 |
| Akinbade, Aregbesola, Omisore and Akinwusi |
Already the Commission has dismissed fears expressed by the All Progressives Congress, APC, that the Commission was incapable of delivering a free and credible gubernatorial poll in Osun.
Responding to the allegation by the APC that the ruling PDP had cloned and distributed unclaimed 500,000 permanent voters cards for the purpose of rigging today’s poll, Mr Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega said: “APC has no evidence to buttress its allegation that 500,000 PVCs have been cloned. INEC met with all stakeholders in Oshogbo last Wednesday and the matter has been laid to rest.”
Idowu insisted that with the kind of technological devices the Commission had installed: “anybody who comes to vote with a cloned PVC would be detected and arrested. It is not not possible for that kind of thing to happen in the Osun election.”
Commenting on the allegation that INEC and the PDP had concluded arrangements to appoint a friendly Returning Officer for the election who would be paid N1 billion, Idowu said, : “ We can’t always respond to all sorts of frivolous allegations being made by politicians. The procedure for the appointment of Returning Officers for elections is not susceptible to those kind of things.”
He continued: “It is INEC’s duty to appoint a Returning Officer for the Osun Governorship election and INEC will do that. But we would never disclose the name of the Returning Officer for the election before the date for the poll because that is not in line with INEC’s tradition. The reason for this approach is to prevent such a person from being subjected to undue pressure by candidates contesting the election.”
Earlier Jega, had said: “ No effort would be spared to make the Osun election scheduled for August 9, 2014, more qualitative in all aspects than the June 21 Ekiti State election which has been widely acclaimed as the best so far by the Commission.”
He spoke last month July when the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China, Gu Xiaojie, paid a courtesy visit to the Commission.
The INEC Chairman had said the present Commission had since 2010 when it came on board been devoted to improving the electoral process in Nigeria, “to make it more participatory and ensure that it is more transparent, that elections are conducted consistent with international best standards and in accordance with our own electoral laws.”
According to him: “Since 2011, we have been doing our best to keep on improving the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. We have cleaned up the Register of Voters, and we have been doing our best to address the challenge of logistics of deployment, which has been a major obstacle to our conduct of good elections. I am pleased to say there has been progressive improvement in the series of governorship elections that we have conducted since 2011, culminating in the Ekiti election that we conducted recently, and which has been generally acknowledged as perhaps the best election that we have conducted so far. “
Indeed, the Osun poll is one in a series of staggered gubernatorial elections the Commission had conducted since the last general election in 2011.
Earlier in the year, the Commission had projected that today’s poll in Osun would be the last in the series before next year’s general elections. But events in Adamawa State have changed all that.
Following last month’s impeachment of former Governor of Adamawa State, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), the Commission is expected to organize a governorship bye-election in the State before next February. It would be recalled that the Commission was compelled to resort to the new arrangement of holding staggered governorship elections in some states as a fall-out of legal actions filed by few state chief executives challenging INEC’s decision to conduct governorship polls in their states as part of the April 2011 polls.
A Federal High Court in Abuja had on February 23, 2011 stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting governorship elections in Kogi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Bayelsa, Cross and River states.
Delivering his judgment in the consolidated suits filed by governors Ibrahim Idris (Kogi), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa) and Liyel Imoke (Cross Rivers), Justice Adamu Bello of the Federal High Court, Abuja, held that their tenures would not expire until sometime in 2012. Justice Adamu Bello ruled that the governors of Adamawa, Sokoto, Rivers, Cross River and Kogi States will witness no governorship elections in their domain.
Among the governors who dragged INEC court over the tenure controversy were those whose electoral victories in 2007 were annulled by the courts after which they were subjected to rerun elections which they still won.
In response to this development, INEC had in August 2011 released a staggered time table for governorship elections in six states, comprising Sokoto, Bayelsa, Edo, Adamawa, Cross River and Kogi.
The first in the series of the post-2011 governorship polls was the Kogi State governorship election which was conducted on December 3, 2011.
Election monitors from different parts of the country who observed the Kogi poll stated that it was conducted in a manner which was similar to the Commission’s handling of general election held earlier in the year.
Undoubtedly, the election was believed to have enjoyed the general goodwill INEC had garnered from the April 2011 poll. Although, Abubakar Audu, the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, who was the main rival to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s Alhaji Idris Wada complained about the conduct of the poll and challenged its outcome in court, he accepted the final court verdict which upheld the Governor Wada’s emergence.
Several weeks after it conducted the Kogi governorship poll, INEC organised another gubernatorial election in Adamawa State. The Commission was also adjudged to have conducted that poll creditably by election monitors.
Although, the outcome of the election generated a lot of heat, the result was eventually accepted by rival contestants from other political parties and the recently impeached Murtala Nyako retained his seat for a second term as chief executive of the state.
At about the same period , the Commission also conducted the Bayelsa State governorship election which produced the incumbent Governor Seriake Dickson as winner. Again, election monitors gave the Commission a pat on the back for a job well done. Later that year the Commission conducted more governorship elections in Sokoto, Cross River and Rivers states. In the last one year, INEC also conducted governorship elections in Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti.
Notwithstanding, the protests that have trailed some of these governorship polls, the uproar generated by the conduct of last November’s Anambra State governorship election appeared to to be the loudest so far. In response to the outcry by opposition candidates in that election which was won by Mr Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, INEC had sacked its Electoral Officer for Idemili Local Government Area – where serious irregularities had occurred -and handed him over to the Police for prosecution.
Despite the encomiums that have so far been showered on the electoral commission, some observers believe that more needs to be done by the commission to nurture the nation’s democracy.
This view was expressed by a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist Mr. Malachi Ugwumadu while speaking to Vanguard last Wednesday.
He argued that so far, INEC’s performance under Prof Jega which is anchored on the provisions of section two of the Electoral Act 2010 and the 1999 Constitution as amended has witnessed an improvement from the woeful performance of the tenure of the immediate past Leadership of the commission.
He however, opined that the Commission ought to do more about prosecution of electoral offenders in the country. Said he: “INEC appointed me a prosecutorial attorney few years ago but since then it has not assigned even one electoral case to me for prosecution.”
He also argued that for the nation’s elections to conform with international standards, the Commission needs to curb the tendency on the part of the Federal Government to over-militarize constituencies where elections are conducted adding that this attitude detracts from a free and fair electoral contest.
He expressed hope that this tendency on the part of the Government would not be repeated in today’s election.
The
Osun State governorship election which holds today will be the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s, proverbial
quarter-final match before next year’s general election scheduled to
hold in February 2015.
As usual INEC officials are optimistic it would be an improvement on their performance at last June’s governorship election held in neighboring Ekiti State.
Already
the Commission has dismissed fears expressed by the All Progressives
Congress, APC, that the Commission was incapable of delivering a free
and credible gubernatorial poll in Osun.
Responding to the allegation by the APC that the ruling PDP had cloned and distributed unclaimed 500,000 permanent voters cards for the purpose of rigging today’s poll, Mr Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega said: “APC has no evidence to buttress its allegation that 500,000 PVCs have been cloned. INEC met with all stakeholders in Oshogbo last Wednesday and the matter has been laid to rest.”
Idowu insisted that with the kind of technological devices the Commission had installed: “anybody who comes to vote with a cloned PVC would be detected and arrested. It is not not possible for that kind of thing to happen in the Osun election.”
Commenting on the allegation that INEC and the PDP had concluded arrangements to appoint a friendly Returning Officer for the election who would be paid N1 billion, Idowu said, : “ We can’t always respond to all sorts of frivolous allegations being made by politicians. The procedure for the appointment of Returning Officers for elections is not susceptible to those kind of things.”
He continued: “It is INEC’s duty to appoint a Returning Officer for the Osun Governorship election and INEC will do that. But we would never disclose the name of the Returning Officer for the election before the date for the poll because that is not in line with INEC’s tradition. The reason for this approach is to prevent such a person from being subjected to undue pressure by candidates contesting the election.”
Earlier Jega, had said: “ No effort would be spared to make the Osun election scheduled for August 9, 2014, more qualitative in all aspects than the June 21 Ekiti State election which has been widely acclaimed as the best so far by the Commission.”
He spoke last month July when the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China, Gu Xiaojie, paid a courtesy visit to the Commission.
The INEC Chairman had said the present Commission had since 2010 when it came on board been devoted to improving the electoral process in Nigeria, “to make it more participatory and ensure that it is more transparent, that elections are conducted consistent with international best standards and in accordance with our own electoral laws.”
According to him: “Since 2011, we have been doing our best to keep on improving the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. We have cleaned up the Register of Voters, and we have been doing our best to address the challenge of logistics of deployment, which has been a major obstacle to our conduct of good elections. I am pleased to say there has been progressive improvement in the series of governorship elections that we have conducted since 2011, culminating in the Ekiti election that we conducted recently, and which has been generally acknowledged as perhaps the best election that we have conducted so far. “
Indeed, the Osun poll is one in a series of staggered gubernatorial elections the Commission had conducted since the last general election in 2011.
Earlier in the year, the Commission had projected that today’s poll in Osun would be the last in the series before next year’s general elections. But events in Adamawa State have changed all that.
Following last month’s impeachment of former Governor of Adamawa State, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), the Commission is expected to organize a governorship bye-election in the State before next February. It would be recalled that the Commission was compelled to resort to the new arrangement of holding staggered governorship elections in some states as a fall-out of legal actions filed by few state chief executives challenging INEC’s decision to conduct governorship polls in their states as part of the April 2011 polls.
A Federal High Court in Abuja had on February 23, 2011 stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting governorship elections in Kogi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Bayelsa, Cross and River states.
Delivering his judgment in the consolidated suits filed by governors Ibrahim Idris (Kogi), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa) and Liyel Imoke (Cross Rivers), Justice Adamu Bello of the Federal High Court, Abuja, held that their tenures would not expire until sometime in 2012. Justice Adamu Bello ruled that the governors of Adamawa, Sokoto, Rivers, Cross River and Kogi States will witness no governorship elections in their domain.
Among the governors who dragged INEC court over the tenure controversy were those whose electoral victories in 2007 were annulled by the courts after which they were subjected to rerun elections which they still won.
In response to this development, INEC had in August 2011 released a staggered time table for governorship elections in six states, comprising Sokoto, Bayelsa, Edo, Adamawa, Cross River and Kogi.
The first in the series of the post-2011 governorship polls was the Kogi State governorship election which was conducted on December 3, 2011.
Election monitors from different parts of the country who observed the Kogi poll stated that it was conducted in a manner which was similar to the Commission’s handling of general election held earlier in the year.
Undoubtedly, the election was believed to have enjoyed the general goodwill INEC had garnered from the April 2011 poll. Although, Abubakar Audu, the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, who was the main rival to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s Alhaji Idris Wada complained about the conduct of the poll and challenged its outcome in court, he accepted the final court verdict which upheld the Governor Wada’s emergence.
Several weeks after it conducted the Kogi governorship poll, INEC organised another gubernatorial election in Adamawa State. The Commission was also adjudged to have conducted that poll creditably by election monitors.
Although, the outcome of the election generated a lot of heat, the result was eventually accepted by rival contestants from other political parties and the recently impeached Murtala Nyako retained his seat for a second term as chief executive of the state.
At about the same period , the Commission also conducted the Bayelsa State governorship election which produced the incumbent Governor Seriake Dickson as winner. Again, election monitors gave the Commission a pat on the back for a job well done. Later that year the Commission conducted more governorship elections in Sokoto, Cross River and Rivers states. In the last one year, INEC also conducted governorship elections in Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti.
Notwithstanding, the protests that have trailed some of these governorship polls, the uproar generated by the conduct of last November’s Anambra State governorship election appeared to to be the loudest so far. In response to the outcry by opposition candidates in that election which was won by Mr Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, INEC had sacked its Electoral Officer for Idemili Local Government Area – where serious irregularities had occurred -and handed him over to the Police for prosecution.
Despite the encomiums that have so far been showered on the electoral commission, some observers believe that more needs to be done by the commission to nurture the nation’s democracy.
This view was expressed by a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist Mr. Malachi Ugwumadu while speaking to Vanguard last Wednesday.
He argued that so far, INEC’s performance under Prof Jega which is anchored on the provisions of section two of the Electoral Act 2010 and the 1999 Constitution as amended has witnessed an improvement from the woeful performance of the tenure of the immediate past Leadership of the commission.
He however, opined that the Commission ought to do more about prosecution of electoral offenders in the country. Said he: “INEC appointed me a prosecutorial attorney few years ago but since then it has not assigned even one electoral case to me for prosecution.”
He also argued that for the nation’s elections to conform with international standards, the Commission needs to curb the tendency on the part of the Federal Government to over-militarize constituencies where elections are conducted adding that this attitude detracts from a free and fair electoral contest.
He expressed hope that this tendency on the part of the Government would not be repeated in today’s election.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/osun-2014-inecs-quarter-final-match-2015/#sthash.DSJbYJmG.dpuf
As usual INEC officials are optimistic it would be an improvement on their performance at last June’s governorship election held in neighboring Ekiti State.
Akinbade, Aregbesola, Omisore and Akinwusi
Responding to the allegation by the APC that the ruling PDP had cloned and distributed unclaimed 500,000 permanent voters cards for the purpose of rigging today’s poll, Mr Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega said: “APC has no evidence to buttress its allegation that 500,000 PVCs have been cloned. INEC met with all stakeholders in Oshogbo last Wednesday and the matter has been laid to rest.”
Idowu insisted that with the kind of technological devices the Commission had installed: “anybody who comes to vote with a cloned PVC would be detected and arrested. It is not not possible for that kind of thing to happen in the Osun election.”
Commenting on the allegation that INEC and the PDP had concluded arrangements to appoint a friendly Returning Officer for the election who would be paid N1 billion, Idowu said, : “ We can’t always respond to all sorts of frivolous allegations being made by politicians. The procedure for the appointment of Returning Officers for elections is not susceptible to those kind of things.”
He continued: “It is INEC’s duty to appoint a Returning Officer for the Osun Governorship election and INEC will do that. But we would never disclose the name of the Returning Officer for the election before the date for the poll because that is not in line with INEC’s tradition. The reason for this approach is to prevent such a person from being subjected to undue pressure by candidates contesting the election.”
Earlier Jega, had said: “ No effort would be spared to make the Osun election scheduled for August 9, 2014, more qualitative in all aspects than the June 21 Ekiti State election which has been widely acclaimed as the best so far by the Commission.”
He spoke last month July when the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China, Gu Xiaojie, paid a courtesy visit to the Commission.
The INEC Chairman had said the present Commission had since 2010 when it came on board been devoted to improving the electoral process in Nigeria, “to make it more participatory and ensure that it is more transparent, that elections are conducted consistent with international best standards and in accordance with our own electoral laws.”
According to him: “Since 2011, we have been doing our best to keep on improving the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. We have cleaned up the Register of Voters, and we have been doing our best to address the challenge of logistics of deployment, which has been a major obstacle to our conduct of good elections. I am pleased to say there has been progressive improvement in the series of governorship elections that we have conducted since 2011, culminating in the Ekiti election that we conducted recently, and which has been generally acknowledged as perhaps the best election that we have conducted so far. “
Indeed, the Osun poll is one in a series of staggered gubernatorial elections the Commission had conducted since the last general election in 2011.
Earlier in the year, the Commission had projected that today’s poll in Osun would be the last in the series before next year’s general elections. But events in Adamawa State have changed all that.
Following last month’s impeachment of former Governor of Adamawa State, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), the Commission is expected to organize a governorship bye-election in the State before next February. It would be recalled that the Commission was compelled to resort to the new arrangement of holding staggered governorship elections in some states as a fall-out of legal actions filed by few state chief executives challenging INEC’s decision to conduct governorship polls in their states as part of the April 2011 polls.
A Federal High Court in Abuja had on February 23, 2011 stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting governorship elections in Kogi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Bayelsa, Cross and River states.
Delivering his judgment in the consolidated suits filed by governors Ibrahim Idris (Kogi), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa) and Liyel Imoke (Cross Rivers), Justice Adamu Bello of the Federal High Court, Abuja, held that their tenures would not expire until sometime in 2012. Justice Adamu Bello ruled that the governors of Adamawa, Sokoto, Rivers, Cross River and Kogi States will witness no governorship elections in their domain.
Among the governors who dragged INEC court over the tenure controversy were those whose electoral victories in 2007 were annulled by the courts after which they were subjected to rerun elections which they still won.
In response to this development, INEC had in August 2011 released a staggered time table for governorship elections in six states, comprising Sokoto, Bayelsa, Edo, Adamawa, Cross River and Kogi.
The first in the series of the post-2011 governorship polls was the Kogi State governorship election which was conducted on December 3, 2011.
Election monitors from different parts of the country who observed the Kogi poll stated that it was conducted in a manner which was similar to the Commission’s handling of general election held earlier in the year.
Undoubtedly, the election was believed to have enjoyed the general goodwill INEC had garnered from the April 2011 poll. Although, Abubakar Audu, the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, who was the main rival to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s Alhaji Idris Wada complained about the conduct of the poll and challenged its outcome in court, he accepted the final court verdict which upheld the Governor Wada’s emergence.
Several weeks after it conducted the Kogi governorship poll, INEC organised another gubernatorial election in Adamawa State. The Commission was also adjudged to have conducted that poll creditably by election monitors.
Although, the outcome of the election generated a lot of heat, the result was eventually accepted by rival contestants from other political parties and the recently impeached Murtala Nyako retained his seat for a second term as chief executive of the state.
At about the same period , the Commission also conducted the Bayelsa State governorship election which produced the incumbent Governor Seriake Dickson as winner. Again, election monitors gave the Commission a pat on the back for a job well done. Later that year the Commission conducted more governorship elections in Sokoto, Cross River and Rivers states. In the last one year, INEC also conducted governorship elections in Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti.
Notwithstanding, the protests that have trailed some of these governorship polls, the uproar generated by the conduct of last November’s Anambra State governorship election appeared to to be the loudest so far. In response to the outcry by opposition candidates in that election which was won by Mr Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, INEC had sacked its Electoral Officer for Idemili Local Government Area – where serious irregularities had occurred -and handed him over to the Police for prosecution.
Despite the encomiums that have so far been showered on the electoral commission, some observers believe that more needs to be done by the commission to nurture the nation’s democracy.
This view was expressed by a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist Mr. Malachi Ugwumadu while speaking to Vanguard last Wednesday.
He argued that so far, INEC’s performance under Prof Jega which is anchored on the provisions of section two of the Electoral Act 2010 and the 1999 Constitution as amended has witnessed an improvement from the woeful performance of the tenure of the immediate past Leadership of the commission.
He however, opined that the Commission ought to do more about prosecution of electoral offenders in the country. Said he: “INEC appointed me a prosecutorial attorney few years ago but since then it has not assigned even one electoral case to me for prosecution.”
He also argued that for the nation’s elections to conform with international standards, the Commission needs to curb the tendency on the part of the Federal Government to over-militarize constituencies where elections are conducted adding that this attitude detracts from a free and fair electoral contest.
He expressed hope that this tendency on the part of the Government would not be repeated in today’s election.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/osun-2014-inecs-quarter-final-match-2015/#sthash.DSJbYJmG.dpuf
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