Author: Akinmade Akintoye

There have been rumors circulated recently that INEC officials announced on radio that no one is allowed to be with a mobile phone at polling units during election tomorrow. However, we want to dispel the fear of the people of Osun that everyone has a right to handle their mobile phones during the election. The INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Wednesday at the stakeholders’ meeting, only said that no one is allowed to take pictures of ballot papers as this will compromise the open-secret ballot system of voting which the Nigerian constitution stipulates for elections, as directed by some parties to their supporters.

“To photograph the ballot paper will be a violation of the secrecy of the ballot. It is illegal and I will urge voters to disregard that directive.” [1]

[1]- http://www.punchng.com/news/dont-snap-ballot-papers-jega-warns-voters/ retrieved 8/8/2014 2:48pm.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has rescheduled the second phase of its programme of distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) involving 12 states

The PVCs will now be distributed at the polling unit level in the affected states from Friday, August 15, 2014 to Sunday, August 17, 2014; instead of July 18^th to July 20^thas was earlier scheduled. At the end of the polling unit level distribution, uncollected PVCs will be taken to respective local government office of the Commission for subsequent distribution.

CVR in the affected states will now be from Wednesday, August 20^th, 2014, to Monday, August 25^th, 2014; instead of July 23^rd to July 27^th as was earlier scheduled.

The states involved in the second phase of the programme are Yobe, Bauchi (North East), Jigawa, Sokoto (North West), FCT, Kwara (North Central), Anambra, Ebonyi (South East), Ondo, Oyo (South West) and Delta, Cross River (South South). 

With the rescheduling of Phase 2 of the programme, new dates will be announced later for Phase 3 involving Adamawa, Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Imo, Lagos, Ogun, Edo and Rivers states.

Kayode Robert Idowu

Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman

Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ambassador Rufus Akeju, has been requested to proceed on leave of absence – for his own safety and as his contribution to ensuring the credibility of the state governorship election scheduled for August 9, 2014.

 

Despite widespread applause for the recent Ekiti State governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is working hard to make the upcoming Osun State governorship election better, the Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, has said.

He said no effort would be spared to make the Osun election scheduled for August 9, 2014, more qualitative in all aspects than the June 21 Ekiti State election which has been widely acclaimed as the best so far by the Commission. He spoke on Tuesday, July 1, 2014, when the Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China, H. E. Gu Xiaojie, paid a courtesy visit to the Commission.

The Chairman said the present Commission had since 2010 when it came on board been devoted to improving the electoral process in Nigeria, “to make it more participatory and ensure that it is more transparent, that elections are conducted consistent with international best standards and in accordance with our own electoral laws.”

He added: “Since 2011, we have been doing our best to keep on improving the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. We have cleaned up the Register of Voters, and we have been doing our best to address the challenge of logistics of deployment, which has been a major obstacle to our conduct of good elections. I am pleased to say there has been progressive improvement in the series of governorship elections that we have conducted since 2011, culminating in the Ekiti election that we conducted two weeks ago, and which has been generally acknowledged as perhaps the best election that we have conducted so far. On the 9th of August, we have another election in Osun State and we are doing everything possible to ensure that the Osun election is better than Ekiti.”

Professor Jega restated INEC readiness to conduct the 2015 general election in all states of the federation, despite security threats in some areas. He said: “We know that both nationally and internationally, there are concerns about the 2015 general election, partly because of the challenges of security in some states. On our part, we have been doing our best to ensure that we are able to conduct elections in those areas; and we have been working very closely with security agencies to ensure that there is adequate security for the conduct of election in those states.”

The Commission, according to him, has improved its engagement stakeholders – including political parties, security agencies and civil society organisations, among others – in order to deepen the political process. “We have periodic meetings with these stakeholders where we explain what we are doing and we receive suggestions for improvement; and we take these suggestions on board as we continue to improve the process,” he said.

The Chairman also acknowledged the support of the international community for Nigeria’s electoral process. “Our development partners have been very helpful, other friends of Nigeria have generally been helpful; they have encouraged us and shown understanding, and that also has gone a long way to contribute to our continuous improvement of the electoral process.”

The Chinese envoy, in his remarks, said there is much that his country and Nigeria could mutually learn from each other’s electoral experience. He added that Nigeria being an important country in Africa, global attention is on the country as it prepares to conduct the 2015 general election.

Kayode Robert Idowu

Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman

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This is to inform the general public that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will commence the nationwide distribution of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in three phases as follows:

See here for the nationwide schedule

As a part of @nigeriadecide ‘s effort to provide Nigerians with needed pre-election information to have an in-dept knowledge of the process, stakeholders and the timelines , we are pleased to inform you that you can now access detailed profile of all the over 10,000 candidates contesting for various public position under auspices of the 25 different political parties in the country.

The various profiles are end results of research and investigative efforts, if you have any further information about any candidate, kindly forward it + evidence of your claim to info@nigeriadecide.org so we can include. You can also make use of comment box below each candidate to add more information about the candidate.

Disclaimer: NigeriaDecide.org is a non-partisan initiative comprising of individuals across the 37 states in the federation who are passionate about making the change Nigeria require, to join the movement, send mail to instant@nigeriadecide.org

for further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has instituted a committee saddled with the responsibility of carrying out a major redrawing of constituencies, which may affect representation in the House of Representatives and State Assemblies, has begun.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday inaugurated the committee to redelineate the constituencies nationwide.

Continue reading INEC Starts Demarcation Of Constituencies For 2015 General Elections

Nigeriadecide.org is pleased to inform you that  an exhaustive guide on elections processes and procedures is available for the general public at this below link

http://nigeriadecide.org/2015_Nigeria_general_elections_voters_education.php

For the electoral process to go smoothly and according to laid down procedures, it is important you know the rules and procedures, The above is an exhaustive effort to ensuring you know those rules and procedures.