16th June, 2022
By Jethro Ibileke
With less that 48 hours to the governorship election in Ekiti State, Yiaga Africa has expressed immense worry about the perennial challenge of poor logistics plans in elections in Nigeria.
It however applauded the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)’s decision to refrain from storing sensitive materials at the Central Bank of Nigeria due to allegations of partisanship levelled against the Governor of the CBN.
The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo and Ezenwa Nwagwu (Board Member), expressed these sentiments at a pre-election briefing held Thursday in Ado Ekiti.
They noted that in recent times, the partnership with the NURTW was soured by sabotage and greed by the union.
“Yiaga Africa welcomes the intervention of the Ewi of Ekiti urging members of the NURTW to desist from sabotaging INEC’s logistics plan.
“The Commission should consider alternative and viable options of ensuring effective and timely deployment of election materials to polling units in the event the NURTW defaults.
“Despite this challenge, Yiaga Africa notes INEC’s commitments during the pre-election period to smooth logistics deployment during the Ekiti governorship election,” they said.
Yiaga Africa further noted that the shift in the protocol for managing the deployment of sensitive materials places a huge responsibility on INEC to ensure the safety and security of sensitive materials as well as effective deployment to LGAs and Registration Centres.
It charged the electoral umpire to adequately inform key stakeholders and the public of INEC’s new strategy for the deployment of sensitive materials.
“Additionally, the security agencies should support the quest for credible and peaceful polls by providing adequate security to INEC to guarantee the safety of sensitive materials and timely deployment to the polling units,” it added.