The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming September 19 governorship election in Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and candidates of all the political parties taking part in the state governorship election are to sign peace accord before the election date.
Mahmoud Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), disclosed this at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) in Benin on Thursday.
Yakubu said though the National Peace Committee engages political parties at the national level, for the first time, it will ensure that all political parties and their candidates are committed to a peaceful process, given the significance of the election in Edo State.
“We have been receiving reports of the security situation in Edo State and it is part of what we are going to discuss with members of ICCES. The environment ought to be secured for the Commission to conduct election,” Yakubu said.
“We are taking every step to ensure that the environment is very conducive for us to conduct election. I trust that security agencies are fully prepared to deal with potential problem areas.
“We having been receiving report at the headquarters but we thought that it’s important to come down to Benin and see for ourselves what is truly on the ground. In terms of readiness, we are ready for this election. We have come with the policy to conduct election in COVID-19. We test-ran the policy in a small election in Nasarawa State and now we are ready with the big one which is the Edo governorship election,” the INEC chairman stated.
In his remarks, the Commissioner of Police, Edo State Command, Johnson Kokumo, assured INEC and people of Edo State of the preparedness of the police and other security agencies to ensure peaceful election in the state.
“On security arrangement for Edo guber 2020, I am to say on behalf of security services in Edo State that we are prepared to address the issue of election security in Edo State from the lands, water and the air.
“Every training arrangements have been made. INEC has arranged for training security personnel that will participate in election duties. It commenced for sometime ago and it is still ongoing,” Kokumo said.
Briefing ICCES, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Edo State, Johnson Sinikiem, disclosed that out of the 2.210 million total registered voters, 1.735 million have collected the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) while 483,868 cards have not been collected.
Sinikiem said non-sensitive materials for the election have been collected and distributed to the 18 local government areas of the state, stressing the need for ICCES to work assiduously to prevent election violence to enable free, fair and credible election.
In his remarks, Deputy Head of Secretariat, National Peace Committee, Duke Emmah, commended the INEC chairman for his efforts towards conducting violence-free polls in Edo State, adding the meeting would guide the Committee in its activities to ensure peaceful polls in the heartbeat of the nation.
“National Peace Committee has asked me to convey its support and trust to efforts of the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, and his team for conducting a free, fair, acceptable and credible election in Edo State,” Emmah said.
