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Tag: Rotimi Oyekanmi

  • INEC never disobeyed court orders-Official

    INEC never disobeyed court orders-Official

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has always abide by court orders as a responsible organization, which believes in the rule of law.

    Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, stated this in a statement in Abuja.

    Oyekanmi was reacting to allegation by Chief Chekwas Okorie, former National Chairman of the All Progressives Ground Alliance (APGA), that INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was guilty of contempt of court for failure to recognise him as APGA National Chairman.
    Oyekanmi described the claim as pure mischief.

    Okorie had on Wednesday claimed that Yakubu was in contempt of court order for disobeying court order issued by Justice M. A. Madugu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court 40, Bwari in his judgement in Suit no.

    FCT/HC/CV/4068/2023 on Nov. 9, 2023.
    He said that the court found both Chief Victor Oye and Yakubu (1st and 2nd Defendant respectively) guilty of contempt of court in the matter of the APGA leadership dispute whereupon they refused to obey the orders of the Court handed down on them on May 10, 2023.

    Oyekanmi said that there would have been no need to respond to Okorie, but for the benefit of unsuspecting members of the public, it was necessary to put the matter in its proper context.

    “This is a matter involving the leadership of APGA of which Okorie is not involved at all, but for reasons best known to him, he presented a twisted narrative to justify his unwarranted attack on the person of the Chairman of INEC.

    “Unfamiliar with the facts, he claimed that “neither Yakubu nor INEC has appealed against the judgement that found him guilty of contempt”.
    ”If Okorie had been diligent, he would have availed himself of the record of proceedings of the Court of Appeal (CA/ABJ/CV/724/2023) before making his spurious allegations.

    “Nobody can be said to be in contempt of an Order of a lower Court when the matter is before a superior Court and therefore subjudice.
    “Okorie should be cautious in making malicious allegations of this nature,” Oyekanmi said.

  • INEC clarifies use of electronic collation

    INEC clarifies use of electronic collation

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has clarified the use of electronic collation of election results in Nigeria, stressing that electronic collation of results is illegal.

    The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, made the clarification.

    Oyekanmi clarified that the result viewing portal was not for collating election results or determining the winner; neither was the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System an electronic voting machine.

    When asked how results from the polling units would be transmitted after voting had been concluded in the governorship polls in the three states, Oyekanmi explained, “Polling unit election results, also known as Form EC8As, will be uploaded directly to the INEC Result Viewing Portal from the individual PUs by the presiding officers after the close of poll and declaration of results at that level.

    “Presiding Officers are expected to use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System to snap the Form EC8A and upload the same to the IReV after the conclusion of all processes at the various polling units.

    “However, people need to understand that the IReV is not for collating election results or determining the winner, while the BVAS is also not an electronic voting machine.

    “To be sure, electronic voting or collation of results is illegal in Nigeria at the moment. All that the IReV portal does is just to display the Form EC8A uploaded from the polling units for the public to see.

    “The process for determining and declaring the winner of a governorship election is well encapsulated in section 179 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

    Speaking on the logistics arrangement the commission had made for the distribution of materials given the strike declared by the organised labour in Imo State, the chief press secretary noted, “In the area of logistics for Imo State, we already have an agreement with individual vehicle owners and the NURTW (National Union of Road Transport Workers), Imo State Chapter, for forward and reverse logistics.

    “We will fulfill all our obligations and we expect the other parties to fulfill their obligations too. We have not received any information to the contrary.”

  • INEC reacts to call by Reps to clean up national voters register

    INEC reacts to call by Reps to clean up national voters register

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is yet to receive official communication from the House of Representatives on its resolution regarding the nation’s voter register.

    The Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, told newsmen on Friday in Abuja, while reacting to a media publication of the House of Representatives calling for the removal of fictitious names from the register.

    Oyekanmi said that the House of Representatives had called on INEC to remove fictitious names from the register.

    The House made the resolution at its plenary on Thursday, following the unanimous adoption of a motion of urgent public importance.

    The motion was moved by a member, Leke Abejide, representing Yagba East/West/Mopamuro constituency in the 9th National Assembly.

    The titled ‘Urgent Need for Independent National Electoral Commission to Develop Mechanism to Clean Up Its System of Dead and Fictitious Registered Voters.’

    “Our attention has been drawn to media reports of the resolution passed by the House of Representatives on Friday, asking INEC to take certain actions on the National Register of Voters.

    “However, it is also the tradition of the House to officially transmit such resolutions with details of what transpired to the commission each time such specific resolutions are passed, to enable INEC take the required steps.

    “But the commission is yet to receive any communication from the House to that effect. Therefore, I cannot respond on the basis of media reports,” Oyekanmi said.

    Recall INEC conducted the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) between June 2021 and July 2022 during which the preliminary voters’ register was displayed for claims and objections quarterly throughout the period.

    In January 2022, the commission released the first version of completed, valid and invalid registration derived from the data covering June to December 2022.

    A total of 1,126,359 registrants representing 44 per cent of the 2,523,458 completed registrations were found to be invalid and subsequently deleted from the register as at Jan. 14, 2022.

    Meanwhile, 10 months later, INEC on Nov. 12, 2022 also published the preliminary national register of voters in its 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) and 774 local government area offices nationwide.

    For the first time in the nation’s electoral history, INEC published the entire register on its website.

    The purpose of the display, the commission announced at the time, was to enable Nigerians scrutinise the preliminary register and make claims on misspellings of names, personal details or missing names on the register so that such errors can be corrected.

    It was also done to enable citizens raise objections about ineligible persons, for example, those below 18 years, dead persons, foreigners, or those making false claims.

    This was so that they could be deleted from the register in line with the commission’s established rules.

    On Jan. 11, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu presented the final National Register of 93,469,008 eligible voters to the nation.

    Before arriving at the final figure, the commission received and treated only 53,264 objections from across the country.

    The objections were based on the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register, by virtue of age, citizenship or death.

  • INEC deregisters 2.7 million persons for double registration

    INEC deregisters 2.7 million persons for double registration

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)  has notified the general public that about  2.7 Million persons with cases of double registration have been deleted from the voter register portal of the electoral body.

    The INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at a National Endowment for Democracy event in Washington DC in the United States.

    The spokesperson to the Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, confirmed the development to newsmen in the country.

    Although, Oyekanmi raised concerns about security issues in Nigeria, he assured that stakeholders that the commission will do its best to conduct a credible election.

    He said “It is a perennial issue because, at the end of the day, it is not new but the dimension of the insecurity is new in the sense that in the past, it was localised or confined to a particular part of the country – the North-East but now, it is more widespread.

    “We are keeping our eyes, particularly, on the North-West and the South-Eastern part of the country. Elections are conducted by human beings. We worry about the security of our officials, materials, and even the voters themselves. Without them, elections cannot be conducted.”

    The chairman added that the commission “has spoken to the security agencies and they have assured us that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed.”

    According to the body, the 2023 general elections start on February 25 for the presidential election while the gubernatorial and House of Assembly election will take place on the 11th of March.