As the Independent National Electoral Commission continues to work hard to ensure a credible process in the forthcoming general elections, political parties as well as their supporters have been warned to desist from personal attacks during rallies and focus on issue base campaign.
The warning is as a result of recent reports of violent clashes among parties and their supporters in some states of the country during the ongoing campaigns.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu gave the warning at the opening ceremony of The ‘Training of Master Trainers’ on the use of Technologies for the 2023 General Elections in Abuja.
The training is aimed at enabling the commission and its officials to effectively handle issues that may arise from the technology deployed for the polls.
According to Yakubu, violent act does not only violate the Electoral Act 2022 but also negate the voluntary commitment by all political parties and candidates to the letter and spirit of the Peace Accord signed about three weeks ago under the auspices of the National Peace Committee (NPC).
The INEC boss further assured Nigerians that there is no going back on the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation system (BVAS) and INEC result viewing portal (IREV) for the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
In his goodwill message, the Country Director, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, IFES/Nigeria, Seray Jah, expressed the Foundation’s readiness to continually partner with INEC in achieving its mission of serving as an independent and effective election management body committed to conducting free, fair, and credible elections for sustainable democracy in Nigeria.
The Commission further disclosed that it is keenly monitoring political activities and will meet with the leadership of the 18 registered political parties next week.
