The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has denied insinuations that it received huge sums of money from development partners for the conduct of the 2023 general election.
INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu made the clarifications at a consultative meeting with Civil society Organisations on the Review of the 2023 general election in Abuja.
Prof Yakubu said contrary to opinions in some quarters,INEC only received indirect support from donor agencies through civil society Organisations and implementing partners working on elections.
The INEC boss who noted that the essence of the meeting was to review the conduct of the last elections and deliberate on ways of improving the process however expressed reservation that only about 30 percent of the 228 accredited to monitor the polls have so far submitted theirr reports.
Responding on behalf of the CSOs, the Executive Director, Centre for Transparency Advocacy, CTA Faith Nwadishi harped on the relevance of election monitoring reports to INEC and urged the CSOs to do the needful. She called on INEC to expedite action on the prosecution of election offenders as that would go along way in restoring confidence to the electorate.
Key agenda for discuss at the meeting includes plans for the upcoming bye-elections and preparations for the off-cycle Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States scheduled for Saturday 11th November 2023 among others.
