2023: INEC, ONSA give conflicting figures of violent attacks at campaigns
THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Office the National Security Adviser (ONSA) have given conflicting figures of the violent attacks recorded since the official commencement of campaigns for the 2023 general election.
While INEC said it has so far tracked 50 incidents of physical attacks at campaigns, across 21 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory in the last one month, ONSA said it had 52 cases of violence across 22 states within the period.
Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman and BabaganaMohammed Monguno, the NSA gave these numbers at the emergency meeting of Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) in Abuja on Friday.
The meeting came on the heels of the attacks on INEC local government area offices in Abeokuta south of Ogun and Ede South of Osun states earlier in the week.
Yakubu said, these unhappy occurrences are coming just a little over one month into the election campaign which is scheduled to last for about five months from September 28, 2022 - February 23, 2023 for national elections and October 12, 2022 - March 11, 2023 for state polls.
He expressed worry that if no urgent and decisive steps are taken, the attacks will intensify the election date approaches, saying a peaceful campaign heralds a peaceful election hence the need to take decisive steps to stem the ugly trend.
The INEC chairman said Nigerians expect a decisive action from ICCES, stressing that it is important they move swiftly to apprehend perpetrators, prosecute them as required by law and reinforce security around election officials and electoral infrastructure around the country.
Yakubu reassured Nigerians that INEC remains committed to delivering credible elections in spite of the challenges, saying attempt to sabotage or weaken the resolve will not deter it from conducting transparent elections in which only the votes cast by Nigerians on election day will determine winners of elections.