Bayelsa Government Tasks INEC On Free and Fair Free and Fair Elections

Bayelsa State government has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that the devices they invest common resources to ensure free and fair election in 2023 function properly on election day.

They also warned the Commission against the complain of non functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) for voters during the election.

Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information, Orientation and Strategy, Hon. Ayibaina Duba, stated this yesterday during the 8th Annual Public Lecture organised by the Federated Correspondents’Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Bayelsa State Council in Yenagoa, the state capital.

He described the theme of the lecture “Ensuring Free and Fair Elections In The Face of Security Challenges” as harp considering the experiences of previous elections in Nigeria.

He said: “The question of free and fair election is about us as Nigerians, when a community tell a stranger who registered in their Community not to vote, is it the electoral umpire that is doing that?

“INEC staff who collaborate with the people that rig election are they not human, INEC is an organization filled with human beings who are doing what they are doing, that is why I urged them that whatever they spent out in our common resources to organised, they should not come back to tell Nigerians that those things doesn’t exist.” He said.

The former Chairman of the chapel and Director, New Media to Bayelsa State Governor, Dr Kola Oredipe, said with BIVAS, INEC and voters have a lot of things to do to achieve free and fair election.

He commended the chapel for contributing their own quota in shaping the society through the series of the yearly lectures.

Tife Owolabi
Journalist
Niger Delta
@tifeowolabi