…Urges media to act against fake news
By our correspondent
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Wednesday, reaffirmed the readiness of the commission to conduct a smooth governorship election in Edo and Ondo States respectively.
Speaking with media executives at its headquarters in Abuja, at the 2nd quarterly consultative meeting, Yakubu said the commission will train 794 ad-hoc staff to help in the smooth conduct of the polls in both states.
Yakubu assured that the commission will within this period continue with the voters registration exercise to enable citizens in the two state who have not collected their voters card get to enable them vote during the two elections.
He added that the commission has received reassurances of adequate security deployment from security agencies and will continue to engage with them further in the coming days.
Also, he begged the media to collaborate with INEC in the area of voter registration education so that the citizens will fully engage in the fourth coming election.
“As Edo and Ondo election approaches, we shall continue to work together with the media. We will remain transparent and provide the required information to combat the triple menace of misinformation, disinformation and fake news as the commission does not support censorship”.
He added: “We appeal to the media to help us fact check, particularly some of the postings on the new media intended to either delegitimise those who conduct elections or to delegitimise the institution that conducts elections, with the ultimate aim of undermining the process.”
In his remarks, the National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Chris Isiguzo, represented by the National Secretary Achike Chude commended INEC for the successful conduct of elections in Nigeria so far, saying that the feats demonstrated the Commission’s readiness to conduct credible elections in the feature.
The Edo State governorship election has been scheduled to be held on 21 September 2024, while that of Ondo State will be held on Saturday 16 November 2024.
