BREAKING: INEC Clarifies Tinubu Loyalist MC Oluomo’s Involvement In Election Materials Distribution

– Print PVCs Yourself And Go To Jail – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has clarified the alleged involvement of a loyalist of the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the distribution of materials to be used for the forthcoming general election.

Outrage had greeted reports that Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo, who is the former chairman of the defunct National Union of Road Transport Workers in Lagos, had been granted permission by INEC to coordinate distribution of election materials by drivers hired by the commission.

This came after the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Olusegun Agbaje, revealed on Tuesday in Lagos that the commission had no option but to engage the Oluomo-led Lagos State Parks Management Committee in the distribution of election materials in the state.

Agbaje stated this during a meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) at the INEC office in Lagos.

Reacting, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, called on INEC to remove Agbaje as its Lagos REC.

But clarifying the statement during a live interview monitored by THE WHISTLER on Wednesday, the INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, said the electoral umpire was not working with Oluomo but with individual drivers who were made to sign individual contracts with the commission.

“I think we need to put the issue in context. We have 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. In all these states and throughout this particular period, ranging from even the 2015 elections up till this particular, we have always used drivers for purpose of distributing election materials. For the 2023 general election, the commission needs at least 138,000 vehicles,” Okoye said on News Central TV.

“We’re also going to hire at least 4,000 boats, and we’re going to hire at least 88,000 motorcycles to move our personnel and also move our materials across all the states of the Federation.

“We have an MOU with the National Union of Road Transport Workers and that MoU is for them to act as, if you’d permit me to use the word, to put an eye on some of their members to make sure that they do what is right.

“We have a contract with individual drivers. Each driver that is going to convey any of our materials will be given a contractor sign. So, our contract is between the individual driver andthe commission and not with the union.”

Okoye stressed that INEC only signed an memorandum of understanding with transport unions so that “if we have hired a particular vehicle and they know their members and the person does not show up on Election day, they will assist us and call the person and find out why the person has not showed up on Election Day.”

He added, “For states that did not have a national union of road transport workers, what we need is a situation where we can be sure that a particular driver belongs to the union or a particular driver can be located on Election Day so that the driver does not collect money and disappear.

“We are also profiling all those drivers through the Federal Road Safety Commission. They will profile them individually and also make sure that the vehicles they are producing are road worthy. So, we have contract with individual drivers, the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURT) do not have vehicles, the individuals have. The National Association of Road Transport Owners do not drive vehicles, the individuals do.

“So, it is those drivers that we have contract with. What we have with the unions or any other organs or agencies is a memorandum of understanding. But in terms of moving our election materials and personnel, it is with the individual drivers that we have contract.”

Meanwhile, Okoye reacted to reports claiming that INEC would permit persons who were unable to obtain their Permanent Voter Cards from the commission to print personally print their PVCs.

He warned that anyone caught with PVCs not issued by the commission would be prosecuted according to provisions of the law.

The INEC spokesman further revealed that persons whose PVCs were burnt during arson attacks on the commission’s offices have been taken off. According him, INEC has reprinted PVCs destroyed by the attackers.