2023 Election Will Proceed Despite Attacks – INEC Chairman

Professor Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has assured that the commission will do everything within its means to conduct credible elections in 2023 despite repeated attacks on its offices across the country.

Yakubu stated this on Monday when he met with the West Africa Elders’ Forum whose membership comprises former presidents of countries in the sub-region, among others.

The INEC chairman appealed to citizens to see facilities of the commission as ‘national assets’ and stop vandalizing them.

“Our preparations are approaching concluding stages. We are conducting the 2023 General Election with a new Electoral Act and several innovations in voter accreditation and result management. We are confident in our processes but we will not be complacent. Responsibilities within our control are handled diligently.

“However, there are a few areas of concern, the main one being the prevailing insecurity in the country. In less than two weeks, three of our Local Government offices were attacked across the country, bringing the total number of such attacks to seven in the last four months.

“While we want to reassure Nigerians that we will recover from these attacks, and the election will proceed as scheduled, we would like to appeal to all citizens to see the Commission’s facilities as national asset. It is our collective responsibility to join hands in protecting them. The attacks must stop and the perpetrators swiftly apprehended and prosecuted,” said Yakubu.

The Forum’s delegation to the INEC chairman included the former president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, and ex-Gambian vice president, Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang.

The former African leaders are on a pre-election assessment visit to INEC to discuss the level of preparedness of the commission ahead of the forthcoming elections.

Nigeria’s 2023 presidential and national assembly elections will be held on February 25, 2023, while governorship and state assembly elections will take place on March 11, 2023.