We suffered 41 attacks in two years – INEC

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its offices and facilities have been attacked 41 times in the last two years.

Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, said this today in Abuja at an emergency meeting with security agencies under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on election security (ICCES).

Said Yakubu, “In the last four weeks, 11 offices of the commission were either set ablaze or vandalised.

“Two of these incidents were caused by Boko Haram and bandits’ attacks while 10 resulted from thuggery during the election and post-election violence.”

He, however, said that the majority of the attacks – 29 out of the 41 – were unrelated to election or electoral activities.

He added that 18 of the attacks occurred during the #EndSARS protests in October 2020 while 11 attacks were organised by “unknown gunmen” and “hoodlums”.

The ICCES emergency meeting, which was originally scheduled for last Monday, was rescheduled after the death of the former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, who was a member.

The INEC boss also disclosed that the commission would create 2,673 registration centres and deploy 5,346 officials for the exercise along with expensive voter enrollment machines.

He said that this was for the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise scheduled for 28 June 2021 to enable Nigerians who have attained 18 years and those who did not register previously to do so.

He notified that in the next nine months, two major elections will be conducted, being the Anambra State Governorship election scheduled for November 6, 2021 to be followed by the end-of-tenure elections for 68 Area Council constituencies in the FCT holding February 12, 2022.

“These major elections will be followed by the Ekiti and Osun State governorship elections ahead of the 2023 General Election which is just 632 days away.

“Similarly, registered voters who wish to change their voting locations and those who wish to correct their names and other details on their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) can do so.

“All these activities require security, thereby adding to the urgency and importance of this meeting,” the INEC boss added.