Festus Okoye, Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, has assured of the readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the Saturday’s Ondo State governorship election.
Okoye stated that the 5,141 smart card readers destroyed by inferno some weeks ago, have been replaced, ad hoc staff mobilised, non-sensitive materials already in various local governments.
He added that inspection of sensitive materials like ballot papers and result sheets were ongoing at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the stakeholders.
The electoral commissioner, in a telephone conversation on Thursday, said that the ballot papers and result sheets arrived Akure on Thursday morning and were being inspected by representatives of political parties, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and journalists at the CBN.
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He said that earlier, non-sensitive materials had been distributed to the local government areas, adding that to conform the readiness for the October 10 election, the INEC chairman and some national commissioners visited the various local government areas on readiness assessment.
He said the smart card readers, a total of 5,141 destroyed by an inferno in one of the containers at one of INEC offices in Ondo State, were replaced two days after the disaster.
He said the electoral body harvested 5,000 smart card readers from its Oyo State office and they had been configured and charged, and were part of the items distributed to the LGAs on Thursday.
The commissioner stated that the ad hoc staff had been trained and mobilised and would be deployed to various registration centres on Friday.
He said that the commission had tried to take care of some of the lacuna noticed at the Edo State election and were also addressed.
In the riverine area of the State, Okoye said, “We have over 270 polling units in the riverine area of the state. We have conducted a readiness assessment with the Nigeria Navy and the marine police. We have deployed materials to the local areas in the riverine area.”