By Udesinanna Stephen
Ahead of the gubernatorial elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appealed to party leaders to admonish their supporters against disrupting electoral processes.
The appeal was made by the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at a meeting with Political Parties on the review of the 2023 General Election held in Abuja lately.
As obtained from the official Twitter handle of the Electoral Umpire, @inecnigeria, he said, “I appeal to party leaders for similar introspection on the conduct of your candidates and their supporters. The use of thugs during elections to harass election officials, intimidate voters and disrupt processes, sometimes destroying election materials or, even worse, must be addressed.
Yakubu said, “As we review the general election, we also need to focus our attention on the forthcoming bye-elections and the three off-cycle Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. For the Commission, we are looking at some of the lessons learnt from the general election to improve our performance in the forthcoming elections.
“We are focusing, among other issues, on election technology, recruitment and training of ad hoc staff, the conduct of some of our regular and ad hoc officials, security issue, logistics in particular and our relationship with other service providers in general.” He added
Commenting on the power of incumbency, he contends that the power of incumbency is used in some States to restrain some parties and candidates from accessing public facilities for media campaigns and outdoor advertising through exorbitant fees or outright denial
In addition, he said, this often leads to the destruction of advertising materials such as billboards, resulting in altercations and violence involving supporters of opposing political parties.