The House of Representative Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has called on the electoral body to move its offices out of local government areas across the country.
The House resolution followed a motion by Hon. Sunday Nnamchi, who noted that situating INEC offices out of council areas to neutral ground would help to protect the integrity of the electoral process.
Nnamchi’s motion was referred to the Committee on INEC. During a public hearing at the National Assembly Complex, the committee’s chairman, Adebayo Balogun, explained that INEC needed to locate its offices on neutral ground.
“There must be a communication between either INEC or the committee, through members or through the state governors to provide land. Because you have to put this on the front burner. If people are talking about it, it will happen. Because yes, I know Mr. Chairman is a very conservative person when it comes to issues like this, but we need to talk.
“People will only listen to you when you talk and the pressure is on the ground. There is so much demand from every department and every ministry. Sometimes it is when they hear you that action is being taken and I think with this motion, I want to use the opportunity to thank the mover of this motion because I never knew we had this kind of situation until this motion came. Even in Lagos, I never knew we had this situation in Lagos. I mean, Alimosho, Apapa, Oshodi and Eti Osa. And I think we should be able to solve these problems very, very fast,” the Nation quoted him.
In his reaction, the Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, explained that urbanization affected some locations of the commission’s offices in most parts of the country.
He further noted that security concerns also affect INEC’s decision to build its offices, which are sometimes close to built-up places.
“The places became like in the middle of the city, like our office in Abeokuta South, for instance. At that point, we had to work with the security agencies to actually relocate the shops that enveloped the office. We strongly suspect that it was from one of these locations that someone somehow threw some device that burnt down the local government office.
“We don’t want to locate the offices in the middle of built-up areas so that people can have immediate access to them. But at the same time, we don’t want to build it far away from where people are because security becomes an issue on Election Day and every day actually when you use facilities.
“So we look at these issues. Right now there may be some offices that require relocation. Fortunately, we have another office in Abeokuta, so we moved the Abeokuta South office to our previous state office. That’s where they are operating from. But you don’t have that luxury elsewhere,” Professor Mahmood stated.
