Nasarawa State has assured its internal electoral agency of a free hand to run elections into the 13 local councils.
The Deputy Governor, Emmanuel Akabe, disclosed this on Friday while declaring open a two-day training workshop organised for members and staff of the Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC).
Akabe, who represented Governor Abdullahi Sule at the event, assured that the state government would not interfere in the conduct of council elections, but support the complete independence of the commission to conduct free, fair and credible council elections.
“In a society like ours, free, fair and credible election constitutes the basic principle of democracy. In this regards, electoral administrators are the drivers who ensure that the tenets of democracy are greatly enhanced through election,” he said
Speaking earlier, Chairman of the Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC), Ayuba Wandai Usman, said the objective of the training was to boost the morale of staff of the commission.
“The objective of the training is to boost the morale of our staff, bring them in tune with recent developments in election management techniques and to introduce electoral best practices in the commission in line with the policy thrust of the Engr Abdullahi Sule administration.”
He added that the theme of the training workshop “conduct of credible election into local government councils,” was carefully chosen because “it holistically covers our intention to put in place a modern day election management body.”
