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We Can Conduct LG Elections If Given Responsibility – INEC Boss
…reiterate readiness of commission for Edo, Ondo Gubernatorial elections
By Gloria Ikibah
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has disclosed that it can comfortably conduct local government elections if given the responsibility.
Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this when he appeared before the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters on preparations for the upcoming governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States on Thursday in Abuja.
He explained that INEC has the capacity to handle the local government elections but that would only be possible pending when the law is amended to permit it to do so.
He highlighted that the Commission had been conducting area council elections in the Federal Capital Territory which has been devoid of the problems associated with the conduct of local government elections.
Prof. Yakubu noted that some advantages of INEC handling elections includes the conduct of elections as and when due, stability of tenure, and also that there has never been a caretaker committee in the FCT.
The INEC chairman also noted that there has never been a time one political party has won all the seats at the elections as is common in the states.
He said if INEC handles the election, it would be better for democracy.
But however this he said can only happen if the constitution is amended to take the responsibility from State Electoral Commissions.
Yakubu also said it was more challenging to conduct off-cycle elections than general elections.
He also raised security concerns in the Edo State election with the likely deployment of the Edo State Security Network for the polls.
The INEC boss said the flood that affected the Edo office soaked their BVAS machines but that they recover most of them.
He also pointed out that the power of incumbency was a major challenge against the conduct of elections.
He said, “You wanted to know the position of the Commission on issues surrounding the Supreme Court judgement and local government elections, the position of the Commission. So far we have had three broad positions canvassed. One, the transfer of responsibility for the conduct of local government elections to INEC. The question is if that is done, can INEC cope? The second proposition we have had is that there should be a new federal electoral commission for local government elections and thirdly there is another argument that says leave the state electoral commission to conduct local government elections in the spirit of federalism but find a way of ensuring that they improve on the conduct of local government elections.
“Right now the law has not been amended. The same Constitution that creates INEC also creates the States Electoral Commissions. So it is up to the National Assembly to amend the law to transfer that responsibility to the INEC. If the responsibility for the conduct of local government election is transferred to INEC, can INEC cope? The answer is yes! INEC can cope.
“What are we? By definition, INEC is the Independent National Electoral Commission but right now we do national elections, we do state elections, we do local government elections. A national electoral commission may be expected to handle only the Presidential and National Assembly elections but we also do governorship elections, we do State Assembly elections and do the Area Councils Elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the only part of the country where INEC conducts local government elections.
“So, if we are asked to do these elections, yes we can and actually our track record actually proves that we can do it. Check the case of FCT and I would like to say one or two things about the FCT local government elections. There are six Area Councils in the FCT. Like I said there are six chairmen in the FCT, there are 62 wards in the FCT. Each Ward is a councillorship Constituency for the election of Councilors and this is one part of the country that INEC has conducted local government elections and it has resulted in the following:
“Number one, it is perhaps only part of the country where local government elections are held regularly as at when due, elections are held in the FCT. Number two, there has never been a Caretaker Committee for any Area Council in the FCT, INEC has been conducting the election regularly. Number three, there is stability of tenure, it used to be three years but in 2022, the National Assembly amended the Electoral Act to provide for a four year tenure for Area Councils in the FCT. Number four, no single political party has ever won elections in all the constituencies in the FCT. In fact, what is interesting now is that out of the six chairmen of the FCT; APC had three Area Councils, PDP has three Area Councils. So there is no election where one party has dominated.
“Perhaps this is what has been encouraging many Nigerians to say that if INEC is saddled with the responsibility of conducting local government elections the same thing will be replicated and it is good for our democracy. But as I said, the same section of the Constitution that creates INEC also creates the SIECs so until the Constitution is amended and it transfers the responsibility to the commission, this is what our position is.
“In any case, if you transfer local government elections to INEC what it means is that you are going to transfer almost 10,000 Constituencies to INEC. We have 8,809 wards, each ward is a councillorship constituency. We have 774 local government areas and each local government has a chairman. So if you add this to the existing 1, 591 constituencies where INEC conducts elections is well over 11,000 constituencies but the election may not be held all in one day.
“So, in terms of capacity to do it, INEC can do it. We have been doing it in the Federal Capital Territory, we have no issues. But if the decision of the National Assembly is to amend the Constitution to saddle INEC with that responsibility, then we need an engagement with the National Assembly. There are certain consequential amendments that have to be done for us to handle those additional responsibilities. For instance, who is going to fund the 10,000 new Constituencies that INEC will be saddled with? There is a need for a discussion to determine who is going to fund it. Or will the Federal government continue to fund for the states?
You have to do something about the bye-elections. If INEC is saddled with additional 10,000 Constituencies we will probably be doing bye-elections every week.
“But broadly speaking, if you ask us if we can handle local government elections, yes we can handle the local government elections. When is it going to happen? When you amend the law and empower the commission to do so”, Yakubu stated.
He said so far out of 13 activities outlined and leading to the election as required by law from publication of notice for elections to conduct of election, eight has been implemented.
He stated: “We are on the ninth activity and not one activity has been shifted by one day. We have implemented those activities in Edo and Ondo seamlessly. The ninth activity is the submission of names of polling agents by political parties. For Edo, by the end of this month 30th July but for Ondo would be 30th of September.
“The Commission is prepared for the election. We are prepared. In terms of preparation we don’t anticipate much problems in spite of the unfortunate case of flooding in our Edo office. Not for the first time. In 2020 we actually operated from a rented facility but this time around thank God the act of God came early so we have enough time to respond and to conduct the election in our facilities.
“What is our concern for the Edo State governorship election is security.
When we were there one of the political parties raised an issue in Edo about the likely deployment of the ESSN. The Edo State Security Network. But immediately we received the complaint, we headed to the office of the Commissioner of Police and summoned a meeting with all security agencies in Edo state. We agreed to meet with all political parties and at that meeting we agreed to meet with all the political parties which we did the following day and the Commissioner of Police told us and the party leaders that he would take up the matter with the state government.
“The issue at that time was the ongoing continuous voter registration and since then I am not aware of any official complaints from any party or candidate on the role of the ESSN. I believe that the Commissioner of Police must have spoken to the leadership of the ESSN so far so good.
“We have conducted the continuous voter registration. A few of the registered voters require validation. We have 82 in Edo and 164 in Ondo. We started validation for these voters on Monday. As at yesterday we achieved 72 percent success for the validation.
“We are doing so because after the registration we are required by law to display the registers for claims and objections by citizens and also to do the Automated Biometrics Identification System.
“We are not happy with the quality of the biometrics for this 246 registered voters in the states out of over 260, 000 voters. So the number is actually 0.03 percent. It is the right of every registered Nigerian to be able to vote seamlessly during the election and it is our responsibility to ensure that every citizen is given the opportunity. By next week we would publish for Edo State, the final outcome of the continuous voter registration.
“The second concern is what we often grapple with. For the Commission it is more difficult to conduct off-cycle governorship elections than it is to conduct general elections. These off-cycle elections are very difficult and very challenging for us. For the simple reason that you have one stage conducting governorship elections and all the political parties would form their campaign councils and would deploy all the governors, all the honourable members in support of their colleagues.
“It becomes very challenging for us. But in the Nigerian election, all of you would be in your various constituencies fighting your own battles. But this one you would descend on a small constituency which makes the management of the process extremely difficult. Even accommodation becomes very difficult. In Osun for instance I was stranded because the politicians actually took over all the hotels when we went for the signing of the peace accord. I managed to get one room. The following day I had to rush to Akure to get back to Abuja. So it is more difficult because there is pressure on all facilities.
“Thirdly, the power of incumbency is used to the advantage or disadvantage of parties and candidates and this is a clear violation of the provision of the electoral act that prohibits the use of the power of incumbency to the advantage or disadvantage of any political party or candidate whether it is outdoor advertisement or campaign in the state media or the use of state facilities like stadia and public spaces.
“It has been an issue in previous elections. So far so good but it is now the campaign is heating up and this matter is likely to come up. Outside these concerns we have been doing well. For Edo there are 17 political parties fielding candidates. Only one female candidate. Others are male. There is no person with a disability in Edo State.
“In Ondo State we have 17 candidates. No female candidate. There is one person with disability in Ondo and that is the governorship candidate of the ADC. In Edo we have approved the names of 134 observers to cover the election. 124 are domestic observers and 10 are international observers. We’ll soon start printing the voter register for the two states.
“In Edo in terms of election technology we had a challenge when our office was flooded. The BVAS machines deployed were substantially soaked in water. The good thing is that we were able to recover well over 3500 of a little over 4000 BVAS machines in Edo State. They are all in working order. We are lucky that this is an odd cycle election so we can rely on resources from neighbouring states. So we have called for additional machines from Abia and they arrived in Edo yesterday, 58 days before the election. So we are very good to go on that score,” he added.
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By Gloria Ikibah
The House of Representatives has commenced investigations into the utilisation of take-off grants, bailout funds, and interventions allocated to government institutions, from 2015 to present.
The Special Committee received submissions from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Federal Ministry of Health, among others on Thursday.
Naijablitznews.com recalled on March 6, 2025, the Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, set up the special committee sequel to the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance, by the House Minority Leader, Rep. Kinglsey Chinda at plenary.
Rep. Chinda noted that over the years, various agencies and institutions, both old and newly created have received start-up funds and special financial support from the government to help with their initial operations and meet specific needs, including settling pending obligations.
He expressed concern that there have been ongoing reports pointing to the misuse or redirection of these funds, which may prevent them from being applied to the purposes for which they were originally intended.
According to him, such financial mishandling not only disrupts critical public services and projects but also results in major losses to the nation’s purse—resources that could have been channelled into crucial services and developmental efforts, as laid out in Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution.
Speaker Abbas, thereafter setup a Special Committee to be chaired by Rep. Chinedu Martins to immediately launch a probe into the “Utilisation of take-off grants, bailout funds, and interventions allocated to MDAs, government institutions, and GOEs from 2015 to present.”
Standing in for the Governor of the Central Bank, the Acting Director of Development Finance, John Hammah, assured the committee of the bank’s willingness to collaborate fully in helping it achieve its objectives.
Hammah, said he was representing Olayemi Cardoso, who is currently out of the country, appealed to the committee for some time to gather and organise the relevant details needed for their ongoing work.
He said: “Mr Chairman and Honourable members, We got the invitation to appear before you yesterday and we hurriedly put this report together. We now understand the broad scope of your assignment and that you need accurate data covering the period 2015 to date. We plead with this committee to give us additional time to enable us to furnish you with to date report as requested”.
Following extended discussions, the Committee Chairman Chinedu Martins granted the Central Bank a two-week window, instructing that the CBN Governor must appear in person before the Committee on May 2, 2025.
In a similar move, representative of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, James Abalaka, was also given two weeks to return with a detailed breakdown of disbursements, and highlighting which agencies received funds and the exact timelines.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was also in attendance, as the Commission’s Secretary, Muhammad Hammajoda, called on the Accountant General’s office to provide the EFCC with the necessary disbursement records related to the various MDAs.
“We want a formal report detailing the amounts and purpose of disbursement. This is the format we want the report to come from the secretariat. When we get these documents, we will sit down and analyse them”, he stated.
Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, Deputy Director Accounts, Olatunde Makinde, explained that the Ministry only received the Committee’s invitation earlier that Thursday.
To ensure accurate and complete information is provided, he requested additional time so the Ministry could gather the necessary documents before appearing.
“We don’t want to give you inaccurate information. We want to seek indulgence and understanding to give us time to reach out to the institutions under us and get an accurate view. There are many of them across the 36 states of the Federation,” he said.
Earlier, while declaring the investigation open the Speaker of the House of Representatives, represented by the House Leader, Rep. Julius Ihonvbere outlined the significance of the exercise.
He said: “The House has implicit confidence in the Committee’s capacity to conduct a thorough, impartial, and transparent investigation, engaging with relevant stakeholders, and gathering evidence to inform its findings.
“Our overall goal is to promote good governance, optimise public resource utilisation, enhance accountability in government business and equally strengthen our democracy.”
Also in his welcome address, the Committee Chairman, Rep. Martins reiterated that the purpose of the investigating hearing is to ensure that Nigerians get value for their money.
“It is imperative that we thoroughly investigate how these funds have been utilised, ensuring that every naira spent is accounted for and that it has truly benefited our citizens. Therefore, I would like to urge heads of agencies and organisations present today to provide truthful and accurate information to this committee in order to enable us to carry out our work.
“The hearing is not a witch-hunting exercise; rather, it is an opportunity for all stakeholders to come together in the spirit of cooperation. I assure all participants that we are committed to a fair hearing and respectful dialogue through this process,” he said.
The FCT Minister, Mr. Nyesom Wike, expressed satisfaction with the progress on the Abuja light rail project, reaffirming its May 29 delivery as sacrosanct.
He made these assurances after inspecting the ongoing construction of access roads to the train stations on Wednesday, from Metro Train Station in the Central Area to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Reassuring journalists accompanying him, the minister reiterated that President Bola Tinubu would commission the rail project on May 29 to mark his second year in office.
The visited stations were Wupa station near Idu and Bassanjiwa station near the airport.
“This is part of our routine inspection of ongoing projects to see the contractors’ progress,” Wike explained.
“We are working day and night to fulfill our promise to President Tinubu and FCT residents. By May, Mr. President will ride on the Metro line.”
Gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen are currently invading some communities in the Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State.
According to sources, the herdsmen armed with AK-47 rifles stormed the community around 04:15pm on Thursday.
“Our lives are in danger this evening, armed Fulani herdsmen, about 600 in numbers have taken over our communities this evening,” a resident told SaharaReporters.
“They’re currently moving around towns in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue state. No security personnel at all, Governor Alia didn’t send security, they said operation will start soon once they (herders) have observed the place.”
The insecurity situation in Benue has been alarming in recent weeks with attacks from gunmen suspected to be herdsmen.
The media had reported that suspected herdsmen again unleashed terror in Benue State, attacking three communities in Otukpo Local Government Area (LGA) on Wednesday, just a day after 11 people were killed in a deadly raid on Otobi community.
The latest victims of the escalating violence were Emichi, Odudaje, and Okpamaju, communities that had previously suffered an attack in February, which left five people dead.
However, the renewed attack has created fear and mass displacement among residents, with women and children fleeing to safety.
Local sources say the death toll from the fresh attack remains unclear, but several casualties are feared.
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