Exactly 22 days to the Edo governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has lamented that political parties are not complying with polling and collation agents nomination procedures.
The electoral body recalled that in consultation with the political parties, the commission replaced the manual process for the submission of the list of agents with a digital platform.
It explained that the commission did the same for the accreditation of observers and media organisations in consultation with the stakeholders.
Speaking on Thursday in Abuja at an extraordinary meeting with political parties on the 2024 Edo governorship election, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu explained that the Commission also replaced the manual process of recruiting ad hoc staff with a digital platform called the INECPRES.
He said all these activities are now done electronically on a number of dedicated portals.
Yakubu stated: “However, after harvesting the details of polling and collation agents uploaded to the portal for the Edo State election, we discovered that there are compliance issues with regards to the quality of uploads, particularly as they relate to the images of Polling Unit, Ward and Local Government agents.
“This problem cuts across all political parties despite the fact that this is not being done for the first time.
“And in keeping with our practice before major elections, we trained officials nominated by political parties. We also set up a Help Desk in the event of any political party needing assistance.
“I want to emphasise that there will be no going back to the manual process. It is gone for good. Already, observer groups and media organisations are in full compliance with the digital procedure.
“Political parties cannot be an exception. You must do the needful instead of constantly complaining of shortfalls in the number of accreditation tags supplied for your agents.
“We will only produce tags for uploads that meet the requirements of our regulations and guidelines. The Commission has determined that your agents at Polling Units and Collation Centres must be identified by name and their photographs clearly printed on their accreditation tags duly authorised by the Commission.
“We have also added a QR Code to each tag for easy authentication and verification of your agents at the polling and collation centres. Matters arising from the recent uploads will be discussed at this meeting.”