Ahead of the July 14th Governorship Elections in Ekiti State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said, the commitment of election observers will add value to the credibility of the electoral process. The Commission’s Public relations officer IN Ekiti State, Taiwo Gbadegesin said this on Wednesday while addressing YIAGA Africa’s WatchingTheVote Master trainers in Ekiti State
According to Mr Gbadegesin, observers should show keen interest in what the presiding officers will be doing on election. He also urged observers to always draw attention of INEC officials and monitors anytime the need arises.
Speaking on the Commission’s readiness for the Ekiti Governorship elections, he said INEC has stepped down distribution of Permanent Voters Card (PVC) to ward level in the state. Mr Gbadegesin expects high turnout of voters saying there is high turnout for PVC collection.
On credibility and transparency of the election, he said “we have updated the software of the smart card reader which will make it impossible to breach”. “No matter how you clone the PVC, you can’t beat the card reader”, he asserted.
He concluded by saying the commission and its staff are not prepared to compromise the process as officials have undergone trainings for the past nine weeks to ensure a credible and hitch-free process.
YIAGA Africa’s WatchingTheVote has successfully conducted refresher training for 42 Master trainers and the WTV team. The Master trainers have since deployed to all 16 Local Government Areas in Ekiti State to train the 500 citizen observers ahead of the July 14th Governorship Elections observation.
On election day, 500 observers will be deployed to 25o sampled polling units to observe, document and report the Election day activities to WatchingTheVote database. YIAGA Africa’s WTV will independently verify the accuracy of the Ekiti Governorship elections result announced by INEC.
