Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has assured that the 2023 general elections will hold despite growing spate of attacks on its facilities. Yakubu gave the assurance this afternoon while speaking to an audience at the Chatham House in London.
He however decried the increasing spate of attacks on INEC facilities in the form of arson, assuring that the elections will still be held as planned.
He said that 50 facilities of the commission had been attacked in four years. The implications of the attacks is partly that the commission would need to continue to rebuild the burnt facilities and replace materials.
““In four years, 50 facilities were attacked in various parts of the country. The implication of the attacks is that we have to rebuild facilities and replace materials. The commission and security agencies have increased their presence in some of these locations.
“The last attack happened on Sunday last week but because of the cooperation between the military and the electoral commission, we were able to respond and the damage was limited to just a section of the building in a local government office,” Yakubu stated.
Yakubu believes that the commission’s collaboration with security agencies would help to improve the security of its staff and facilities. He said security personnel would be strongly deployed to all of its locations across the country.
He noted that the last attack on the commission’s facilities happened last week Sunday but the commission was able to respond quickly with the help of the military, thereby minimising the extent of damage done to that attacked facility.
“The commission has repeatedly called for concerted efforts to control and check these attacks and in December last year, the National Assembly held a public hearing on these attacks and we hope that authorities have these attacks under control and the response by the security agencies is more coordinated,” he added.
