2019 Elections: INEC reassures parties, candidates of neutrality, credible polls
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reassured political parties and their candidates participating in Saturdays Presidential election and National Assembly elections that the election process will be credible and fair to all.
Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman
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Okosi-Simbina, who also pledged that the commission would be neutral, added that the commission was working to improve on the successes recorded in the 2015 general elections.
She, however , urged all stakeholders to support the commission to conduct credible and peaceful elections.
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We promise the political parties and their candidates, free, fair and credible process. There is no need to read meaning into the activities that the commission is conducting.
We want to improve on the process that we met on ground in 2015. We want to improve on it and make sure that it is credible as possible.
There is no hidden agenda, we want to deliver on a credible election; there is no need for distrust. They should conduct themselves in a civil manner at the polling units, she said.
The INEC National Commissioner also urged political parties to speak to their agents to be peaceful in monitoring the election process at their polling units.
![A credible election free of violence is the interest of many as balloters prepare to head down to polling stations . [Twitter/INEC Nigeria].](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'790'%20height%3D'593'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E "A credible election free of violence is the interest of many as balloters prepare to head down to polling stations . [Twitter/INEC Nigeria].")
A credible election free of violence is the interest of many as balloters prepare to head down to polling stations . [Twitter/INEC Nigeria].
A credible election free of violence is the interest of many as balloters prepare to head down to polling stations . [Twitter/INEC Nigeria].
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She also advised them to ensure that their agents were not destructive; saying the work of a party agent was to look at everybody else and ensure that he or she is doing the job as specified by the law.
The job of an agent is not to try to rig or buy votes for his principal, whether for a party or candidate. Just look out and ensure that things are going the way they should go, she said.
Okosi-Simbina recalled that the commission for the first time organised train the trainers workshop for various political party executives, so that they would train their polling agents.
She urged the electorate to be peaceful in carrying out their civic right at polling units, assuring them that their votes would count.
Speaking on the Inter-agency Campaign Finance Monitoring Group earlier inaugurated by the commission to help monitor and track campaign expenses of political parties and their candidates in the 2019 general elections, the commissioner expressed confidence that it would assist the commission.
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We find out that as an election management body, saddled with the role of conducting election, we cannot also be policing political parties and their candidates, checking on what they are doing and how much they are spending.
So, it is important that we collaborate with all those institutions that deal with financial and anti-graft issues like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Financial Investigation Unit (FIU) Federal Inland Revenue Service.
Also involved are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
For instance we also include the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) so that it can assist us with the advert rates, those that come at pick and off pick time, how much are they paying even for newspaper adverts and so on.
Okosi-Simbina expressed optimism that at the end of the day the commission would come up with comprehensive report regarding the campaign expenses of political parties and their candidate, and compare it with the provision of the law.
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The law provides for what parties and candidates can spend, whether they can use state administrative resources for their elections or not.
We will look at the report in relation to the law in order to make a statement ultimately about what we see, how political parties and candidates have actually complied with legal framework or not, she said.
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