Barely six days to Nigeria’s national elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that it would, this week, convene an emergency security meeting with relevant security agencies to deliberate on the escalating spate of protests across the country stressing that it is prepared to hold the polls as scheduled.
Although the commission declined to disclose the date for the meeting, it, however, explained that the disturbing spate of protests have necessitated the emergency meeting to secure assurances from the security agencies on the possibility of securing the environment for the elections to go ahead peacefully nationwide.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, made the disclosure while fielding questions from newsmen after inspecting the training of ad-hoc staff and the venue of the Collation Centre for the presidential election at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja.
His words: ‘On what is happening around the country, the protest that you mentioned, it is a security matter. This is an issue that we are going to discuss with the security agencies. As you know we have our own role clearly cut out and others also have their own roles clearly cut out, but the most important thing is that we are working together.’
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‘The security agencies have assured and reassured that they will secure the environment for elections to hold peacefully nationwide. So, we have no issues in that respect.’
Yakubu also commented on speculations that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may not meet up with INEC’s demand for cash to execute some of the election day logistics, assuring that the apex bank would not fail.
‘We visited the CBN last week on the issue of cash for payment of some of the services not all, some of the services that we are going to engage on election day. The bulk of payments for goods, works and services are made by the commission through electronic transfer.
‘However, there are certain critical services that we have to remunerate by cash. And that is why we went to the CBN for help, but it is a small percentage of the budget and the CBN has assured us that, as I keep saying, we will not suffer any encumbrances in that regard, so there are no issues with respect to that,’ he assured.
He also disclosed that the presidential candidates of the political parties would on Wednesday formally sign a peace accord in Abuja, assuring that in terms of logistics arrangements, the commission is battle-ready for this week’s poll.
‘Let me formally inform you on behalf of the National Peace Committee that the candidates will be signing the peace accord in Abuja on Wednesday. In terms of election logistics arrangements, like the movement of sensitive and non-sensitive materials, the commission is very much ready to go,’ Yakubu assured.
Giving further assurances, the INEC boss emphasised that the votes of the Nigerian electorate would count.