EDO 2024: INEC Is Prepared, Says Yakubu

By Nathaniel Gana

Wednesday 11th September 2024

With barely 10 days before the Edo State governorship election scheduled for 21st September 2024, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has expressed satisfaction with the Commission’s level of preparedness.

He expressed his satisfaction on Tuesday 10th September 2024 after a readiness assessment tour of three INEC Local Government Area offices (LGAs) at Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo and Igor. He also visited two designated mock accreditation centres in Benin City.

Speaking to journalists after the assessment tour, Prof. Yakubu said: “In terms of the readiness and technology to be deployed, we are satisfied with the level of preparations at our Local Government offices that we inspected as well as the two centres we visited to observe the mock accreditation exercise. I think we are good to go.”

He explained that the visit to Edo State ahead of the election was a routine activity usually undertaken by the Commission on the eve of major, off-cycle governorship elections.

His words: “This is a readiness assessment visit to some of the local governments offices. We visited three (LGAs) to assess the level of preparation, the materials received so far, and how they are organizing for the election in the next 10 days. Thereafter, we visited two centres to observe the mock accreditation exercise intended to test run the integrity of our systems ahead of the elections, both for voter accreditation and the upload of the results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.”

Responding to a question on the Commission’s neutrality, the INEC Chairman reiterated:  “INEC is not a political party. We have no candidate in the election. The decision of who becomes the next Edo State governor is entirely in the hands of the people of the State.”

He appealed to eligible voters in the State to troop out to freely vote for the candidates of their choice on Election Day. Prof. Yakubu also seized the opportunity to appeal to other stakeholders to cooperate with the Commission in order to achieve a free, fair and  credible election on September 21, while maintaining that election is a multi-stakeholder activity involving the security agencies, political parties, candidates, observers and the media.