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Following the disturbing reports that underage persons participated in the recent local council election in Kano state and could replicate the same behavour in the 2019 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has promised to expunge all ineligible persons from the voters register as part of its preparation to organize credible, free and transparent elections in 2019.
INEC National Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, buttressed this on Monday during an interactive session with the media even as he vowed that only those who are eligible under Section 12, Subsection One of the Electoral Act are registered. He also said that the commission will do its best to also check the menace of vote buying which marred elections in some states of the federation.
He noted that the commission had set up an eight-man panel to investigate the issue of underage voters urging the agitated public to have some patience.
He stressed that under Section Four Subsection One of the Electoral Act, the commission is required to publish the names on the register for a maximum of two weeks at each registration center before the elections for “claims and objections. That is what we have done at the second and third quarter of 2017 and that is what we will be doing at the end of each quarter in the 2018 exercise”, he said.
He disclosed that the commission has inclusivity in the election through the increased participation of women and persons with disability and will also monitor campaign finance of political parties in collaboration with the Economic and Financial crime Commission adding that the commission will welcome the not-too-young to run bill if it eventually passes into law.
He said further that the elections time table has not changed from the earlier schedule announced by the commission although he acknowledged that the two chambers of the National Assembly have passed a bill to amend Section 25 of the Electoral Act to alter the order of the elections.
“On the proposed amendment of section 25 of the Electoral Act by the National Assembly, what we are planning is on the basis of existing law and nothing has changed. But then if something happens tomorrow then we will examine it and go on” he said.
According to INEC timetable the Presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for Saturday, 16th February, while the Governorship and State Assembly/Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Council elections have been scheduled for Saturday, 2nd March 2019.
Yakubu commended the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration exercise and the steps being taken by the INEC to respond to the challenges that confronted it. He added that all those who register in 2018 will surely get their Permanent Voters Card before the general elections in 2019. “This applies to those who are yet to register but have the intention of registering,” he said.
He pointed out that INEC has created additional 1,146 registration centers with an increase of about 400 additional Direct Data Capturing Machines to the registration centres nationwide.
He said that the commission is ready to conduct the Governorship elections in Ekiti in July and Osun states in September, 2018 respectively.
The President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Waheed Odusile, represented by Adebayo Bodurin, assured the INEC chairman that the media will do its best to support its efforts but advised that INEC must put strategies in place to hold elections that will be acceptable to all Nigerians and the rest of the world.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
