The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Thursday has lamented that political parties are not complying with polling and collation agents nomination procedures.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja at an extraordinary meeting with political parties on the 2024 edo state governorship election.
He recalled that in consultation with the political parties, the commission replaced the manual process for the submission of the list of agents with a digital platform.
Yakubu emphasised that the commission did the same for accreditation of observers and media organisations in consultation with the stakeholders.
The chairman said the electrical body also replaced the manual process of recruiting ad hoc staff with a digital platform called the INECPRES, saying all these activities are now done electronically on a number of dedicated portals.
Yakubu added: “However, after harvesting the details of polling and collation agents uploaded to the portal for the Edo State election, we discovered that there are compliance issues with regard to the quality of uploads, particularly as they relate to the images of Polling Unit, Ward and Local Government agents.
“This problem cuts across all political parties despite the fact that this is not being done for the first time. And in keeping with our practice before major elections, we trained officials nominated by political parties. We also set up a Help Desk in the event of any political party needing assistance.
“I want to emphasise that there will be no going back to the manual process. It is gone for good. Already, observer groups and media organisations are in full compliance with the digital procedure.
“Political parties cannot be an exception. You must do the needful instead of constantly complaining of shortfalls in the number of accreditation tags supplied for your agents.
“We will only produce tags for uploads that meet the requirements of our regulations and guidelines. The Commission is determined that your agents at Polling Units and Collation Centres must be identified by name and their photographs clearly printed on their accreditation tags duly authorised by the Commission.
“We have also added a QR Code to each tag for easy authentication and verification of your agents at the polling and collation centres. Matters arising from the recent uploads will be discussed at this meeting.”
Also, the Chairman, Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yusuf Dantalle expressed concerns over fake certificate presented by aspirants contesting various elective offices.
“Worried by subsequent litigations and nullification of elections as a result of fake certificates thus denying political parties that fielded the candidates their hard earned victory, after due consultations, IPAC and the Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Council’s national secretariat, Abuja on Wednesday 28th August 2024, with a view to verifying and authenticating aspirants’ certificates before they contest primaries of their political parties,” he said
Dantalle emphasised that IPAC took this bold step to restore sanity in the electoral process and effectively detect these fake documents that embarrass political parties and bring the country’s democracy to disrepute.