INEC not under pressure, Says Adamawa REC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it is not under any pressure from any quarter as far as preparation for Saturday’s election in Adamawa State is concerned.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Kassim Gaidam, made this known as he distributed sensitive electoral materials across the State on Friday.

Electoral materials were distributed to the 21 local government areas of the State from Yola, the state capital, amidst very heavy security on Friday.

Speaking with journalists on the exercise, Gaidam said: “Things are going as planned. We have distributed sensitive materials in the presence of the press, local and foreign observers and security agencies. There is no unusual challenge so far. But if any arises, the most important thing is to have good mechanism to address them immediately. We appeal to the people to be solution providers.

“The objective is to succeed in the process and we will try our best to comply with the minimum standard of the commission.”

The Adamawa REC continued: “Our advice to the electorate is to come out and vote for their choice and be law abiding. There will be no VIP treatment for anyone except People With Disabilities, people should be humble at polling units. INEC is not under any pressure from any quarters within and outside the commission. I commend our leaders for being responsible.”

Meanwhile, a member of the European Union Election Observation team sent to Adamawa, Rebekah Palmer, has said that the report of the team on today’s presidential election would be made public on Monday.

Palmer said this on Friday at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission office in Yola, Adamawa State during the distribution of election materials ahead of the Election.

Palmer said that the EU was aware of the position of the Adamawa as the state of origin of one of the Presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar, adding that and that the Observer ateam from the EU would monitor the election in the state with assistance from local observers.

Palmer said: “We have 20 teams across the country and we will be sending information from each team and have a collective report which will come out two days after the election. From the report, you can see what happened during the election across the country.

“We have two observers in Adamawa State. I am from Sweden and my colleague is from Bulgaria. But we have local assistants working with us.

“The report will be made public for everyone to see. What we will be doing is to send information from areas where we work to our headquarters so that we can now have one report for the whole country. We will send the report via email to people and it will also be available online for everyone to access it. There will also be a big press conference in Abuja where the head of the team will present our findings.”