By Jude Opara, Abuja

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu has assured that the electoral management body will continue to strive to deliver free, fair and credible elections which he said has become the yearning of most African countries.

Yakubu made the statement at the weekend while speaking at the Retreat on the Optimization of the Election Monitoring and Support Centre (EMSC) Operational Structure which took place in Keffi, Nasarawa State.

The INEC Chairman further reassured that under his watch, the Commission will continue to consolidate on the gains of the last Commission (2010-2015) in building systems for the continuous and effective management of the electoral process.

While elaborating on the effectiveness of the EMSC, the INEC boss added that the outfit is involved in many positive ways including; as an electoral early-warning, monitoring, implementation and management tool. He added that the EMSC, relying on field offices and personnel across the 36 States and the FCT, alerts the Commission to the challenges, identifies electoral risks/threats and provides real-time information on the status of an election.

“In doing so, the EMSC makes available to the Commission the necessary information in making real-time interventions to avert or mitigate potential risks or threats to an election.

“In the build-up to the 2019 General Election, it became increasingly clear to the Commission that a coordinated early warning, monitoring and implementation system was necessary to track hundreds of inter-related electoral activities in the Election Project Plan for the 2019 General Election. Accordingly, the Commission accepted the recommendations of the 2019 Election Project Plan Committee (EPPC) to integrate the three monitoring mechanisms of the Commission – the EMS, ERM and EOSC – into a single unit called the Election Monitoring and Support Centre (EMSC).”

Yakubu further noted that the positive contribution of the EMSC has continued to encourage other African countries to come to Nigeria to understudy their system.

“The EMSC has greatly helped the Commission in managing the electoral process. As a testimony to its robustness as an election management tool, many countries in the West African Region and beyond have shown interest in studying and adopting the system for their use. The Ethiopian and Malawi Electoral Commissions are already considering the deployment of some aspects of the tool in the management of their elections. The EMSC may well be another contribution of INEC (and indeed Nigeria) to election management in the world.

“I am glad that this retreat is taking place six weeks after the commencement of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise. Over the last five weeks, eligible citizens have been given the opportunity to commence their registration online and then complete it physically at designated centres. At the same time, those who prefer the in-person option can register at any of our State or Local Government offices nationwide. The two processes are going ahead simultaneously. We are glad that INEC is the first Election Management Body (EMB) to introduce online voter registration in Africa.”

The INEC Chairman equally stated that the benefits are already encouraging as citizens are served promptly and seamlessly without congestion at the registration centres and in full compliance with COVID-19 protocols.