Independent National Electoral Commission on Friday said it would punish political parties found to be violating electoral timelines as well as provisions of the new Electoral Act 2022 (as amended) especially during the 2023 elections.
The commission also maintained its ground not to jettison electronic transmission of results and revert to manual process and would not lower the bar in next year’s election.
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INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, made the clarification during a post-election roundtable and public presentation of the final report on the observation of 2022 Ekiti and Osun Governorship Election, organised by a human rights organisation, Yiaga Africa.
He said:
I want to seize this opportunity to assure Nigerians that this present commission will be bold and courageous in prosecuting the 2023 general elections.
We are going to harvest and we will continue to harvest lessons from the Edo governorship election, Ondo governorship election, Anambra governorship election, and Ekiti and Osun governorship elections in shaping the way we approach the 2023 general election.
We are going to harvest all the good practices, we are also going to look at some of those issues we did not do so well and we will improve on them.
Festus Okoye added:
But our assurance is that this commission will not lower the bar and we are going to improve and we continue to improve with every election.
All the good practices we deployed in prosecuting the elections under review will also be deployed for the prosecution of the 2023 general election.
We will continue to also manage the collation process transparently so that all Nigerians will also follow whatever we are doing and we will not depart from all the good practices we have established.
While seeking the cooperation of Nigerians, Okoye advised civil society organisations and other critical stakeholders to study the Electoral Act 2022 in order to gain needed knowledge of its provisions.
