Ahead of the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa, Traditional Rulers from the State have called for mopping of arms from supporters of various political parties to have violent free election.
They also called for the use of Military Helicopters for the deployment of sensitive and non-sensitive materials in the State considering its difficult terrain to avoid the scenario where politicians hijack the materials.
The Traditional rulers who made these recommendations Tuesday in Yenogoa during a consultative meeting with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC said they were tired with violent polls in the State which claim lives of their subjects.
Alfred Diete-Spiff, Chairman of Bayelsa State Council of Chiefs in an address at the meeting decried the huge Military presence in the last elections, leading to the killings of his subjects and appealed to the Army particularly to control their operatives deployed for election duty.
Diete-Spiff called on INEC to make efforts towards avoiding the disenfranchisement of Internally displaced persons, IDPs in the State and assured the Commission and other stakeholders of the neutrality of the traditional rulers in the election.
The former Military Administrator of the old Rivers State advised INEC to engage the services of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency on drug consumption by youths and the Nigerian Customs Service on the proliferation of arms imported abroad to ensure peace during elections in the State and the country at large.
In his remarks, Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom, Bubaraye Dakolo accused INEC staff of compromise in the State as they collect huge monetary gratifications to favour certain candidates and charged the Commission National Headquarters to be bold enough to reject result where there was no there incidents of violence.
Earlier, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu said the Commission was prepared for the election and have delivered all the non-sensitive materials for Bayelsa State and made funds available to the Resident Electoral Commissioner for the administration of the election.
Yakubu assured that polling units would be opened by 8am on election day, stressing that INEC is committed to ensuring that voters do not wait for staff and materials to arrive but they would be there to wait for voters to arrive at 8am in the morning.
He warned of actions and utterances by the political actors likely to breach peace during the campaign, on election day and during the collation of results and warned that INEC would not accept attack on its personnel and materials.
“This will be the first major elections since the 2019 general elections. The lessons learnt would help the Commission improve in the conduct of Kogi and Bayelsa elections. Bayelsa and Kogi are not easy states to conduct major elections. The challenge is not the landmass or the impact on electoral logistics but the attitude of the political class, which is source of concern to the Commission.
“We all witnessed what happened during the parties nominations for candidates. We are concerned with mobilization of armed persons to the voting and collation centres as we experienced in previous elections. In 2015, out of the eight local government areas in Bayelsa State, INEC was able to declare result in only one local government area, Kolokuma/Opokwuma. .
“In 2015, we had only one stakeholders’ meeting, one week to the election. This year, we are meeting with stakeholders, one month to the election which include the traditional rulers and political actors.
“No one can accuse you of partisanship. You are fathers of all. Your words are laws in communities. So we appeal to you to continue to speak to your subjects, the political actors and their supports for peaceful conduct during the electioneering campaigns, the voting process and beyond”, he added.
James Kwen, Abuja
