INEC commences post-election review

By Joel Oladele, Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced post-election review with the electoral officers and transport workers who participated in the 2023 general elections.

The meeting which was held in Abuja on Wednesday was part of efforts by the electoral body to improve on its performance in future elections.

In his opening remarks, the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu said the success of any election depends on the ability to deploy personnel and materials to various locations. An exercise he described as very challenging in the last elections due to infrastructure and insecurity issues.

Recall that INEC had at the meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) held two weeks ago announced the commencement of the post-election review.

This was followed a week later by State level review meetings nationwide involving the Commission regular staff and ad hoc officials.

“There is no doubt that the success of any election primarily depends on the ability to deploy personnel and materials to various locations. In Nigeria, this involves the biggest logistic deployment the nation periodically undertakes across vast terrains and often difficult topography.

“This has been a perennial challenge over time but is now compounded by issues of infrastructure and insecurity. However, the Commission has to deploy personnel and materials not only for Election Day activities but electoral activities in general covering the period before, during and after the elections.

“Many of these activities such as the Continuous Registration of Voters (CVR), monitoring of party primaries for the nomination of candidates for the election and the procurement and deployment of sensitive and non-sensitive materials must be accomplished ahead of the election otherwise critical Election Day processes will be impossible,” Yakubu said.

He noted that the meeting will be focusing on a wide range of theme which include: General State of Preparedness for the 2023 General Election; Voters Registration Process and the associated issues of Adequacy of Timing, Display of Voter Register for Claims and Objections, Clean-up of Voter Register, PVC Collection among others.

Speaking further, the INEC boss urged participants to be committed to the exercise with sincerity as a report will be made thereafter to help in the forthcoming elections.

“Similarly, in line with the Commission’s policy, when the review engagements are completed, a comprehensive report will be prepared. I therefore urge you to lend your wealth of experience to the discussions in order to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses for immediate improvement in forthcoming elections, especially the three off-cycle Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States scheduled to hold on Saturday 11th November 2023.