The Independent National Electoral Commission has assured that the recent hike in petrol price will not affect the conduct of the Edo governorship election.
The Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, made this known during a pre-election news conference in Abuja.
Oyekanmi said: “Well, first of all, I am aware that the commission, in the last couple of days, met with the officials of the NURTW to discuss this matter, and I’m sure the resolution was reached.”
He added: “Of course, when you are planning for election, you have what is called contingency, because you don’t know what can happen. There could be changes and all of that.”
Oyekanmi further stated: “So, we don’t expect transporters to operate at a loss. If oil has gone up, for instance, and they now want some increment, this could be discussed.”
He also said: “Like I said, I wasn’t part of the meeting, but the meeting was held, and I’m sure some agreement was reached.”
Oyekanmi assured: “We have to conduct that election. So, I don’t think that will cause some problems.”
On INEC’s preparations for Persons Living with Disabilities participation in the exercise, Oyekanmi said: “Normally, our Presiding Officers are trained that when they see anybody on the wheelchair or anyone regarded as PWD, the person comes straight to the front of the queue, and Nigerians cooperate with us on that.”
He added: “For instance, the elderly people, people on wheelchairs, people with special needs, and physically pregnant people, not people who put something in their tummy, we give them that respect.”
Oyekanmi also assured that INEC had put measures in place to prevent cases of prefilled result sheets witnessed in Kogi from reoccurring in Edo or future elections anywhere in the country.
He said: “I can assure you that the Commission took active steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Oyekanmi further stated: “In fact, our result sheets cannot be forged because they are custom-made. They have security features and nobody knows what those security features will be.”
He added: “So, INEC has been able to perfect that aspect, that if you go ahead and print result sheets, you have just wasted your time, because you will not have access to what we have and you will not be able to make use of it.”
Oyekanmi also assured Nigerians that it would not be possible to collate results in any polling unit where election is not held in Edo.
He said: “That’s not possible, because if an election is not held in a place, it has to be reported.”
Oyekanmi also stated that there was no polling unit with zero voters in Edo, hence election was expected to hold in all the polling units across the state.
He said: “All the polling units, over 4,500 of them will be used. So, there is no polling unit that will not have voters.”
Oyekanmi added: “However, if election does not take place because of one reason or the other, of course, the presiding officer has the duty to report that.”