: purchase votes; to go to prison – EFCC warns politicians

The electoral body is said to be ready to hold the most credible elections in the country's history at the unveiling of a central election monitoring center for civil society organizations, CSOs.

The monitoring center, located at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, will feature the Nigerian Civil Society Watch Room and Election Observation Groups.

Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, President of INEC, represented by one of his national commissioners, Mr. Festus Okoye, pointed out that the fires that destroyed the election materials in three of its offices across the federation were a setback to its previous arrangements for a smooth 2019 election.

However, he insisted that the retreat was not likely to significantly affect the electoral process, saying that the commission had since developed alternative plans to replace more than 4,695 card readers destroyed on Tuesday. INEC warehouse in Anambra State.

He said the commission would not postpone the imminent elections for any reason.

According to him, "the INEC will be open and transparent throughout the electoral process. We will be aware of information about our processes and procedures.

If we ever had challenges, we will be honest with the Nigerian people regarding our challenges.

"With regard to these elections, we had some challenges yesterday (Tuesday), but we were able to recover and, as I speak, we are moving all the smart card readers needed to hold the elections in the country. State of Anambra and we are not going to postpone the election in any part of Nigeria on the basis of some of these challenges

"As some of you know, this election will take place in over 120,000 voting units and we also have over 50,000 voting points. Voting points have been created to facilitate the voting process, especially for the Nigerian people.

"We have more than 91 registered political parties in Nigeria and 73 of these political parties sponsored candidates for the presidential election.

"The manual compilation process of the results will be published and INEC has decided that a filing area filing officer can not do the job, do it efficiently and in such a way that the worry of the Nigerian people as to who their next president will be approached in time.

"On this basis, INEC recruited two filing agents for each registration area and two collection agents for the 774 local government areas.

"The head of the selection for the presidential election is different. The ranking officer will gather and proceed and since the presidential election will pbad from the registration area to local governments and then to the state before traveling to the territory of the federal capital up to In the national clbadification center.

"While the leader of the Senate and House of Representatives rankings will move and stop at some point when the statement will be made. In order not to make the Nigerian people wait too long, we will have two filing agents in the 8,809 registration areas and two collection agents for the country's 774 LGAs in the first election.

"Secondly, we will hold elections in all IDP camps. During the ongoing election campaign, we asked all resident electoral commissioners of all states with IDP problems to document all eligible voters in IDP camps.

"Those who lost their PSS due to placement errors, we replaced all their voter cards, after making sure they were registered voters. We also registered new voters in the different IDP camps.

"We have therefore taken strong measures to allow them to vote because we do not want Nigerians to be deprived of their rights.

"Thirdly, with regard to the role of the army in these elections, the electoral law was amended in 2015 to give INEC specific functions with regard to the deployment of the Nigerian police force and the UNECE. of the army during elections.

"For this election, we use the services of the Nigerian Air Force to transport sensitive documents, such as ballots and results sheets, to the various states and central banks. They also carry sensitive documents on difficult terrain.

"Similarly, for riparian areas, INEC will engage gunboats to escort sensitive materials and election personnel. The gunboats will be in front and back to protect some of the young people who will be engaged in these elections.

"This will be the extent to which we will use the Nigerian army for the purposes of this election.

"That being said, allow me to reiterate the fact that the Nigerian army is also involved in internal security operations in nearly 32 states of the federation and that it will remain and conduct its internal security operations. , which has absolutely nothing to do with the elections.

"On behalf of INEC, we would like to thank the civil society organizations and the international observers and we are committed to going out on business with everyone to give Nigerians an election they will be proud of", Okoye added.

However, he urged observers to report accurately on the elections.

In her speech, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, said that the UK would not hesitate to take tough measures against anyone who would have been in the UK. origin of violence in any part of the country during elections.

She noted that the UK government had previously issued a statement reminding all political actors of its visa policy.

"Anyone who incites or encourages violence could be subject to a visa ban or be seized of his badets and, in the worst case, be prosecuted" , added Laing.

She said she was concerned about what she called "horrible cases of hate speech" at presidential rallies of the country's main political parties.

The Ambbadador of the United States of America, Mr. Stuart Symington, and the representative of the United Nations, Mr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, were present.

Earlier in his speech, Mr. Clement Nwankwo, Head of the Nigerian Civil Society Cell and Executive Director of the Center for the Defense of Policy and Legal Activities, PLAC, stressed the need for security agencies to adopt a non-partisan attitude during the elections.

He also urged foreign election observers to disregard the comment of Kaduna governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai on "sacks", even as he hit FG on his inability to report El Rufai's position and move away from it.

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