The Independent National Electoral Commission has warned that it will not proceed with the September 19, 2020 Governorship election in Edo State if the participating political parties continue with their violent acts.
The Commission said it was not ready to sacrifice the life of any of its adhoc staff because of the desperation of any political interest or forces.
The Director, Voter Education and Publicity, INEC, Festus Okoye, who spoke with The Point’s correspondent, also said that INEC had been monitoring the campaigns and rallies of different political parties and had seen that they had not been observing the COVID-19 protocol of social distancing and wearing of masks.
Speaking on the various violence reports trailing political campaigns in Edo State, he said, “From what we have documented so far, from what we are seeing, some of these political parties in their rallies and campaigns have no regard whatsoever for the issue of physical distancing and the issue of wearing masks during rallies.
And some of the campaigns have been tainted with slanderous languages, languages that are capable of inflaming passion and there have also been threat of violence and use of force in the campaigns.
“Political parties should know that we have the power not to proceed with this election if we perceive violence will pervade this election.
This is because the life of a corp member who is serving the nation as a presiding officer cannot be covered by any form of insurance and no form of compensation can make up for a single individual.”
“So, we are not going to risk the life of young men and women that we want to deploy, based on the desperation of some political forces, and we are going to make it known to them that we will put our feet down and not go ahead with this election if they continue in the manner they are going,” he declared.
Okoye, however, said in the next one or two weeks, INEC would meet with all the interests and would give the parties the opportunity to pull back from what they were doing.
He said if they insisted and refused to pull back from dangerous acts of violence, the commission would meet and take a decision not to proceed with the election.
Okoye said, “Going forward, what we are going to do is to be inclusive and consultative. We are going to meet with candidates themselves. We are going to meet with the political parties.
We are going to meet with the Campaign Councils, the Inter Agency Committee on election monitoring and security and we are going to meet with different religious and traditional institutions to give them information at our disposal and to tell them the consequences of proceeding in a manner that jeopardises the peace and security of the state and the challenge of going ahead with an election where the lives of our ad hoc staff and corpers will be in jeopardy.
“The Political parties know what the consequences are and, as a regulatory agency that is saddled with conducting election, we have the power to make sure nobody jeopardises the lives of those we are going to deploy to go and supervise this election.”
