Rising from a meeting of its Lagos State Executive Committee at the party headquarters in Jibowu Yaba, Lagos DPA said in a statement by its Director of Publicity, Felix Oboagwina, that INEC must take seriously observations and contributions made by stakeholders.
Lagos INEC has been convening such parleys at its Birrel Avenue Yaba office with local government chairmen of the political parties, the State Security Service (SSS), community leaders and police in order to ensure a hitch-free 2011 polls beginning with the ongoing voters’ registration.
DPA observed that although crucial contributions were made by participants, INEC must demonstrate good faith by adopting key recommendations from such a forum.
“We hope the Commission will not turn the exercise into a mere talk-shop, where contributions will be shabbily dismissed as happened in the 2008 local government elections in Lagos State,” the DPA statement said. “Of course, we all are living witnesses to the resultant fraud and prejudice that pervaded that election and resulted in one single party unrealistically winning 100 percent of chairmanship and councillorship seats at stake in the 57 local government areas and local council development areas.”
DPA also warned the Commission to guard against double registration, underage registration, ghost registration and mis-registration.
“Voters’ lists are as good as the Commission’s field officers make them; so INEC must put mechanism in place to check officials falling to temptation from unscrupulous politicians and parties,” DPA said.
On its own part, DPA urged members to mobilise for the registration exercise.
DPA representatives to the INEC forums have reported that the Commission complained that mountains of registration cards from previous exercises remained unclaimed.
“INEC must bear the bulk of the blame for this particular problem because it used ad hoc and roving staffers that citizens found difficult to track when they tried to exchange their provisional registration slips for the permanent voters’ cards at the designated registration posts,” DPA said.
Party leaders were told that INEC used the forum to warn politicians to desist from subscribing to electoral thuggery, violence, ballot stuffing and ballot snatching.
However, DPA’s statement said the onus lay on the Commission to implement a free, fair and credible election.
“Every politician knows that rigging starts from voters’ registration,” DPA said, adding, “INEC must tie up all loose ends and ensure that this registration exercise is fraud-proof.”
Meanwhile, the party urged its leaders to mobilise for the exercise those who had clocked 18 years old since the last voter-registration and those who had changed residence.
Felix Oboagwina
Director of Publicity, Lagos State DPA
