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Tag: Mutiu Agboke

  • 2019: INEC urges journalists on professionalism

    The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has called on women journalists to enthrone professionalism in the discharge of their duties, especially in the preparation for the forthcoming elections.

    The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Oyo state, Mr Mutiu Agboke gave the charge at the Commission’s headquarters office in Ibadan while playing host to Executive and members of the National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Oyo state council.

    The Oyo REC who challenged the female journalists to remain true to the ethics of the profession pointed out that he has never seen any female fake journalists in the state urging the association to continue to promote such good ethical values.

    Agboke appealed to the female journalists to continue to encourage citizens in their reports to pick up all uncollected PVCs which he said is still over 900,000.

    Read Also: Buhari pleased with INEC’s preparation

    He added that the PVC is the only means by which any citizen can participate in the forthcoming election.

    According to the Commissioner, INEC has a policy that encourages women participation in the electoral processes, including active participation in political party activities.

    Earlier, the Chairperson of Oyo NAWOJ, Comrade Jadesola Ajibola asked the commission to give all contestants a level playing ground during the forthcoming general election.

    She told INEC that Nigerians are optimistic that the forthcoming general election will be free credible and fair and that the commission must be seen to be unbiased in its conduct.

    She also promised that female journalists in the state will carry out their responsibilities as members of the fourth estate of the realm and will promote professionalism that will improve the electoral process.

    The delegation of the NAWOJ members on the visit included past chairpersons of the council, past and serving executives among other members.

  • Ajimobi charges INEC on efficiency and transparency

    Oyo State Governor Senator Abiola Ajimobi has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to continually improve its operation by making it system driven rather than human-driven to forestall electoral malpractices in the country as well as improve the confidence level.

    The Governor gave the charge while receiving the Oyo state resident electoral commissioner Barrister Mutiu Agboke and top INEC officials who paid him a courtesy call at the Governor’s office Secretariat, Agodi Ibadan.

    Governor Ajimobi who rated the confidence of the public in INEC at about 60 per cent called on the electoral umpire to raise the bar and ensure electoral transparency in the state. He said voting should not be an excruciating experience but an easy process that should not attract hardship to the people.

    Ajimobi said, “There is nowhere in the world that human being will not behave like human beings, that they will not want to cheat, that they will not want to rig, I think INEC system should continually be improved to make it a system driven exercise and organization, rather than individual driven.

    “The moment you put in place checks and balances in terms of electronic devices, workability and such others, I think the more people will believe in INEC. As at today, the confidence level in INEC is about 60 per cent while the confidence level of the people in government and governance is about 30 per cent, which means INEC is doing better than the government. But let us increase that level and the only way is to continue to make it system driven and make it as transparent as much as we can.”

    Read Also: INEC fixes Aug 18 for Taraba by-election

    While speaking on the issuance of PVC, Governor Ajimobi noted that he has been inundated with complaints from members of the public as regards the slow pace, long queues and other challenges confronting the commission.

    The Governor also stressed the need for the commission to engage more ad hoc staff that would expedite the process while assuring the commission of the government support in the areas of sensitization and mobilization, noting that the state government is already considering working out a mechanism that would allow workers take time off duty to go and register as well as collect their PVCs to reduce the volume of uncollected PVCs.

    “We already planned to make the last week of the registration a time off or giving some days off for our people to leave work to go and collect their PVCs. I don’t think there should be a work-free day for that, but we can work out allowing them to go in the morning and then report back to work. We could say, we will allow them to resume work at 8 am then we give them so hours off to go there and collect till 12noon and then come back to work.

    “We could do that three times a week or even a whole week just to ensure that people registered and collect their PVCs. And when we give people that excuse from duty, they must also come back with their PVCs and we will want to see many of them register and those who have not collected it to do so too”, the governor said.

    In his earlier remark, the Oyo INEC boss, Barrister Agboke said about 756,450 PVC are yet to be collected in Oyo state, appealing to the state government to encourage the civil and public servants in the state by setting a day apart for the collection of PVC through a public holiday.

  • INEC fixes June 2 for Ibarapa bye-election

    Following the untimely death of the Ex-speaker, Oyo state House of Assembly, late Michael Adeyemo, who represented the Ibarapa state Constituency, the Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday fixed Saturday, June 2nd for the bye-election to fill the vacant seat at the hallowed chamber.

    INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Oyo State, Mutiu Agboke, made the disclosure at the Agodi, Ibadan, state headquarters of the Commission during a press briefing, on Tuesday.

    Michael Adeyemo died on Friday, April 27. He was aged 47.

    Agboke, a lawyer, called on political parties interested in fielding candidates for the election to ensure they conduct their primaries between Wednesday and Saturday 19, May, just as he assured voters in the area of conducting a credible election.

    He said the Commission arrived on the date after putting all legal and administrative tendencies into considerations.

    The REC, who remarked that the election would be conducted in 140 polling units of the constituency, said political parties, security agencies and other stakeholders had been invited to discuss the timetable and activities that would lead to the election.

    He said machinery was set in motion to fulfil extant laws as soon as the House of Assembly informed the commission formally of the death of Speaker Adeyemo and the consequent vacancy of his position as a lawmaker.

    Read Also: INEC to redistribute 1.4m unclaimed PVCs in Lagos

    He disclosed that the permanent voter cards (PVCs) for those who freshly registered in the 2017 continuous voter registration had been produced and were ready for collection from Monday next week.

    However, he added that the PVCs for those who registered in 2018 had not been produced, explaining that they would be ready for use in the 2019 elections.

    He said, 630, 853 PVCs were yet to be collected in the state, disclosing that the commission had embarked on a series of advocacy campaign and engagement with stakeholders to ensure make the owners of the cards claim them.

    He said, “The total number of new registrants under CVR is 290, 960 comprising 149, 554 males and 141, 406 females. Incidentally and quite disturbing as at today, 630,853 Permanent Voters Cards are yet to be collected by their owners.”

    He explained further that the commission had taken the campaign to churches and mosques, urging those yet to collect their PVCs to do so at the INEC local government offices in the 33 local government areas of the state.

  • ‘INEC will not fail Nigerians in 2019’

    Mutiu Agboke is the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Oyo State. He speaks with Sunday Oguntola on plans for the 2019 general elections and electoral issues, among others. Excerpts:

    Oyo State has over 16,000 uncollected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). Have you been able to know why the PVCs remain unclaimed?

    The factors responsible include lack of general awareness on the parts of the owners of the cards. Two, the fact that some of them who were living in a place had moved from the place. I will give you an example. I called the HOD of my ICT department that we should do an experiment. We selected some cards and we started calling them one after the other to actually know whether they were still alive or not.

    Unfortunately, out of hundred, only one of them is still resident in Oyo State. If you make a call now, they all said they are far away in other parts of the country but commended INEC for the initiative.

    Some said they are now in Umuahia, others said they are in Port Harcourt and some other far parts of the country. A lady came to my office for an interview and approached me that her PVC she did in 2015 as a student in another state had not been collected.

    She has just moved to Ibadan. I requested for her TVC Temporary Voter Card (TVC) and sent it to the local government where she registered. They were able to locate the PVC and sent it to me.

    She had to come to me to come and collect. The question is: how many people would have such opportunity? Then, imagine the number of people in her category who of course their PVCs would be there and they will not be able to know that they have to go and collect.

    So, those are the things that we have identified. Not even that, where you have students’ populated areas, the more you have them and allow them to participate in the process of registration, the more you are going to have the problem of collection because it will be easy for them to register than to collect.

    One of our commissioners conducted a survey and discovered that those people who are unable to collect their PVCs in the north are mostly house wives. They were mobilised to go for the registration but nobody has deemed it fit to mobilise them to go and collect the PVCs. You can see the problem we are facing and it is a serious problem.

    Voters’ apathy is not also unconnected with uncollected PVCs. A lot of people just want to register and not vote. What are you going to do to make sure that many of these apathetic voters are more interested?

    They have to be interested. Any process we have in Nigeria, we do not expect an angel to be sent from heaven to come and do it for us. We are the ones that will do it, midwife it and ensure the process is credible and acceptable.

    The onus is on INEC because INEC by its mandate is empowered to ensure that there is regular continuous voters’ education across board. Number one, we have to instill the confidence again in the people because most people have lost interest and confidence when of course our staffers have been alleged of one atrocity or irregularities or the other in the past and as such you cannot expect the people to trust the process again.

    Also, like someone said recently that INEC has not done enough to ensure that it is where people vote that they get the results. These are the things that we know. And our duty is to ensure that we up our game in terms of putting INEC in better perspective for people to appreciate it as a credible election a management body.

    Must INEC continue to use ad hoc staff considering the many challenges it has faced with them?

    If you look at history, it was INEC staff doing the job. Across the country we made use of our staff. The ad hoc staffs were just complementary. But later, there were issues and public debates that INEC staffs were not helping matters and that was what brought about the MoU with INEC and NYSC.

    So, it is not that we are just dragging the corps members. Not only that, we have a synergy with higher institutions where we make use of senior staffs and lecturers as returning officers.

    I think whether INEC staff, NYSC ad hoc staff or even the universities personnel are not the issue. The issue is about our values system as a nation, as individuals and as organisations and that was why INEC has identified and developed two major documents for operationalisation of INEC ideas and ideals.

    The first document is called INEC strategic Programme of action 2017-2021. The second one is INEC strategic plan 2017-2012. The purpose of the document is for us all to ensure there is a regular and constant engagements as stakeholders through regular trainings and re-trainings of our staffs, which we are doing within the Commission.

    What do you see to INEC’s clamour for a special tribunal to try electoral offenders?

    If the Commission is clamouring for a special tribunal, it does not mean we are saying due process will not be followed or that we are going to jump process. Our legal system in the country is accusatorial. What that means is he who alleges must prove.

    The Commission is saying take away the burden or trial of this electoral offenders from the regular courts. Once we have a commission for it, like we have election petition tribunal, it is not somebody from somewhere that sits as a judge there.

    It is still these existing judges that sit there. What we are saying is that once we have a court and a judge is appointed for electoral matters, it is designated so and that will be his own area of adjudication.

    The use of electronic smart cards for verification was turbulent in 2015. Are we set to go that way again in 2019?

    You will always have challenges in the product of human intelligence. It is only when you are an angel or God you can be perfect. All we are doing is to ensure the process has sanity and all the challenges we have seen must be a better in 2019.

    All the bad card readers have been isolated, some are being procured and we are still going to procure more. Finance is a major one because the budget for the election is still hanging and we are still appealing to the National Assembly to do the needful.

    But for those machines we just procured to replace those that were bad, we are already test running them ahead of the elections. We made use of some in Anambra governorship election and other bye elections. We are going to use some of them in Ekiti, Osun and other bye elections.

    The National Assembly is against the sequence of elections released by INEC…

    The Commission has no big problem with anything. People don’t know the sensitivity of INEC. INEC is a creation of law and empowered to carry out all mandates according to the law. INEC has come up with a time table as prescribed by laws and ordered elections in line with our operational guidelines and framework.

    The time table has generated issues between the National Assembly and executive but that does not concern the Commission. For us, we stand by the timetable we have released. It is until when there is a clear cut direction guided by law that INEC can now say there is a new development.

    How can voters who have relocated get their PVCs?

    If you registered in a place and relocated and so yet to collect your PVC, what you do is just go and meet our officer in your new location and explain the situation to our officers. They will tell you how you can apply for transfer from the state you registered.

    You have to go to any of our offices physically to apply for the transfer because it cannot be done by proxy. You cannot send anybody. Even within a state, PVCs could be transferred from one local government to another and the process is not as difficult people think.

  • Unclaimed PVCs: INEC seeks Alaafin’s intervention

    Mr Mutiu Agboke, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC ) Oyo State, has urged the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, to assist the commission over unclaimed Permanent Voter Cards ( PVCs ).

    Agboke made the call on Wednesday when he paid courtesy visit to the traditional ruler in his palace at Oyo, Oyo State.

    He appealed to the traditional ruler to prevail on his subjects whose PVCs were still in INEC custody to collect them.

    According to him, 648,840 unclaimed PVCs are still in the custody of the commission.

    He urged the Oba to use his position as father of all to reach out to other traditional rulers in the kingdom to sensitise their people on the need to collect their voter cards.

    Agboke reiterated the commitment of the commission in conducting free, fair and credible elections in 2019.

    The REC assured the Alaafin and the people of Oyo State that the commission would continue to be unbiased and impartial umpire.

    He said “it now behooves on eligible voters to collect their PVCs, which is their voting power to elect those that will govern them.”
    He urged eligible voters who had yet to register to visit INEC offices in their respective local government areas to register, saying the second phase of the exercise would begin on April 3.

    Adeyemi assured INEC of effective support to ensure that people participated fully in the electoral processes.

    The Oba promised to mandate other traditional rulers in his kingdom to create awareness for the collection of voter cards.

    He urged the REC and his management team to fullfil its pledge in conducting free, fair and credible elections.

    He also urged Nigerians to cooperate with INEC for credible elections come 2019.

    “We must support the commission to give us credible polls, your vote is power and you must not sell it.

    “My appeal also goes to women to participate actively in the elections because of the future of your children.

    “Your participation will give way to credible leaders that will provide good governance.

    “Youths should abstain from hooliganism or anything that can cause disturbance to the electoral processes.

    “Observers from different parts of the world would be sent to monitor the elections: we must demonstrate that we are civilised people and justify the confidence reposed in us as Nigerians.”

    NAN

  • INEC says over six hundred thousand PVCs are unclaimed in Oyo

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said well over six hundred thousand permanent voters cards have yet to be claimed and or collected by registered voters in Oyo state.

    Specifically, the commission said a total of 649,183 PVCs of registered voters across the state were still in custody of the electoral regulatory body.

    The state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Mutiu Agboke made the disclosure when he led INEC top delegation on a courtesy visit to the office of the Oyo state Chief Judge, Justice Munta Abimbola.

    According to Agboke, since the commencement of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, more than 13,000 new voters have been registered, noting that the ongoing CVR which started on January 8, this year, will end this week Thursday, March 22.

    He however added that, a second phase would be held soon with a view to giving more Nigerians that have attained voting age, and those that have never registered before the opportunity to do so.

    He said that those who have either lost their PVCs or have them defaced, as well as those who have relocated from one place to another would also be given the opportunities to have another cards or have their voting powers transferred to their new places.

    Agboke stated that INEC came up with two major documents, which are INEC Programme of Action and INEC Strategic Plan of Action, saying the two documents have been the guiding principles that commission has been working on, and that one of the major components in the documents is a robust continuous engagement of stakeholders.

    Speaking further on the CVR, he solicited the support of stakeholders as he raised the awareness and consciousness on the exercise, promising that “those, whose particulars have not been properly captured, will be regularised.

    “Not only that, for those who have moved from one area to another, you don’t expect them to go and do multiple registrations. We will help them to transfer their voting powers. For those who have also moved from one state to the other, we will help them with their voting powers.”

    Responding, the Chief Judge of Oyo State, Justice Abimbola, described INEC and judiciary as partners that must ensure that democracy is not scuttled in Nigeria.

    “This will be the first time that INEC will come to the court and I agree with him when I listened to him that we need to talk to ourselves. We are partners in ensuring that democracy is not scuttled in this country”, the CJ said

    He noted that the electoral umpire has responsibility of conducting elections and some other functions, while the judiciary also has the responsibility of administering whatever the conduct of the election is, whether it is in compliance to the electoral rules or whatever.

     

  • 2019: EU trains INEC staff on gender mainstreaming

    As part of preparations for the country’s 2019 general elections, the European Centre for Electoral Support ( ECES ), on Monday in Lagos, commenced training of electoral officers on gender mainstreaming.

    The one-week training with the theme: “BRIDGE Training on Gender and Election in Nigeria,” is directed at desk officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC ).

    The News men reports that “BRIDGE” stands for Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections.

    Mr David Le Notre, the Project Director of ECES, said that the training was designed to encourage more Nigerian women to take active part in the electoral process.

    “Records show that women demography makes up the largest chunk of voters’ population, but the women in Nigeria constitute only 5.8 per cent of the political space.

    “In 2015, only six women were appointed into the cabinet while there were seven female senators and six female deputy governors.

    “Also in 2015, only one female contested for the presidency while four contested for vice presidency, one for governorship and five for deputy governorship.

    “These are indicative of low participation of women in electoral processes and government,” he said.

    Le Notre said the training workshop would familiarize INEC desk officers with the concept of gender and its importance in election.

    “I hope this workshop avails participants the requisite knowledge for effective gender mainstreaming in the Nigerian political space,” he added.

    Read Also: INEC uncovers illegal registration centre in Kwara

    Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, INEC’s Chairman of Outreach and Partnership Committee, said that the workshop was one of the ways INEC adopted to build the capacity of its staff.

    Ogunmola who is also a National Commissioner in INEC, said that the commission was committed to building an all-inclusive democracy.

    “This course is aimed at equipping our desk officers with the capacity to carry out their duties of gender mainstreaming in the electoral process.

    “It is one of the many ways the commission has adopted to build capacity of its staff.

    “The commission is committed to building an inclusive democracy where equality and equity are guaranteed,” he said.

    His address was delivered by Mr Mutiu Agboke, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Oyo State.

    NAN