By Godfrey AKON
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed plans to deploy a total of 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff for the November 11 off-cycle governorship elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa states.
The commission also said as at Friday, it had accredited 126 national and international organisations collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, on Friday, in Abuja.
Yakubu further disclosed that INEC has received applications from 80 media organisations seeking to deploy 1,203 personnel made up of journalists and technical/support staff to report on the elections.
“The 18 political parties participating in the elections are deploying 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents. We are also finalizing arrangements for vehicles and boats for land and maritime movement of personnel and materials,” he said.
He noted that the Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states elections will involve 5,409,438 registered voters that will vote in 10,510 polling units spread across 649 electoral Wards in 56 Local Government Areas.
On preparations for the exercise, he said “So far, all non-sensitive materials for the election have been delivered to the three States. Other preparatory activities, including training, are on course. Valuable lessons have been learnt from the 2023 General Election for improved performance in the forthcoming elections.
“Last week, we conducted a mock accreditation involving actual voters in designated polling units in the three States. We had two objectives for the exercise. First, to test the efficacy of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for especially biometric authentication of voters.
“Secondly, to upload the result to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Both tests were successful. We look forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in the forthcoming elections.”
Yakubu also expressed the commission’s concern over the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states.
He however stated that the commission has been reassured of adequate deployment by the security agencies, adding that on INEC’s part, it will continue to deepen engagement with security agencies.
According to him, the commission will hold a series of meetings with stakeholders at the national level in addition to ongoing engagements at state level in preparation for the exercise.