By Queen Kunde
The Taraba State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC Alhaji Umar Mukhtar says the commission is ready to conduct free, fair and credible Elections come February and March 2023 respectively.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner made the statement in Jalingo Taraba State while playing host to some members of the civil society Organization and the media who paid him a familiarization visit ahead of the general elections in a bid to find out the level of preparedness of the electoral umpire for the polls which is close.
Alhaji Umar Mukhtar said that 2023 General Elections is a National task that needs the cooperation of all stakeholders at both National State and Local levels for the Commission to succeed.
According to Alhaji Umar Mukhtar “We are not leaving any stone unturned in order to ensure Free, fair, Transparent and credible Elections, as you can see, we have also been working tirelessly to ensure all electorates captioned during the voter’s registration exercise collect their voter’s cards in order to vote in the forth coming polls”.
He called on the Civil Society, the Media and critical stakeholders to play a positive role in the electoral process for which according to him the electoral Management body is committed to.
In his remark, the CEO of Center for Environmental Education and Development, CEED Nigeria who doubles as the Taraba State Coordinator for the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room and CLEEN Foundation assured the REC of their commitment to contribute positively towards success of the 2023 Elections, hinted that they have plans to deploy domestic observers across the State who will monitor the elections from an independent and unbiased perspective.
Speaking in the same vein, CEO of Ziti Communications, Queen Kunde assured the REC of the media’s readiness to enlighten the electorates of their rights and obligations during the electioneering process.
Queen Kunde who stated that a recent findings conducted by The Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative, BBYDI, revealed that there is high rate of voter apathy in the North East, Taraba State inclusive hence the launch of the #VoteReady Campaign which is geared towards mobilizing the people to go out to collect their voters card and be Ready to vote during the elections, thanked INEC for extending the PVCs collection date and time.
“with this window of extension of the PVCs collection by INEC we too in media and CSOs will intensify the level of awareness to ensure every registered voter collects their PVC and vote in Taraba State.
INEC has extended the PVCs collection date by one week, meaning Registered voters who have not collected their voters can do so till February 5th 2023 as from 9a.m-5pm daily.
