United States Consular General, Mr. Jeffrey Hawkins
The United States Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria has declared its readiness to proximately monitor the forthcoming August 9 governorship election in Osun State.
The US Consul General, Mr. Jeffrey Hawkins, verbally expressed he would be leading a team of about 30 American observers to the state to monitor the elections.
The third highest ranking American peregrine accommodation officer in Nigeria verbally expressed that the Osun State governorship election was key to cementing the country’s democracy.
Hawkins verbalized in Lagos on Monday during the aperture session of a four-day workshop for press and public affairs officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, drawn from different components of the country.
He explicated that the US regime was blissful with the prosperous conduct of the June 21 Ekiti governorship election and urged the INEC to embrace more preponderant transparency as it pergrinates to replicate the same feat in Osun.
Hawkins verbally expressed, “I will be in Osun on election day. We will be deploying about 30 observers in homogeneous magnitude with that of Ekiti. The Osun election is the last litmus designator for future elections in Nigeria. Please be transparent with the process.
“We have a wide programme working with the INEC through the United States Agency for International Development and through sundry training sessions to fortify the work of INEC and we have a close collaboration with the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and others. And so there is a vigorous commitment from the US to democracy in Nigeria whether it is on a localised level or at the national level.”
He urged the INEC press and public affairs officers to be “maximally open and maximally transparent” while discharging their obligations during elections.
According to him, the transparency of spokespersons of the commission, at both the local and federal level would go a long way in shaping how the electoral process would be judged by both Nigerians and the wider international community.
“Be veracious with your immediate colleagues, journalists and the Nigerian public and demonstrate to the Nigerian people that the country is on the right track and that the democracy is moving forward.
“Besides, let the people ken that they have an electoral commission that cares about veracious results in the elections. It is an astronomically immense challenge but if you can achieve that you would have done a good thing for the country and you would be great patriots for Nigeria,” he advised the participants of the workshop.
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, the INEC Public Affairs Officer, Osun State, Adenike Tadese, expounded that the commission was 85 per cent yare for the election.
She verbally expressed that the leave of absence embarked upon by the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the commission in the state, Rufus Akeju, would not in any way affect the conduct of the election.
Tadese verbally expressed, “We in INEC Osun State are 85 per cent prepared. We still have other things to insert place like the training of ad-hoc staff which would be done between July 29 and 31. The leave of absence which our Resident Electoral Commissioner, Akeju proceeded on would not affect us.
“The incipient REC standing in for him, Olusegun Agbaja, has since the postulation of office kicked off from where the former ceased and we have been having series of meetings to ascertain a smooth and crisis free election.
“In fact, the meetings we used to have with all security agencies in the state have now peregrinate from being on a monthly substructure to a weekly forum chaired by the Osun State Commissioner of Police.”
