By Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
Ekiti State governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be held responsible on electoral violence in the country.
Fayose said INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu should first purge the electoral commission under him of partisanship and election manipulations before seeking the establishment of Electoral Offences Tribunal. “INEC, under the present dispensation is the number one electoral offender and that electoral reform without INEC neutrality is a mirage.”
The governor alleged “any tribunal established under this present dispensation will only be used against opposition parties as the Department of States Services (DSS), Police, armed forces and other agencies of the Federal Government were used during the Bayelsa and Rivers States elections.”
His Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka quoted the governor as saying that; “even though establishment of the tribunal is not entirely a bad idea, but, INEC as presently constituted, does not encourage free, fair and violence free election and it should worry Prof Yakubu that INEC, as at today, is being referred to as Inconclusive National Electoral Commission because of the commission’s partisanship.”
The governor, who described electoral violence as a product of electoral injustice, said even President Buhari himself admitted his failure to conduct any free, fair and credible election since he assumed office.
“During the Rivers State rerun elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was missing on result sheets of over 230 polling units and, up till now, all what INEC has been able to tell Nigerians was that the criminal omission of PDP in the result sheets was due to printers error. Was that not enough to cause violence?”