Major candidates of political parties contesting the Ondo State Governorship election on October 10 have signed a peace deal, a move aimed at ensuring violence-free election and acceptance of the final results.
Candidates who signed the peace accord were Ondo state Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Agboola Ajayi, candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
The peace accord signing was facilitated by the National Peace Committee whose chairman is a former Nigerian Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu in his address said that “without peace, the commission’s deployment plans and new innovations in result management, the safety of personnel, the security of materials and the credibility of elections will be undermined.”
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, who was represented by DIG Adeleye Oyabade, explained that peace must be maintained before, during and after the Ondo election.
Earlier, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) had predicted that the governorship election will be marred with violence majorly in riverine areas of the state.
CDD in a statement on Tuesday by its Director, Idayat Hassan, also said a pre-election assessment by CDD Election Analysis Centre shows the partisanship of the National Union of Road Transport Workers and the Motorcyclists Association could also pose challenges and logistics problems.