AHEAD of the governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa, and Kogi on November 11, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has issued a warning to political parties telling them to stop circulating fake news.
This warning was contained in a statement issued by Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman.
Oyekanmi, also informed that the statement was in response to the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) claim that INEC was manipulating the state governorship election by setting up Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices at the Government House, Lokoja.
‘The attention of INEC has been drawn to a statement signed by ID Ijele, the Director of New Media of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of the governorship campaign team.
‘The statement alleged that three staff of INEC are right now maliciously reconfiguring the BVAS machines in the Government House, Lokoja, with the intention of manipulating the November 11 governorship election in a part of the state in favour of a candidate’. Part of the statement read.
Oyekanmi stated that it was false narrative as the three individuals in question are not currently in the aforementioned state and are not connected to the BVAS machine configuration.
‘Nicholas Ocholi is on his duty post in our Ondo State office in Akure. Ibrahim Egbunu is attending to a very close family member hospitalised in Abuja, Mohammed Adara retired last year and is no longer a staff of the commission.’ Oyekanmi said.
In further clarification, Onyekanmi said teams sent from the national headquarters in Abuja configured the BVAS concurrently and solely at the INEC offices in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi.
While advising the public to disregard the story as fake news, he stated that the commission urged that political parties refrain from spreading false information of this sort forthwith.
Fatimah Quadri is a Journalist and a Fact-checker at The ICIR. She has written news articles, fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy in an effort to combat information disorder.
She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or fquadri@icirnigeria.org