Electoral Institute Trains Security Personnel for Osun State Governorship Election.
Oru Leonard
The Electoral Institute (TEI), has commenced security training for the Osun State governorship election yesterday, Monday 20th June, 2022 at Oshogbo, Osun State in Nigeria.
The objective of the three days Training organised by The Electoral Institute (TEI) is to bring out the best and ignite high level of professionalism in our Security personnel and their role on election day thereby ensuring free, fair, credible, inclusive and peaceful elections and democratic consolidation.
The Training was declared open by the Chairman, Board of Electoral Institute (BEI) Prof. Abdullahi Abdu Zuru. In his opening address the Chair BEI tasked security personnel to ensure safe Electoral environment for citizens to freely participate in governance.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner INEC Osun State Prof. Abdulganiy Raji who represented the Chair BEI in his opening remarks highlighted the measures put in place to secure the elections, these include the tracking of vehicles to be used to convey Officials and sensitive materials to the Local Government Areas, providing the list of hotspots and flashpoints in the State to Security agencies for robust security architecture and training of INEC Staff by the ICPC to mitigate vote buying at the Polling Units amongst others.
The Director General of the Electoral Institute, Dr. Sa’ad Umar Idris in his welcome address presented by the TEAM TRAINING TEAM LEAD, Ifeanyi Agoha highlighted the synergy between INEC and Security agencies and urged participants to give attention to the training as the mandate to conduct free, fair, credible, inclusive and peaceful elections in Osun State is a collective responsibility.
He further stated that adequate Security ensures the free movement of electoral staff, voters, candidates, observers and other Stakeholders on Election day and this adds to the credibility of the electoral process. The significance of the training of Security Personnel on their roles and responsibilities on Election day was clearly demonstrated in the conduct of the Security Personnel in the just concluded Ekiti Governorship Election.
Participants at the Training are drawn from members of ICCES which includes among others; The Nigeria Police (NPF), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Nigeria Prisons Service, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) Department of State Security (DSS), Fed. Road Safety Corp (FRSC), Nigeria Army, Navy and Air force.
Additionally, Security Training is geared towards building a mitigation strategy for improved Election Security and also to enable participants identify the core role of security agencies at elections. Also present at the Opening ceremony are ACP Sunday Peter who represented the Commissioner of Police, Osun State Command, Director DSS, INEC, CP INEC, Commandant NSCDC INEC, Director Security, INEC Abuja and Management Staff of Training dept, the Electoral Institute. The Osun State Governorship Election is scheduled to hold on 16th July 2022.
A pre-test was administered on the participants after opening formalities and setting of the ground rules.
