All the 16 political parties taking part in the Edo State governorship election will sign a peace accord ahead of the exercise on September 12.
The parties taking part in the election slated for September 16 are the Accord Party, Action Alliance, African Democratic Congress (ADC), All Progressives Congress (APC), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
Others are Action Peoples Party (APP), Boot Party, Labour Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), National Rescue Movement (NRM), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Young Progressives Party (YPP) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at an extraordinary meeting with political parties on the election on Thursday in Abuja.
He said the exercise would be presided over by former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd).
Abubakar is the chairman of the National Peace Committee (NPC).
Yakubu said: “You may notice that unlike the previous peace accords signed a few days to the election, INEC decided to do this early this time around.
“This is to enable the Peace Committee to monitor compliance with the code voluntarily signed by parties, candidates, and other critical players in the electoral process such as INEC and the security agencies during the remaining days to the election.
“This will add further weight to the peace accord beyond mere ceremony as demanded by many observers and even some of the political actors themselves.”
He urged political parties in the state to maintain decorum and civility in their campaigns and comply with the commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of rallies and processions.
He said no political party had submitted to INEC the dates and locations of their major campaign rallies and processions to enable better coordination of their campaign activities.
On the commission’s preparations for the election, Yakubu said INEC had concluded the training of security personnel and finalising the delivery of the few remaining non-sensitive materials for the election.
“We are concluding arrangements with the land and maritime transport unions for logistics.
“The printing of triplicate copies of voters’ register for each of the 4,519 Polling Units in Edo State is virtually completed.
“The installation and configuration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines to be deployed on election day is completed. Observer accreditation tags are being produced,” the INEC chairman stated.
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