Ekiti, Osun elections’ll be different from Anambra – INEC

With gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun States slated for this year, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has assured that the elections in the two states won’t be like that of Anambra State.
Lagos Resident INEC Commissioner, Prof. Adekunle Ogunmola, gave the assurance yesterday when he hosted the state executives of the Oyo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, who paid him a courtesy call in Oyo. Ogunmola, who was reacting to questions by journalists on the reactions that greeted the fallout of the recent governorship election in Anambra State, said the noticeable flaws in the polls would not in any way jeopardise the elections coming up in the two states and the 2015 general elections.
He said the commission has been able to identify the root cause of the crisis and believed that it was not a general problem that could undermine the credibility of future elections in the country, especially the 2015 elections.
The INEC boss while lamenting that although the situation was blown out of proportion, identified the non-payment of the allowances of some officials and the omission of some voters’ names on the voters’ register as some of the problems that gave rise to the post-election crisis.
The resident commissioner said that INEC is already looking at reassessing the MoU it signed with the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, with the aim of improving on it while efforts are being made to update the voters’ registers.
He reasoned that given the structure put in place by the commission’s Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the commission is working on modalities to ensure that credibility and fairness are not compromised by any official of the commission in future elections.
While referring to the Anambra election as a blessing in disguise, he saw the situation from another angle, reasoning that, if there had not been any issue whatsoever in that election, the commission would have gone to rest on its oars, believing it has achieved perfection and fully ready ahead of the 2015 general polls.
He promised that the Osun and Ekiti governorship elections will never go the Anambra way, urging voters to ensure that they participate in the electoral process by going to cross-check their names as soon as the commission displays same; so that necessary correction would be made before the elections and avoid disenfranchising anyone.
The Chairman of the state NUJ, who led the delegation to the INEC boss, Gbenga Opadotun, in his address said the executive decided to visit the INEC boss to thank him for his support in the past and seek ways of soliciting for more support for some of the plans and programmes of the union in the years ahead.
While explaining some of the needs of the council, he requested for support for the widow of the late Oyo State correspondent of ThisDay newspapers, Mr. Tunde Sanni, as well as the provision of office equipment for the proposed state council of the newspaper.

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