Elections: Our major challenge is desperation of politicians, says Lagos REC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its worst challenge is the desperation and do-or-die attitude of politicians.

Olusegun Agbaje, INEC resident electoral commissioner in Lagos, spoke at the enlarged stakeholders’ forum of the commission at its headquarters in the state.

Agbaje urged stakeholders, especially political parties, to create a peaceful atmosphere for INEC to conduct free, fair, and credible elections.

“The worst challenge facing the electoral process currently is the do-or-die attitude of politicians which involves the use of different unlawful means to undermine the electoral process,” he said.

“The way desperate politicians use thugs to either disrupt elections or intimidate election officials in some polling units, RAC, and collation centres during the last general election assumed a very worrisome dimension and must not be allowed to happen again in Lagos state.

“The consequences of not getting this election right are too great and should not even be contemplated.

“Political party leaders and candidates are strongly enjoined to caution their followers to play politics by the rules and imbibe the spirit of politics without bitterness.”

He said this would go a long way in creating the enabling peaceful environment needed for the conduct of the general election.

Agbaje urged stakeholders to engage in effective, positive, purposeful, and sustainable participation in the democratic process.

He advised politicians to shun violence, fake news, malpractices, snatching of ballot boxes, buying and selling of voters cards, intimidation of election officials, and all other election vices.

Agbaje said INEC will deploy 13, 325 bimodal voter accreditation systems (BVAS) to the polling units spread across the 245 wards in the 20 LGAs of the state.

He said the commission has issued 6,708,451 permanent voter cards (PVCs) out of the 7,637,402 PVCs received in the state between 2011 and 2023, saying the figure represents 88 percent.

He said as part of preparations, INEC has moved non-sensitive materials like mats, cubicles, ballot boxes, aprons, vests, and others to the LGA offices as well as sourcing and screening of ad-hoc staff from NYSC, tertiary institutions, ministries, departments, and agencies.

“The commission has migrated/moved some voters in densely populated polling units to low population density polling units within some vicinity for better control and seamless accreditation and voting on election day,” he added.

“In areas where there is voter population density, more BVAS would be deployed for better crowd management and ease of accreditation and voting.

“Accordingly, the register of affected voters will be pasted at the polling units involved very soon and community leaders will be appropriately sensitized to assist in getting the voters involved in checking exact polling units which are within the same vicinity.”