The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has caught 23 staff members involved in illegal voters registration.
The Kwara State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mallam Attahiru Madami the commission has set in motion process towards making them face the appropriate sanctions.
Madami, who disclosed this at INEC stakeholders’ forum in Ilorin yesterday, however, refused to elaborate more on it.
“23 INEC staff members were involved in illegal registration and will be sanctioned”, he said.
However, the Public Relations Officer of INEC in the state, Mr. Bolaji Abdulkadir, when asked for clarification said that the figure given by REC was national and was not limited to Kwara state alone.
The stakeholders meeting was attended by political party representatives, security agencies and members of the Civil Society organizations (CSOs.)
The REC said that the forum became necessary as first step to ensuring hitch free elections next year.
“I want to tell stakeholders that that we are ready to protect the electoral process by conducting free, fair, transparent, peaceful and credible elections which will acceptable to Kwarans,” he said.
Madami, however, decried poor response of the people of the state to collection of permanent voters cards (PVCs) saying that the Commission had between 2011 to 2019 had a total number of 233, 856 uncollected PVCs, adding that “out of this only 20,752 were collected as at October this
year leaving over 193,000 uncollected.
“Of the 46,602 new PVCs received from the INEC headquarters in the state only 18,885 had been collected with a balance of 27,602 awaiting collection.
“We are still having a lot of challenge in the state in terms of PVCs collection,”
On incident PVCs collection, he hinted that the state had 20,506, adding that only 6,055 had so far been collected with 14,451 yet to be collected.
He added that the state had 43,008 invalid registration figures, one of the least, according to him in the country.
REC said that the state currently has 1,689,288 registration figures as opposed to 1,401,895 in 2019.
“Completed registration figures are 330,401 and valid registration figures are 287,393,” he said.
In his speech, the state police Commissioner, Paul Odama warned politicians not to “feed” their supporters with hard drugs.
Said Odama: “Politicians should do well to embark on issue-based campaigns and no personality based campaigns. They should ensure that their followers are civil in all their actions. They should shun thuggery and damage to billboards of opposing parties.
“As enshrined in the Electoral Law, vote-buying and selling will not be allowed.
“On our part, we will do all within our powers to support and collaborate with stakeholders to ensure that our democracy is firmly rooted in the country.
“Finally, the police and other security agents in the state have, at different times, strategised on how the elections will be free and credible.” – Thisday.
