14th April, 2011
Oyo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, (INEC), Mr. Ayo Adakeja thursday revealed that the ballot papers and other sensitive materials that would be used for the presidential poll on Saturday are already in the strong room of the commission in the state.
Disclosing this in Ibadan during a stakeholders meeting, Adakeja said the commission received the ballot papers in the presence of the agents of all the political parties in the state.
“All the ballot papers will get to all the locations a day to the election so as to avoid late arrival on the election day as we experienced during the National Assembly election held last Saturday,” he said.
Adakeja noted that the commission will be improving in its service to the nation on daily basis, stressing that the hiccup in the last election would be avoided in the subsequent ones.
Commenting on the attitude of Taofeek Arapaja, the Deputy Governor during the National Assembly election where he used security men and hoodlums to chase the supporters of non PDP members out of the polling unit, Adakeja assured that the incident would be discussed at the security meeting.
He said that it was wrong for politicians or political office holders to move around on election day, adding that any political office holder spotted at the polling units where he is not doing anything will be arrested and prosecuted.
He also assured that adequate security would be provided in Oke-Ogun Area of the state as the absence of security in the area almost caused problem during the last poll.
Answering questions from the representatives of the political parties, Adakeja said the commission had never promised that the polling units would be supplied with manual registers, stressing, “We did not say we will bring manual registers to the polling units but we will use it to upgrade voters’ register. We want to adhere strictly to the electronic voters’ register. But we will also ensure that all the eligible voters vote.”
Adakeja advised youth corps members to improve on their human relation with the electorate and other stakeholders.
By Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan