Yusuf Oketola
THE Resident Electoral Commissioner of State of Osun, Professor AbdulGaniy Raji, has reiterated the readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to organise a conclusive election at the July 16, 2022 governorship poll in the state.
Raji stated that INEC has embarked on voter’s education, sensitisation and enlightenment towards a credible election in the state.
He made this known while addressing newsmen on Wednesday during the Commission Voter’s education workshop organised for critical stakeholders in the electioneering process.
The REC noted that the workshop was organised to train their staffs, stakeholders, supporting organisations and agencies on people’s expectations from them and also on how to respect voter’s rights.
He added that the commission is ready to organise a transparent process and to conduct conclusive election.
Raji said: “This is a workshop on voter’s education and orientation. The programme is meant to sensitise and enlighten people on their civic right on electioneering systems. This start from what an election is, what are the requirements and who is involved and what are the steps to follow.
“It starts from Continuous Voters’ Registration, an exercise which we have concluded in Osun. Before that, we did a lot of voter’s education sensitisation enlightenment and thereafter this implementation process is meant for the next stage towards election, where we are going to sensitise people on election processes, the right of people during the election, voters expectations from our staff and other stakeholders.
“The supporting organisations and agencies that will come to participate in the election. The roles of the voters and the community at large at ensuring that we have peaceful election while the commission is making efforts to ensure that we follow the normal standard and procedures in assuring the people that as much as possible to ensure that we are not partisan, we are not taking side and we assure them of credible election.
“We will make sure that in the election, we are transparent. We are also through the voters’ education, seeking for people’s supports and cooperation to ensure that we join hands together.
“We don’t want disruption during the election, we don’t want an inconclusive election and we are going to conduct a conclusive election. Those who are trained at today’s workshop are our electoral officers who are heading the local governments in the state and their assistants. In each local government, we have three assistants.
“In each local government, we have minimum of assistants that are senior staff. All our head of departments at the state headquarters and the management team are also here, about 12 corps members who have been going round markets with posters and placards to sensitize people on voters education which help us greatly during the Continuous Voters’ Registration are also here.
“This process is very important part of the election process. Today, we have those who are major stakeholders in this workshop and the INEC headquarters have also sent a powerful team, about four deputy directors from voter’s education department, gender and inclusive.
Raji also noted that about 370,000 Permanent Voter’s Cards of those who registered between 2011 and 2018 are yet to be collected.
He stressed that people are not coming to collect their PVCs in spite of all the sensitisation and enlightenment.
The REC reiterated that PVC of those who registered from June 2021 to March 2022 will be ready for collection as from next week.
