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Ayoka Adebayo, the Resident Electoral
Commissioner for Ondo State, on Monday, indicted political parties over
the electoral debacle that left Ekiti State’s gubernatorial election
the only one still being contested in court.

“I think politicians should do their
role first by enlightening their members,” she said while responding to
agitations by Ondo residents for her to be redeployed at a consultative
forum, organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), for state leaders of political parties in Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, and
Ondo States. The forum was facilitated by the International Republican
Institute, “a non-profit, nonpartisan organisation, that works to
advance freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political
parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance and the
rule of law.” “I am not the one who invited thugs neither am I the one
that gave them guns,” she said, implying that she worked as Resident
Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti at gunpoint.

Free and fair polls

While advising political parties to be
fair and free, she made a bold claim that, in Ondo, her present
assignment, “Ayoka Adebayo will be free and fair to all the political
parties.” The forum, according to Adedeji Soyebi, an INEC’s National
Commissioner who represented the INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, is to
further engage political parties at zonal level. Mr Adedeji told the
gathering that INEC has procured completed the procurement process for
the voters’ registration equipment and has commenced the process of
recruiting 360,000 adhoc officials for the exercise. He said INEC has
also procured a software that will be used for the exercise. “The
significance of the new software, which is being rigorously tested, is
that it will tackle many of the lingering challenges that had
questioned the credibility of our voters’ register,” he said.

He charged the participants to “fully
take ownership of the electoral process” because INEC has only focused
its energy on making the process a foolproof system. “If you are to
consider people that will work the system, we will not even have
election because people are different and we are talking of party
agents, which may run into millions, INEC staff and others. What INEC
has done is to design a foolproof process,” he said. “The reason the
commission decided to engage Nigerians openly about the challenges
confronting it was a commitment to ensuring the ownership of electoral
process by ordinary people who through their contributions can make a
difference between what has gone before and what we are trying to do
now,” he said.

The INEC chairman, in his speech,
advised the parties to be wholly guided by the provisions of the 2010
Electoral Acts. Mr Adedeji, in the no-holds-barred interactive forum,
answered all the questions of the participants, who at the end of the
meeting, generally believe that it is now the responsibility of the
political parties to ensure the conduct of a credible election. “Now, I
believe INEC is ready to conduct a credible election, though there are
still a few issues yet unsettled but I think the ball is now in court
to play by the regulations” said Alatise James, the Lagos chairman of
the Action Party of Nigeria.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Lagos INEC Resident Electoral
Commissioner, Adekunle Ogunmola, said that the commission needed the
corporation and support of all stakeholders. Mr Ogunmola said that the
entire world was focusing attention on Nigeria and it was their
expectation that Nigeria would live up to the name “giant of Africa,”
by conducting free, fair and acceptable election.