By David Lawani
Fresh from the successful conduct of two off-season governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, yesterday assured that the conduct of the 2023 general elections will be taken a notch higher and will be the best in the history of electoral processes.

Yakubu gave the assurance when he received a delegation from the International Republican Institute (IRI)

and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), led by the Secretary of State of the State of Ohio, in the United States of America, Frank LaRose, at the Commission’s Headquarters, Abuja on Tuesday, 19th July 2023.

While acknowledging the kind words and commendations from the delegation for the smooth conduct of last Saturday’s Osun governorship election, the INEC Chairman noted that there was more work to be done.

He maintained that the Commission would not rest on its oars to deliver its promise of conducting the best election ever.

Yakubu said, “There is still a lot of work to be done and we assure you that we will continue to work not only hard but even harder to deliver the 2023 general election”.

“I want to assure you that we promised Nigerians that Ekiti was going to be good and Ekiti was a good election. We promised that Osun was going to be better, Osun was a better election. We are promising that the 2023 general election will be our best election ever and we are committed to delivering the best election ever.”

Earlier in his remarks, the Secretary of state for the State of Ohio and leader of the delegation, Mr.

LaRose commended the Commission for the steady and visible improvement in the electoral process in Nigeria.

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He explained that as observers in the just concluded Osun governorship election, they witnessed first-hand, the effort that INEC has put in to continually deliver safe elections to the people of Nigeria, even though he agreed with the INEC Chairman that there was room for improvement.

“First, I want to commend you all for the ongoing work that you do to continue to improve. Of course, we always know there is room to get better, but we need to first recognise the continuous improvement that INEC has made to deliver safe elections to the people of Nigeria, and that is something that we were able to see first-hand.

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“We took the opportunity to visit Osun because that was only the second time election had been conducted under the new electoral law. We met with the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Osun State, and we observed dozens, many different polling locations on Election Day,” he stressed.

Explaining the purpose of their visit to the Commission, LaRose said, “I lead a delegation of high-level election experts from around the region, as well as from the United States, who share with you the common belief that the people of Nigeria deserve to continue to have free, fair, and accessible elections, so we are working to prepare for the presidential election in 2023”.

*Commission retains CBN services on custody of election materials

Meanwhile, INEC has reversed its position over the custody of election materials which it earlier took off the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The commission said it will continue to keep sensitive election materials with the CBN ahead of the 2023 general elections.

This was disclosed by the National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, INEC, Festus Okoye during a Channels Television programme late Monday.

Okoye noted that the commission would resume engagement with the CBN on how to resolve issues concerning the storage of election materials.

Recall that INEC had in June declared that sensitive election materials would no longer be in the custody of the apex bank over the criticisms that trailed the affiliation of the Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele, with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Okoye, however, said INEC would face what he described as “a logistics nightmare” if it does not reach a deal with the CBN over its election materials.

He said, “It is going to be a huge logistics nightmare. What do we intend to do going forward, since there are issues with keeping our materials with CBN? We have not had enough opportunity to sit down with the Central Bank to review the entire issue surrounding the moving of our materials with the Nigerian Air Force.

“We are going to do that. If at the end of the day, we are not satisfied with the arrangement, then we are going to look for a new logistics pathway for how to manage logistics during the 2023 elections. But no decision has been made.

“You cannot use the Ekiti governorship election and Osun governorship election as a measure of what will happen in 2023.
“This is because, for instance, in the Ekiti governorship election, we had less than a million registered voters. In the Osun governorship election, we were shy of two million registered voters. These are stand-alone elections.

“For the Ekiti election, we utilised the service of the Nigerian Air force and they flew the materials into Akure airport. We did the same thing with the Osun election, and we moved the materials to our state offices,” he added