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From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) in Edo State, yesterday, called for a peaceful conduct among members of the political parties in the state during the Saturday March 18 House of Assembly election in the state.
The committee made the call in Benin during a meeting with the parties’ representatives and other stakeholders ahead of the March 18 poll.
CP Benjamin Okolo, Commissioner of Police on Election Duty, Edo and Chairman of the ICCES warned them not to be violent in order to make the work of the security operatives easy.
“On our part as members of ICCES and security agents, we will be fair to all and we will create enabling environment that will enable voters to come out and vote without hindrances.
“I know that political parties in the past have signed peace accord letter, promising non-violence and in the last election, there were few complaints and all that.
“We want to ensure that those gaps don’t come up again. This is why we are having this meeting again.
“We are thanking members of the political and their supporters for making it a bit easier for us to do the last election.
“This present one is localise and may be more challenging; we would continue to appeal that we would ensure level playing ground,” said the commissioner.
Other heads of security agencies corroborated the appeal by the commissioner, saying they were ready to compliment the police in ensuring credible, free and acceptable election on Saturday.
In his remark however, Festus Alenkhe, Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) blamed the pocket of security breaches at the Feb. 25 presidential and national assembly election in the state on lack of roadblocks.
Alenkhe advised the security agencies to earnestly map out adequate strategy that would ensure nobody tamper with ballot box likes it happened during the last poll.
Representatives of political parties at the meeting pledged peaceful conduct, but urged the security to be more proactive and live above board, without favouring any party against the others.
