INEC to Deploy 46,084 Personnel for Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi Governorship Elections
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it will deploy 46,084 regular and ad-hoc staff to man the Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi states’ governorship election scheduled for 11th November 2023.
The Hon. Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made the disclosure at a meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), held at the INEC Headquarters, on Friday.
He stated that the Commission will leave no stone unturned in all areas of preparation for the election while highlighting some electoral statistics of the three off-cycle elections.
According to the INEC Chairman, “The three 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.”
Speaking on the level of preparedness for the election, which is barely 3 weeks away, Prof. Yakubu 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 learned from the 2023 General Election for improved performance in the forthcoming off-cycle 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 biometric authentication of voters.”
“Secondly, to upload the result to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Both tests were successfully executed. We look forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in the forthcoming elections,” he added
Prof. Yakubu further disclosed that so far, the Commission has accredited 126 national and international organisations collectively deploying 11,000 observers for the election.
“Although the portal for media accreditation closes on Tuesday 24th October 2023, we have 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 further added.
The INEC Chairman once again raised concern about the prevailing insecurity and election-related violence in the three states. He, however, explained that the Commission has been reassured of adequate deployment by the security agencies.
“On our part, we will continue to deepen our engagement with the security agencies, and more meetings are planned in the next few days. Similarly, the Commission will hold a series of meetings with stakeholders at the national level in addition to ongoing engagements at the State level”, he said.
