Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu says that contrary to what people may think, INEC has nothing to hide regarding the conduct of the 2023 general flections.
He made the comment at the Post Election Review of the 2023 General Elections with media stakeholders in Lagos on Wednesday, August 2, 2023.
Yakubu admitted that there were many challenges during the last elections but said there were also many positive things that came out of the 2023 polls and there will be continuous improvement by the commission in conducting elections nationwide.
The INEC boss stated that as part of the review it was undertaking, the commission would like to know what constraints the media experienced right from the process of accreditation, to access to locations of polling units and collation centres during the elections.
Yakubu further said that the electoral body may approach the National Assembly to amend the law to accommodate Nigerians that were unable to vote, because of the nature of their jobs.
He said; “This is an opportunity for the media executives in their various organisations to tell us what they have seen and how we can continue to improve the electoral process in the future.
“The commission has nothing to hide and it is this type of interaction that we continuously improve on the process for future elections. Clearly, there are many positives coming from the general elections and at the same time, we admit that there are many challenges in the last election.
“There are several election litigations at the various elections tribunals nationwide while we should be careful not to touch on issues that are clearly subjudice. For instance, there are many Nigerians that did not have the opportunity to vote on election day simply because our laws say that you can only vote where you are registered.
“So most of the journalists on the election day worked in places other than where they are registered so they didn’t have the opportunity to vote. This doesn’t apply only to journalists, it also applies to officials of INEC itself; the regular and ad-hoc officials, including the security agencies.
“So through this kind of interaction, we get recommendations coming from stakeholders and see in what area we are going to approach the National Assembly to amend the laws.”
