The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Kogi state says it is 99 percent ready for the off-cycle governorship election scheduled for this Saturday.
The Head of Voter Education and Publicity of INEC in Kogi state, Haruna Sule said sensitive and non sensitive materials warehoused earlier in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN have been distributed to all the twenty-one local government areas of the state.
Easier for distribution
He said the materials were sorted out in batches to make it easier for distribution down to the polling units, which was not the case in past elections.
“We are putting the concluding touches to all our preparations in the areas of batching of our sensitive and non sensitive materials.
Before today, I would have told you we are 80 percent ready but now I can tell you we are 99.9 percent ready.
“We have just batched our sensitive materials; that is the ballot papers and result sheets that were in the CBN. And as we speak electoral officers are conveying them down to the local governments
“Back there, is not going to be anything difficult for them. Before now we give them in bulk for them to go and batch it at RAs and polling units but right now from the state, they have been batched into RAs and polling units.
“So what they need to do is just to identify them in the right quality or quantity and distribute them to the presiding officers for onward journey to the polling units.”
Tight security
According to him, the materials were escorted under tight security alongside the electoral officers to their various destinations.
“They were distributed under tight security because without that they wouldn’t have left the CBN. The political agents were there to witness the distribution and there were no complaints because the right things were done,” he said.
He said all contestants in the election have been given assurance of a level playing field.
He said their expectation from them was to play according to the rule and caution all their supporters to play according to the rule because it’s a game of the ballot and not a game of the bullet.
Lateefah Ibrahim
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