Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says the commission is not leaving anything to chance in ensuring that intensive and extensive security are provided for election personnel, materials and processes.
The Chairman, Board of Electoral Institute, Professor Abdu Zuru, who stated this in Abuja at the validation of election security training resources meeting.
He explained that the commission would protect officials due to the current insecurity challenges in various parts of the country and the fact that the National Youth Service Corps NYSC, members constitute the core of the Polling Unit Election officials.
Alhaji Zuru, said if insecurity was not checked, it could ultimately culminate in the cancellation or postponement of elections thereby hindering declaration of election results and precipitating constitutional crisis.
He called on the security personnel and all election officials to be security conscious and alert to unusual activities in their environment and must be fully equipped to deal with any challenge at all times.
The Director-General of the Electoral Institute, Dr Sa’ad Idris, affirmed that the commission, through the Electoral Institute, has institutionalized the development and implementation of a cascaded training mechanism for security personnel as a critical component of its plan.
According to him, the documents to be validated includes the Electoral Security Personnel Training Manual, Electoral Security Personnel Training Facilitators Guide, Electoral Security Handbook and Basic Security in Election Duty Handbook.
Dr Idris said the aim of the workshop was to review the existing Election Security Training Manual and mainstream core modules into the training curricula of security training schools in Nigeria.
In a goodwill message, the representative of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems IFES, Seray Jah, maintained that managing security threats in the electioneering process was a critical task for INEC.
Seray Jah noted that security personnel deployed during the elections must be adequate trained.
She reiterated IFES’ commitment to continue partnering with INEC and relevant stakeholders in building a sustainable democracy in Nigeria.
RN