INEC strategises ways to forestall breakdown of law in Taraba state

The Taraba state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Umar Mukhtar Gajira on Friday said that the commission has mapped out a strategy and security architecture that is best situated for Taraba state in order to forestall any possible breakdown of law and order before, during and after the elections.

Gajira, who stated this in Jalingo, the state capital during the inter agency consultative committee on election security (ICCEES) meeting hinted that the Taraba INEC office is currently strategising on how to deploy sufficient security personnel to avert any security challenge that may occur during elections in the state.

He added that the commission is equally establishing collaborative partnership for incident management by all security agencies.

According to him, the commission last year created additional 1,685 units in the state, adding that the additional polling units were created due to the expansion of voters’ access to polling units from 1,912 to 3,597.

He stressed that in deploying modern technology as mandate by the electoral act 2022, the commission in the state has taken custody of 3,597 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

He noted that the commission recently received 200,332 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to be distributed to their owners in the state.

“We are strategising on how to deploy sufficient security personnel to avert security challenges before and during the conduct of elections and we are equally establishing collaborative partnership for incident management by all security agencies.” he said.

He noted that the inter agency consultative committee on election security (ICCES) is a meeting of all the security agencies in the state.

He highlighted that the role of (ICCES) is to give the public the expected confidence to come out to exercise their franchise without fear of insecurity.

“For election to be credible, free, fair and generally accepted, there must sufficient guarantee to members of the public of their security and provision of the desired protection”, he maintained.