Agbaje has been accused of mismanaging the collection of Permanent Voters' Cards (PVCs) in some parts and engaging Musiliu Akinsanya, who heads Lagos State's Parks Management Committee to convey election materials.

Oyekanmi urged the two parties calling for Agbaje’s redeployment to respect the boundaries between the commission and all political parties.

He dismissed the allegations against the REC as deliberate misinformation and distortion of facts.

“Let me make one thing clear upfront. Mr Agbaje will not be removed as the REC for Lagos over unfounded allegations.

“He will not only conduct the Presidential/National Assembly election scheduled for Feb. 25, he will also superintend over the Governorship/State House of Assembly election holding on 11th March.

“He is a conscientious, honest, dependable and hardworking REC. His integrity speaks for him in all the places where he had served.

“Let me break this down for you. During the recent Continuous Voter Registration that took place between June 2021 and July 2022, Lagos State under Agbaje registered the highest number of voters in the country – 585,629.

“On Jan. 27 this year, we announced that out of the 940,200 PVCs delivered to Lagos State as of that date, 839,720 PVCs representing 89.3 percent had been collected.

“This debunks the allegation that the Lagos REC deliberately withheld the PVCs belonging to persons from a particular region of the country.”

To address the problem of illegal movement of election materials, Oyekanmi said that INEC was in contact with individual vehicle owners.

He said “the unions don’t have vehicles and even if they have some, they cannot possibly provide the number of vehicles that the commission requires to conduct the general election.

“Rather, the unions are made up of individuals that own vehicles.

“You then have to negotiate with the vehicle owners and join the unions as witnesses and for accountability purposes.”

Oyekanmi reminded Nigerians that INEC had conducted successful elections in Lagos using vehicles owned by individuals who met the commission's specifications.

He promised Lagosians and people who plan to vote in the upcoming election that their votes would be counted.