By Ishaq Dan-Imam, Lokoja
The Kogi state office of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has confirmed receipt of sensitive election materials for Saturday’s general elections in the state.
The Resident electoral Commissioner, Dr. Hale Gabriel Longpet, spoke at a news conference in Lokoja on Tuesday that the sensitive election materials were deposited with the central bank of Nigeria in the state just as all non-sensitive election materials have been delivered to the twenty one local government areas in the state.
Giving a final aggregate of the permanent voters cards collected so far, Dr. Longpet, indicated that 1.6 Million voters have now obtained the PVC out of 1.9 million registered voters:
“So far so good. I’m quite impressed with the overall rate of PVC collection in the state. On a single day, we recorded 25,000 PVC collection. With four days to the elections, the impressive number of PVCs collected suggested the level of enthusiasm of the voters to participate in the election; they are now good to go,” he said.
The electoral Commissioner also confirmed that 3,58 BVAS machines for the 3, 58 polling stations across the state have arrived the state with 282 BVAS backups, while 7.2 million fictitious voters in the initial voter registration had been removed from the voters register as part of the clean up of the voters register.
He added, “Kogi state now has a total of 3,508 polling stations from 2,594 polling stations in the previous elections, and 1,250 voters per polling unit to decongest the polling stations, which ideally caters for 700 voters. We will migrate voters from one polling station to another to avoid congestion, which prompted the creation of additional polling stations.”
According to the electoral Commissioner, where the fingerprint or facial recognition of a voter fails, the presiding officer must attend to any such voter three times.
On election security, the electoral Commissioner gave an assurance of maximum safety of election materials and staff.
Dr. Longpet, added that the security agencies are prepared to provide adequate security for the elections, while Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies (EFCC and ICPC) will arrest persons involved in vote-buying and other electoral offences.
This he said is made easier since the anti-corruption agencies are serving on the election management consultative committees in all the states of the federation as the anti-graft agents will be present in the vicinity of polling stations.
Over ninety percent of the adhoc staff engaged by the electoral Commission are national youth service corps members while the technical staff that will operate the BVAS machines, returning and collation officers were trained on Tuesday and Wednesday this week as the commission intensified election preparations.