Ogun State office of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, warned the 2,445 officials engaged for today’s by-election for the Remo Federal Constituency of the state against falling into the temptation of any inducement or face the sanctions alone.
INEC’s resident electoral commissioner (REC) for the state, Mrs. Saseyi Feyijimi, specifically declared that the commission would not defend any of the ad-hoc staff that gets himself or herself involved in any infraction.
Feyijimi gave the warning while speaking with journalists yesterday in Abeokuta, the state capital while coordinating the inspection, deployment and movements of sensitive materials from the premises of the Abeokuta Zonal office of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives seat for Remo Federal Constituency became vacant following the death of House of Representatives’ Deputy Chief Whip, Otunba Adewunmi Oriyomi Onanuga, popularly called Ijaya.
The late former Deputy Chief Whip, Onanuga, who represented the Constituency on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC), died on the 15th of January, 2025 after a protracted illness.
Addressing newsmen yesterday however, REC Feyijimi, who coordinated the movements of the sensitive materials from the CBN’s premises in Abeokuta zonal office, told reporters that the Commission was fully committed to transparency in the conduct of the bye-election.
The inspection and movement of the materials were witnessed by critical state holders, including security agencies and agents of three political parties: Olusegun Bankole of the All Progressives Congress APC; Afolabi Orekoya of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Ayodeji Daodu of the Accord Party (AP).
”Today we are at the CBN to pick sensitive materials – the result sheets and ballot papers. The non – sensitive materials have been distributed to the local governments areas earlier. The critical stakeholders are here, members of the inter – agency consultative committee on election security are all here.
We have the supporting Resident Electoral Commissioner from Lagos who is also here and we have the political parties present.
”The usual practice is to distribute materials in the open so that everybody can see. And all can see that the materials have not been opened and pictures have been taken for everybody to see that we are doing it in a transparent manner
”We promise to be fair, to be just and be open to all. Every exercise that we do, we publish it. We have a platform for the media and we have a platform for the security agencies. We tell them at every point in time what we are going to do. That is why they are all here and we have made it so open. Even in the local governments where elections are taking place, our officers in conjunction with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) have been sensitizing the people. Nothing is hidden and our doors are open,’’ he said.
