We’re Set For The Election, Declares INEC

The Chairman, Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said that INEC had mopped up some of the uncollected Permanent Voter Cards across the 18 Local Government Areas of Edo State.
Prof. Yakubu, who stated this in Benin City during the stakeholders meeting ahead of the Edo State governorship election, said the PVCs would be warehoused in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) until after the Governorship election.
He said Edo State now had a total of 2,629,025 registered voters adding that in their commitment to transparency, the Commission has made available soft copies of the entire register of voters to each political party fielding candidates in the forthcoming election.
Yakubu added the commission had published the detailed breakdown of PVCs collected for each of the 4,519 Polling Units across the State.
He said election is a multi-stakeholder activity and that INEC has a role to play but this must be complemented by stakeholders.
He said that the election was not just a national election, it was also of global interest, pointing out that the Commission has so far accredited 134 groups (124 domestic and 10 international) deploying 1,836 observers across the State.
“We have accredited 114 media organisations deploying 721 journalists. We have also accredited thousands of agents representing candidates and political parties at the 4,730 polling and collation locations made up of 4,519 polling units, 192 ward collation centres, 18 Local Government collation centres and the State Collation Centre.
“I want to assure you that the accreditation tags for all categories of stakeholders are ready. We will announce the date and venue for collection in the next 24 hours. Similarly, election duty vehicle stickers are available for collection from our Edo State office here in Benin City.”
The INEC boss maintained that the commission has made arrangements for land and maritime transportation of personnel and materials.
Yakubu further said that political parties and other stakeholders would be invited to inspect sensitive materials at the Central Bank here in Benin ahead of the delivery to the Local Government Areas.
He urged the political parties to play their own part positively in delivering yet another credible governorship election in the state.