The Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] announced on Friday that it has finalised its deployment plans for the off-season Governorship Elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi State.
INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, spoke to the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) at a meeting in Abuja, INEC said it will conduct the off-cycle Governorship Elections in the following three weeks.
Yakubu said that [5,409,438] registered voters will be participating in the three Governorship Elections, spread across [10,510] polling units in 649 electoral wards in 56 local government areas.
“All non-sensitive material for the election has been delivered to all three States, and other preparatory activities including training are ongoing”. We have gained valuable experience from the General Election 2023 to enable us to be better prepared for the upcoming elections.
Last week we conducted mock accreditation with actual voters in the designated polling units of all three States. Our two objectives were to first, test the effectiveness of the BVAS for the authentication of voters, particularly biometric authentication, and accreditation of voters.
We are hopeful that the BVAS will be able to perform better in terms of voter accreditation and upload of results in the upcoming governorship elections. The commission plans to deploy 46,084 permanent and ad hoc staff in total for the governorship election.
So far, 126 national and international organizations have been accredited for the election, with 11,000 observers deployed. On the media accreditation front, 80 media organisations have applied for 1,203 personnel to report on the election, composed of journalists and technical /support staff, 18 political parties are deploying 137, 934 agents, with 130,093 for the polls and 7, 841 for the counting.
We are also completing preparations for vehicles and boats to transport personnel and materials by land and sea.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023, is the deadline for media accreditation. He said that such a large-scale deployment necessitates a secure environment which goes beyond the immediate responsibilities of INEC.
Yakubu said that the commission is worried about the insecurity and violence in the three states, but that he has been assured that the security agencies have been deployed appropriately. He added that the Commission will continue to engage with the security agencies, with more meetings scheduled in the coming days.
“We will also continue to hold meetings with stakeholders at national level, in addition to our ongoing engagements at state level,” Yakubu said.
