INEC Chairman speaks on insecurity, attacks on facilities ahead of 2023 polls

Despite multiple security challenges and repeated attacks on its facilities, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, said the commission is prepared to continue with the elections.

Since 2019, INEC facilities across the country have been attacked over 50 times and its officials and security personnel injured and killed in some cases, the INEC Chairman said when he spoke at the Chatham House on Tuesday.

“The 2022 attacks constitute the deepest concerns for the Commission,” he said. “This is so not only because they are increasingly happening closer to the general election, but also because some of them seem to be coordinated.”

Mr Yakubu said while violence and threat of violence are major challenges to credible elections in 2023, INEC has put in place measures to ensure safe, free and credible elections.

One of the measures, he said, is the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).

He said the commission will deploy technological tools like the Election Violence Mitigation and Advocacy Tool (EVMAT), a research and diagnostic tool for predicting and mitigating election violence before elections, and the Election Risk Management Tool (ERM), which tracks and reports general risks to elections.

“However, the Commission has been working with security agencies and other stakeholders to establish mechanisms to understand, track and mitigate security challenges.”

Apart from rebuilding the destroyed properties and the replacement of vandalised materials, he said the commission and security agencies have to increase the number of their personnel at these facilities.

He added that the commission is determined to continue its preparations for the general election despite these attacks.

Mr Yakubu also reiterated that the 2023 general election will proceed as planned, stressing that “there is no plan to postpone the election.”

Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe