INEC responds to question about petrol price hike affecting Edo election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the recent hike in the price of petrol will not affect the conduct of the Edo governorship election.

The Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairperson, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said this while fielding questions from reporters during the pre-election news conference in Abuja.

Mr Oyekanmi said the commission was already meeting with officials of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to discuss the new development.

“Well, first of all, I am aware that the commission, in the last couple of days, met with the officials of the NURTW to discuss this matter, and I’m sure the resolution was reached.

“Of course, when you are planning for election, you have what is called contingency, because you don’t know what can happen. There could be changes and all of that.

“So, we don’t expect transporters to operate at a loss. If oil has gone up, for instance, and they now want some increment, this could be discussed.

“Like I said, I wasn’t part of the meeting, but the meeting was held, and I’m sure some agreement was reached.

“We have to conduct that election. So, I don’t think that will cause some problems,” he said.

Provisions for PWDs

On the commission’s preparations for Persons Living with Disabilities’ (PWDs) participation in the election, Mr Oyekanmi said INEC would continue to do its best to help PWDs exercise their franchise.

He said that though the facilities, mostly public ones such as schools, used for polling units may not be purposely built for PWDs, the electoral officers had been trained to offer the needed assistance to them to cast their votes.

“Normally, our presiding officers are trained that when they see anybody on the wheelchair or anyone regarded as PWD, the person comes straight to the front of the queue, and Nigerians cooperate with us on that.

“For instance, the elderly people, people in wheelchairs, people with special needs, and physically pregnant people, not people who put something in their tummy, we give them that respect,” he said.

Measures in place against rigging

Mr Oyekanmi also said that INEC has put measures in place to prevent cases of prefilled result sheets witnessed in Kogi from happing in Edo or future elections anywhere in the country.

“I can assure you that the commission took active steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“Our result sheets cannot be forged because they are custom-made. They have security features and nobody knows what those security features will be.

“So, INEC has been able to perfect that aspect, that if you go ahead and print result sheets, you have just wasted your time because you will not have access to what we have, and you will not be able to make use of it.

“Again, our resource management process takes care of errant behaviour like that,” Mr Oyekanmi said.

He also assured Nigerians that it would not be possible to collate results in any polling unit where an election is not held in Edo.

“That’s not possible because if an election is not held in a place, it has to be reported,” he said.

Mr Oyekanmi said there was no polling unit with zero voters in Edo hence election was expected to hold in all the polling units across the state.

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“All the polling units, over 4,500 of them, will be used. So, there is no polling unit that will not have voters.

“However, if election does not take place because of one reason or the other, of course, the presiding officer has the duty to report that,” Mr Oyekanmi said.

(NAN)