The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu has reiterated the determination of the commission to conduct a credible, free and fair gubernatorial election in Ekiti State.
He gave the assurance on Tuesday in Ado Ekiti while addressing traditional rulers across the state as part of his tour to ascertain the preparedness of the commission towards the conduct of the election in the state.
The INEC boss further stated that the commission will conduct the governorship election alongside the botched Ekiti State Assembly bye-poll in Ekiti East constituency 1.
He said, “I want to appeal to all voters in Ekiti that their votes will count. We would still return to interact with other critical stakeholders on how to have a peaceful election in Ekiti. The atmosphere now for the conduct of the 2022 election is so calm, unlike what we had in 2018.
“In this election, there will be two ballot boxes in Ekiti East constituency 1, because they will elect their assembly representative together with the governor. There will be 16 political parties for the governorship election, but only two for the bye election in Ekiti East”.
Prof Yakubu, however, expressed the readiness of the commission to use Bimodal Voters Authentication System (BVAS) to authenticate voters in order to ascertain their eligibility.
He said, “The BVAS had been introduced and with this, smart card readers had been fully retired. As far as technology is concerned, there will be a seamless and fantastic election in Ekiti. There was a mock election here on Monday across the state and the machine worked 100 percent.
“Where the machine is unable to get the fingerprints, we will get the facial appearance of the voter. There won’t be incidence forms, we have abolished incidence forms as well. INEC is not a political party, it does not have any candidate. We appealed to all our royal fathers to continue to appeal to everybody to maintain peace until election is concluded”.
He further added, “Yesterday, I visited INEC Offices in three local government areas of Ekiti State to inspect the INEC facilities there. I was at Ikere Ekiti, Ado Ekiti and Irepodun Ifelodun local government areas and in all these places, the machines worked perfectly well”.
Speaking further, the Alawe of Ilawe Ekiti, Oba Adebanji Alabi, urged the commission to tackle the excessive monetisation of the electoral process, while urging that competent youths should be allowed to exercise their civic right and pilot the affairs of the country.
Packaged By Emmanuel Adeniran
