The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has called on the Forum of State Independent Electoral Commissions of Nigeria (FOSIECON) to expedite action in ensuring that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the national electoral umpire and FOSIECON is reviewed, saying “this review needs to be undertaken as a matter of urgency”.
He equally stated that the INEC/SIECs interactive committee should also be “resuscitated and reconstituted”.
Yakubu stated this at opening of the 12th National Delegates Conference of FOSIECON, with the Theme: “Local Government Elections in Nigeria, Lessons from the 2019 General Elections”, ongoing in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
The INEC Chairman, who was represented by a National Commissioner in the Commission, Barr. Festus Okoye, tasked the forum to have a clear and unambiguous constitutional and electoral framework at least six months before conducting elections.
“You will recall that during the visits of the Executive Council of FOSIECON to the Commission in May 2016 and February 2018, I also stated the need for the review of existing INEC/FOSIECON MoU. This review needs to be undertaken as a matter of urgency.
“Furthermore, the INEC/SIECs interactive committee must be resuscitated and reconstituted and should meet as soon as possible to plan for our joint annual conference, which was last held in 2014.
According to him, “Such regular engagements are required to reawaken and strengthen the tenets of our MoU, as well as to pursue and achieve our core mandate of conducting free, fair and credible elections at all levels.
“I want to reassure FOSIECON that INEC will continue to partner with SIECs in the area of knowledge sharing, training and capacity building, mutual election observation and access to election materials.”
Declaring the conference open, Governor Simon Lalong, tasked the delegates at the conference to look into ways in which they can improve their understanding of election administration, as well as devise the means of preventing and mitigating the escalation of election conflicts.
Lalong said, “I urge the Forum of the State Independent Electoral Commissions (FOSIECON) to fully explore the opportunity of this gathering with the view to bringing our country to conformity with international best practice in the conduct of future elections.”
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