Ahead of Nigeria’s presidential and National Assembly elections, the federal government has ordered the full closure of all the land borders. Alhaji Isah Jere Idris, the Comptroller General of the NIS revealed this in a statement issued by the Service Public Relations Officer, Mr. Tony Akuneme, on Thursday in Abuja. The Comptroller General indicated that all the land borders were to be loaded immediately from 12 midnight on Saturday until 12 midnight the following day.
Alhaji Isah Jere noted that border states were especially demanded to strictly ensure the enforcement of this directive. With the elections fast approaching, the 65 de-registered political parties under the forum of political parties in Lagos State (FPP) were said to have endorsed the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The Chairman of the Lagos State Forum and two time chairman of the Lagos State Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Chief Kolawole Ajayi revealed this at a news conference on Thursday.
Endorsing Tinubu, a unanimous decision by the forum of political parties.
Chief Ajayi, upon promising the APC presidential candidate 400,000 votes, noted that endorsing Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s next president was a unanimous decision among members of the forum. He also stated that the forum’s decision to support Tinubu was hinged on his pedigree in private and public life. Praising the APC candidate, he said that Tinubu had maintained the highest rectitude of leadership with an interest in utilizing human resources to enhance development. Chief Ajayi indicated that although the 65 members of the forum were de-registered, they still had their structures across the 20 local governments in Lagos.
Authenticating the Forum’s Chairman, the Lagos State Chairman of the People’s Progressive Alliance, Mr. Idowu Oguntoyinbo stated that amongst the presidential candidates, only Tinubu was qualified enough to revive Nigeria and consolidate the infrastructural achievement of President Muhammadu Buhari. He further noted that Tinubu was one of the brightest minds during his time at Mobil Nigeria. Mr. Shola Omolola, the Lagos State Chairman of Maja Party also noted that Tinubu’s leadership would create immense opportunities that would further develop the country and thus, encouraged the masses to vote Tinubu due to his track record, which sets him apart from other candidates.
Plans are to use the parallel vote tabulation to provide information.
Yiaga Africa disclosed that its intention to deploy 3,836 election observers across the country to help with monitoring the election. In a signed document by Hussaini Abdu, the Chairman of WTV Working Group and Samson Itodo, Yiaga’s executive director, the organization promised to also verify the election results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Abdu, whilst reading the document, disclosed that Yiaga was planning on using the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) in providing Nigerians with concrete information about the election.
Abdu said that the deployed observers would periodically send reports to the Watching the Vote National Data Center for processing and analysis. This deployment, he noted, would help Yiaga provide accurate information on the electioneering process. He stated that Yiaga would also provide an independent projection for voters, for the projection of the vote shares that every party should receive within a narrow range. With this corroborating the numbers of INEC, Abdu said it would help individuals and political parties have confidence in the votes cast in various polling units.
2023 national election, a step in testing the new electoral law.
He however noted that although only INEC was saddled with the legal mandate of announcing election results, Yiaga would follow up with a verification press conference to share its views on the accuracy of the election results. Abdu indicated that whilst the electoral law had been tested in two off-circle elections, this national election would be the first to be conducted under the new electoral act framework. Thus, he stated that this election was a pivotal step in testing the new electoral law, especially the deployed electoral technology.
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