The National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, has charged the personnel of various security agencies participating in the July 16, Osun State governorship election to be on red alert to deal with disgruntled politicians that may attempt to sabotage the process through vote-buying inducement.
The NSA spoke at a special meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Saturday, in Abuja, to appraise the build-up to the Osun poll.
Represented by Sanusi Galadima, Monguno also specifically challenged the Commission to organise an enlightenment campaign to encourage voters’ participation in future elections beginning with the Osun election.
He said: The NSA also urged ICCES members to build on the successes recorded from the Ekiti election as some disgruntled politicians may attempt to sabotage the process for their selfish gains, through vote-buying and other forms of voter inducement as well as political thuggery.
On combating voter apathy, the NSA said: Records from the conduct of the last Ekiti State governorship election indicated an impressive performance by the INEC as well the ICCES member agencies as there were no any major incident of security concern recorded during and after the election.
However, more needs to be done in terms of enlightenment campaign to encourage voters to come out and cast their votes on the day of the election. This is because of the low turnout recorded during the election compared to the total number of registered voters in the State.
Consequent upon the above, the NSA enjoined INEC, through the Department of Voter education/publicity, to redouble efforts ahead of the Osun State Guber election and the forthcoming general elections in 2023, he charged.
Reading the Riots Act to culprits of vote buyers, the chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, revealed that INEC has scaled-up collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to prosecute offenders.
Giving an update on the Osun election, Yakubu expressed readiness, announcing that it will, thus week, deploy an assessment team and conduct mock accreditation of voters in some polling units across the three senatorial districts of the State to test the functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS).
