Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said any observer group for the Edo and Ondo governorship elections which violates the Code of Conduct for observers, as outlined in the Guidelines for Election Observation on the commission’s website, will have its accreditation withdrawn.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of the Election and Party Monitoring Committee, Sam Olumekun said this in his keynote address at the pre-election workshop with election observers on Edo and Ondo governorship polls.
Olumekun also reminded 134 accredited groups that the Commission does not provide any funding for observers’ accreditation.
While expressing concern over the integrity in election observation, he said, “there are quite a number of trustworthy, honest, objective, hardworking and credible observer groups in the Country and who have contributed greatly to deepening democracy and the electoral process in Nigeria over the years, but there are still others who have continued to display laxity about election observation and have cared less about the integrity of the entire process”.
Olumekun said the training is to enable accredited observer groups, to be well acquainted with the online processes of uploading field observers, the functionality of BVAS, codes of conduct of election observation, Election Day processes and procedures as well as other operations, innovations and preparations of the commission towards the forthcoming elections.
He said the forthcoming Edo and Ondo Governorship elections are being conducted as off-cycle elections (that is, elections conducted outside the country’s regular electoral cycle) due to the end of the governors’ tenures in the two States.
Olumekun said, “A total of 153 applications were received from interested Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for the two elections. After review and assessment as provided by our Regulations and Guidelines, 134 groups (124 domestic and 10 international) met the requirements for accreditation.
“The classification of the accredited groups showed that 28 are gender-based, 3 represent persons with disability, 8 are faith-based, 10 international and over 100 others working in areas relevant to the functions of the Commission.
“Most of these organisations possess previous experiences of election observation. A few, however, have been granted observation for the first time to offer them opportunities to observe the election processes and enable them to contribute their quota in assessing and improving democratic principles.
“As accredited Observer Groups, you will be allowed access to all the election processes as outlined in the Commission’s Reviewed Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections (available at INEC website: www.inecnigeria.org).
“Your organisation is required to obtain the access code (Accreditation Number) and number of field observers to be deployed from the Election and Party Monitoring (EPM) Department to enable you to process the online submission of your field observers on an LGA-by-LGA basis by completing the required Forms online.
“You are to do this by uploading your field observers’ names and passport photographs to enable the Commission to issue them with Identity Cards’.
The acting director of election and party monitoring (EPM), Hauwa Habib, described election observation as an integral part of elections globally, saying it is in the interest of any democratic set-up that observers are updated with rules and regulations, processes, and procedures.
