Governorship Polls: Rein in Your Supporters, INEC Urges Political Parties

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has called on political parties to rein in their supporters ahead of the November 11 governorship elections in Bayesla, Kogi and Imo states.

He made the call yesterday in Abuja at the meeting with political parties on the review of 2023 elections, where he said the Commission’s engagement with stakeholders in the last three weeks was part of the effort to review the conduct of the election.

The INEC boss noted that the Commission was convinced that engaging with stakeholders was one of the best ways to learn lessons and continue to improve elections and the electoral process in Nigeria.

Yakubu stressed that for the 2023 general election, political parties played a lead role in the election and the electoral process, saying, “collectively, they sponsored 36 presidential candidates and their running mates; 837 governorship candidates and their running mates; 1,100 senatorial candidates; 3,127 candidates for House of Representatives and 10,231 candidates for

The chairman pointed out that the Commission was aware that while there were many positive developments from the 2023 general election, there were challenges encountered which must be addressed.

“As we review the general election, we also need to focus our attention on the forthcoming by-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.”

The Chairman said the commission was focusing among other issues, on election technology, recruitment and training of ad hoc staff, the conduct of some regular and ad hoc officials, security issues, logistics and relationship with other service providers in general.

Earlier, Chairman of Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yabagi Sani, said there was no doubt that the 2023 general election might have come and gone, but the echoes had continued to reverberate and appeared not in a hurry to fizzle out.

He said IPAC was of the opinion that INEC deserved commendation for incremental use of technology in its operations.