You are on your own, INEC tells its staff in EFCC custody

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says any staff of the commission, who is in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), should “bear his own cross”.

About 16 INEC officials, including Gesila Khan, former resident electoral commissioner of Rivers state, and Austen Okojie, her Akwa Ibom counterpart, have been under investigation by the anti-graft agency.

But speaking when he met with editors of print and electronic Media, at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, Yakubu said INEC called on the EFCC to fish out both the givers and the receivers.

“All the staff that are fingered are individuals. It is not a collective institutional thing. They should go and answer for what they have alleged to have done,” he said.

“Whatever level of cooperation any of the agencies requires of the commission, we will give that level of cooperation because it is also in a bid to sanitise the system.

“I hope also it will extend to the givers not just the takers so that there will be collective sanity. Whoever violates the law of this land and there are questions to answer, the person should answer, the person should bear his own cross.”

The chairman also said the commission would enhance the electoral process by introducing more technology in the collation and transmission of election results in order to make the process free, fair, credible and speedy.

He also disclosed that 12 million permanent voter cards (PVCs) were still awaiting collection, adding that there were many Nigerians of voting age who are yet to register with the electoral body.

“We have a little over seventy million registered voters in Nigeria. We have twelve million permanent voter cards uncollected and we have at least 700,000 unprinted and then we have a large number of Nigerians who are not registered and they have come of age,” he said.

He disclosed that the commission would commence continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise for the Edo and Ondo governorship elections before the national continuous voter registration (CVR).

Yakubu attributed the successful conduct of elections to the use of the smart card reader (SCR), which he said guaranteed the integrity of the process and the outcome.

“I think we all agree that with the introduction of Card Reader, no matter the imperfections of the card reader and the introduction of the permanent voter card (PVC) as a complement to the card reader, we have greatly sanitized the process. But we need to go further,” he said.