We’ll ensure conclusive governorship election in Osun, says REC
By Deborah Oladejo, Osogbo
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), in Osun State, Prof. Abdulganiy Olayinka Raji has assured election stakeholders that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), will conduct a free, fair, acceptable and conclusive election come July 16th governorship election in the state.
Speaking on Monday at a stakeholders’ meeting on the devolution of the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise to registration areas (RAs/Wards) in the state, Raji who said to achieve a seamless and successful election is quite an assiduous task asked for the cooperation of all stakeholders.
He said that 753 voting points have been successfully converted to substantive polling units. This, he said, was to ensure that un-served and under-served voting public due to new settlements, relocations and attainment of 18 years of age by young Nigerians are taken care of.
The REC, however, observed that despite the effort of the Commission, members of the public are yet to take the advantage of this opportunity by either registering in these new polling units or transferring their voting rights to the PUs nearest to their residence.
According to him, the implication of this was that the existing polling units would still be congested leading to long queue of voters on the election day. To address this issue, he appealed to the stakeholders to assist the commission by informing the public to register or transfer to the new PUS, so as to avoid zero polling units in the state.
He equally re-assured stakeholders that INEC is much more committed to providing a level playing field for all candidates and political parties partaking in the election and be guided by its mission.
Raji also assured that the commission would also do everything within the ambit of the law to ensure that peoples votes count.
In its paper presentation titled; “Technological Innovations for Osun State 2022 Governorship Election”, Deputy Director ICT of the commission, Mr. Lawrence Bayode stated that different technologies have been applied over the years and that INEC has made it a point of duty to continuously improve and redefine the technological process.
“Hitherto, the commission has always used only the fingerprints to detect multiple registrations but recently, the facial has been added through the introduction of the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
“So after the registration exercise, ABIS has the capability to remove all voters that were registered multiple times, leaving the earlier record and removing the new record,” he said.
