The Independent National Electoral Commission has
assured the 19 candidates participating in the
September 28 governorship election in Edo State
that it will not do the bidding of any political party
at the poll.
The Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Sam
Olumekun, who spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting held
in Benin, on Thursday, urged the parties to convince
the 1,924,072 eligible voters about their suitability
to produce the next governor, rather than hope on
the electoral umpire to decide their fate.
“Please, leave INEC alone; go out to the people. Go
and convince the people to vote for you. INEC has no
business about who wins an election; that is the
point,” the REC told a gathering of party leaders
and candidates at the meeting.
He added, “Go out there to the people. Tell them
that you want to represent them; give them your
manifesto and if they decide to vote for you, let
them vote for you.”
“INEC is not going to do anybody’s bidding and I
assure you on that.”
While reacting to the allegations of partisanship
against INEC, Olumekun vowed to resign within an
hour, if he was found culpable of bias.
He said, “I have heard about the allegations that
INEC is compromised and stuffs like that. I can
assure you, if anybody comes up with any evidence
that I am compromised, I will resign within one
hour of receiving such evidence.”
He also explained that the electoral umpire would
ensure that all the political parties were carried
along in the electoral process.
Olumekun said, “We want you to see the process as
transparent. We will go to the Central Bank at
8am. When we collect the materials, we will move
straight to our office – in company with all the
security agencies. We will start distributing to the
LGAs there.
“INEC has prepared a document for each party. It
contains the particulars of all the sensitive materials
that we are going to distribute, so that you would
not say that you did not know whether ballot papers
or results sheets were there. They are also
customised.”
He, however, urged party agents to accompany the
documents and ensure that they were moved to the
appropriate locations.
Olumekun also noted that the presence of security
agents, collation officers and the party’s agents were
required at the local government and ward collection
centres
The REC, who stated that there was no plan to
shift the poll, assured that the last postponement
would not affect the outcome of the poll because all
the smart card readers had been reconfigured.
He, therefore, called on various security agencies to
begin the deployment of personnel early.
On the possibility of the election affecting the
conduct of the West African Senior School
Certificate Examination, Olumekun said that the
affected candidates had been given a special
identification to enable them to take their
examinations on the day of the poll.
He, however, advised them to be at the examination
centres as early as 7am.
Earlier, Edo State Commissioner of Police, Haliru
Gwandu, said that the police had made adequate
preparations to provide security during the exercise.
Gwandu, who assumed duty as the new commissioner
of police by replacing Fimihan Adeoye, assured that
the security agency would operate an open-door
policy.
While decrying what he described as discriminatory
statements against the police, the new CP urged the
political parties not to politicise security issues.
He, however, called for the cooperation of all the
stakeholders to make the election peaceful.
